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Building affordable housing

urbankchoze.blogspot.com

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Re: Building affordable housing

#31

Post by twelvechairs »

kevinburke wrote: post #23

Here's one proposal for affordable housing in San Francisco: modular units that are extremely cheap to assemble and can be combined into a much larger building. The developer can have them here instantly and wants to build on a plot near Cesar Chavez and rent to the city. The city's not interested because the buildings are not built here and they'd be a little more expensive than existing SRO's. http://sf.curbed.com/…

Why not just build an apartment block? Do you really need the flexibility of being able to move units out?

Re: Building affordable housing

#32

Post by maxxxxx »

athenot wrote: post #4

One thing that I've seen quite a bit in Europe is people buying "unfinished" homes. They pay a builder to build a concrete structure with a tile roof, and get it plumbed and wired up to code. But then all the interior finishings (and sometimes even the doors/windows) are done by the owners, by trading a couple years of spare time for substantial cost savings.

That's how my family and all my neighbors did it. I remember our area was a construction site for years.

Re: Building affordable housing

#33

Post by jseliger »

kevinburke wrote: post #23

Here's one proposal for affordable housing in San Francisco: modular units that are extremely cheap to assemble and can be combined into a much larger building. The developer can have them here instantly and wants to build on a plot near Cesar Chavez and rent to the city. The city's not interested because the buildings are not built here and they'd be a little more expensive than existing SRO's. http://sf.curbed.com/…

The problem in SF is not the cost of physical building itself. The problem is zoning, permitting, legal, harassment lawsuits, etc.: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/11/a-tale-o.... Or see https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing.

Fixing the problem is almost entirely about regulatory / legal issues.

Re: Building affordable housing

#34

Post by kevinburke »

jseliger wrote: post #33
kevinburke wrote: post #23

Here's one proposal for affordable housing in San Francisco: modular units that are extremely cheap to assemble and can be combined into a much larger building. The developer can have them here instantly and wants to build on a plot near Cesar Chavez and rent to the city. The city's not interested because the buildings are not built here and they'd be a little more expensive than existing SRO's. http://sf.curbed.com/…

The problem in SF is not the cost of physical building itself. The problem is zoning, permitting, legal, harassment lawsuits, etc.: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/11/a-tale-o... . Or see https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing . Fixing the problem is almost entirely about regulatory / legal issues.

I guess that's why I left that comment: solutions exist, the problems are more about political will.

Re: Building affordable housing

#35

Post by twelvechairs »

Of course the other option is rebuilding low scale areas around existing train stations as high density apartments.

The game has changed for most big cities since post wwii mass housing. Jobs are more focussed in fewer places and cities are much larger so getting into the city can be very hard from outer suburbs.

The UK is a good example for thr models discussed. It has been building small houses for a long time (like 150sqm lots) and have a minimum density requirement across the country to make this happen (which is also about retaining farmland in the longer term). Too many too far from jobs though its exacerbating englands divide between haves (in london and some other places - large and small) and have nots (in towns and accretions to towns with more people than jobs)

Re: Building affordable housing

#36

Post by CapitalistCartr »

verg wrote: post #24
CapitalistCartr wrote: post #5

In every American city I know, 80%-90% of the cost of an existing home is the lot, not the house. I don't know how to overcome this, but I understand it is caused by politics, suggesting it needs a political solution. When Florida was abuilding like crazy after WWII for the next 25 years, the lot was usually about 10%.

If only there were some technology that would allow multiple homes to exist on a single lot...

Federal mortgage regulations are strongly biased against that. And in the USA the Federal gov't. owns the mortgage industry.

Re: Building affordable housing

#37

Post by q3r3qr3q »

_m8fo wrote: post #20
leakybit wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could easily build a 250 sqft home for $10,000 excluding the foundation.

1. Why exclude the foundation from the cost? It's necessary, no? 2. Can they be mass produced? You should start a business if so.

1. I think not for something like a pole barn. And maybe someone else usually does that part.

Re: Building affordable housing

#38

Post by nextos »

Kluny wrote: post #8
nextos wrote: post #3

We need more industrial solutions to housing. Cheaper, more efficient and better quality. Something like http://www.kodasema.com/en/

That website is awful. Is it yours? A bunch of links are dead and the auto-playing video made me seasick. I was trying to figure out whether there's a model with a double bed or you're just supposed to stay single forever, but gave up.

No, it's not mine!

I agree it's quite broken. But I still love their house design and concept.

Re: Building affordable housing

#39

Post by CapitalistCartr »

erentz wrote: post #28
CapitalistCartr wrote: post #5

In every American city I know, 80%-90% of the cost of an existing home is the lot, not the house. I don't know how to overcome this, but I understand it is caused by politics, suggesting it needs a political solution. When Florida was abuilding like crazy after WWII for the next 25 years, the lot was usually about 10%.

Where is this? In Seattle the cost of construction is around $250-300 per sqft assuming mid-range quality of materials and a flat(-ish) site. You'd need to spend between $200-$500k to buy a lot in Seattle. So a reasonable 2,000 sqft house is going to be anywhere from 70-50% of the cost.

That's a new house. The weird thing is how often old houses don't sell for much more than an empty lot in single-family home neighborhoods. Although I'm not familiar with Seattle. I've lived in various parts of Florida, Denver (long ago), Michigan, Texas, etc. Mostly Sunbelt.

Re: Building affordable housing

#40

Post by fnl »

baursak wrote: post #26
_m8fo wrote: post #7

Tiny homes are 150 to 250 square feet homes that that can be built anywhere from ~$20,000 to ~$50,000. The person who figures out how to mass produce these houses (each one is only about maybe the size of two RVs) for ~$10,000 will change this world.

In places were housing is expensive, land will be the majority of the cost. In places where land is cheap, housing is already not expensive. The way to affordable housing is high density, mid-to-high rise condos.

Isn't that precisely the way cities are built in Europe? If so, housing isn't necessarily cheap/affordable there, either.
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