We've been dead set on getting something fully detached since living in an apartment style condo. There's 0 enforcement of the little bit of laws we have as soon as it's an apartment building. The city is 100% hands off for anything not detached. None of the laws on the books are focused on or designed with any kind of density in mind.
The condo boards are HOA's on steroids. The rulers of these little fiefdoms don't just fuss at your lawn and paint. They decide if/when the roof will be looked at, if they should bother to top up the emergency fund as much as suggested, etc. It's insane. As much as we prefer the low impact of high density, it's just not livable.
Family have tried finding apartment buildings (condo or rent) but have given up. All of them are studio, 1, or 2 bedrooms. Max seems to be ~900 sqft, which would be fine if they were square. Unfortunately they all seem to be very long and narrow. The 900sqft also includes balconies, storage spaces, and parking spots here. It's not great.
Every apartment style condo in this city also has serious building issues. The city just signs and doesn't inspect. The builders (major builder #451) just disappear after each build as they "go under" and the major builder they were "part of " are not considered liable since it was a subsidiary. Regulations were put in place to prevent this with detached builds but they don't cover condos.
Until regulations make them livable I doubt we'll see a serious adoption of them for a while here.
That's awesome! I'm jealous. Congrats! :D
Sadly 7x9 is a legal bedroom size here, so long as it has a window. There's also no requirement for any of the walls to be straight, so I've seen some really unlivable room shapes