At Factory OS, apartment complexes are constructed room by room. Modular units are moved along on an assembly line: floors, dry wall, windows, then electrical, counters, and so on. When the units are completed, they are trucked to the construction site, and assembled like legos.
“We knew it was coming,” said Francisco Nuñez, who for nearly two decades lived at the Cactus Rose Mobile Home Park until it was sold to a developer to make way for amenity-rich apartments that now fetch more than double what he once paid in rent.
“Unless you’re making a lot of money right now you can’t afford a house in this country,” Senator Jon Tester said at a recent hearing. He represents the state of Montana where now home prices and rents have been rising dramatically too. We’ve got businesses that can’t expand because there’s no workforce housing,” Tester continued. “There’s no housing for people who make regular wages ok?”
Hottest housing market? It’s not New York, San Francisco or LA. Sacramento has topped the list of the least affordable new home markets in the country. Sacramento’s median new construction home price is $650,000
More than 20 years after the Sept. 11 attacks, a 900-foot apartment tower could soon rise at the World Trade Center site. The 80-story project at 130 Liberty Street, would include 1,200 apartments — of which 25 percent, or 300 units, would be permanently rented at below-market value — as well as office, retail and community space. A team led by the developers Brookfield Properties and Silverstein Properties could begin construction in 2023, if approvals are met.
Located in Denver’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, the Saint Francis Warren Residences was built inside a former church. The historic property has been converted into 48 dorm-style units for people experiencing homelessness who will benefit from voluntary vocational services and case management.
The state’s problems are real. Nevertheless, there are positive signs.
The first step toward fixing problems is recognizing them, and on that score, Californians have grown increasingly aware of what’s wrong. California is also blessed with abundant resources that enable it to fix problems that would be daunting for less endowed states.
We have a legal, moral and existential mandate to plan for more housing throughout our city, and especially near transit corridors. As part of our housing element update, the state requires us to plan for over 3,000 new homes, of which about 890 must be affordable to Menlo Park families and residents of all abilities who have very low or extremely low incomes.
Has the rezoning opened the doors to large-scale gentrification?
But opponents still worry that just like in reinvented areas like Hudson Yards, the rezoning has opened the door to gentrification whether if it happens immediately or not
The pandemic put a general crimp in housing construction, but made a California factory that churns out prefabricated housing extra busy. What if housing was built more like cars — on an assembly line in a factory? Rick Holliday thinks it should be. The longtime Bay Area developer turned a Read more…