By Aidan Wyrough<\/p>\n
The lack of enough affordable housing has plagued California for decades. Can factory-built homes be at least part of the solution?\u00a0<\/p>\n
A growing number of housing advocates believe the answer is yes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Factory-built housing, often referred to as prefab, modular or manufactured, is exactly what it sounds like \u2014 homes that are built indoors on factory sites in an assembly line setting much like cars or appliances. Advocates say an increase in the use of this model could lead to more direct and simple manufacturing processes that are cheaper than on-site construction, thus leading to more affordable housing options for consumers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When Gavin Newsom was running for governor in 2017, he pledged a goal of building 3.5 million new homes in California by 2025, or roughly 400,00 new homes per year over those eight years. It was a goal even he called \u201caudacious<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n It has also proven to be unrealistic. The state currently produces fewer than 110,000 units annually, total permitting has declined, and there are rising interest rates, construction costs and regulatory hurdles. The shortfall, as of 2024, was estimated at 840,000 units by Up For Growth<\/a>. Others have pegged the figure as high as 2.7 million<\/a>, with varying estimates in between.\u00a0<\/p>\n With all that in mind, Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland), who chairs the newly-created Assembly Select Committee on Housing Construction Innovation<\/a>, is exploring numerous possibilities to get more housing built statewide, including faster, cheaper ways to build homes.\u00a0<\/p>\n In a statement on her website, Wicks said her new committee was formed to consider \u201cexploring and advancing modern, cost-efficient, climate-smart approaches to building new homes in California.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Enter factory-built housing.\u00a0<\/p>\n Lawmakers gave this possibility a strong nudge forward last December<\/a> by approving Boxabl<\/a>\u2019s Casita model, a 2-bedroom design that doubles the living area of a previous prototype and consists of 729 square feet of living space. The model had previously been approved in Nevada<\/a> as well.\u00a0<\/p>\n In a press release<\/a>, the company hailed the units perfect Accessory Dwelling Units (ADU) that are sufficiently large enough to \u201caccommodate families, multigenerational households, or rental tenants seeking enhanced privacy and functionality.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Boxabl CFO Martin Costas called the new units \u201ccritical\u201d to solving California\u2019s housing shortfall (his figure was 1.2 units).\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWith housing costs burdening 66.6 million U.S. households who are consequently unable to afford $250,000 homes \u2014 and California leading the crisis \u2014 larger modular ADUs like our 2-Bedroom Casita are not just innovative \u2014 they\u2019re essential,\u201d Costas added.<\/p>\n However, Dan Dunmoyer, president and CEO of the California Building Industry Association said many concerns remain, including a lack of consistent financial backing, the promise of secure and frequent projects, and regulatory constraints, which continue to obstruct the implementation of these models.\u00a0<\/p>\n He said investors are also worried about the lack of steady projects, noting there are often months of inactivity in the factory housing industry wherein a factory will have little to no work.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201c[If] you were to tell any car company we might need some cars in January and February but not in March and April, well what do I do with my workers doing this two months? \u2026 Manufacturing any product requires a steady stream of need,\u201d Dunmoyer said.\u00a0<\/p>\n There are also difficulties with the costs of labor, materials and other equipment<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThings aren\u2019t necessarily getting built,\u201d said Michelle Boyd, chief strategy officer at UC Berkeley\u2019s Terner Labs<\/a>. \u201cLabor is more tight than it used to be, materials are more expensive, and we\u2019re just seeing incredible inflation in underlying construction costs.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Environmental review, lawsuits and housing regulations pose more challenges to factory-built projects. These regulatory complexities make it difficult to access space and hinder quick and seamless production.\u00a0<\/p>\n Even with those existing challenges, Assemblymember Heather Hadwick, a Republican from California\u2019s first Assembly District and member of the Select Committee, is optimistic about factory-built housing\u2019s potential to enliven communities and combat housing shortages.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI think it could be a huge win especially for my district. I mean, we have the timber, we have the natural resources that we need to build more houses,\u201d she said in an interview.<\/p>\n \u201cI also was pleasantly surprised that they were starting out at like $24 an hour, $25 an hour. \u2026 I think $24 to $25 would be a good competitive wage that we could actually make work in Northern California. And so I\u2019m really hopeful.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Boyd suggests there may also be opportunities for previously underserved communities on factory sites.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve also seen in several factories that have up to 30% women, for example,<\/p>\n on site. [Trades apprenticeships in California are composed of] only 4% women,<\/p>\n so factory work is one way to just bring a lot more people into the workforce,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Although concerns abound that factory housing may inhibit opportunities for year-round work and skilled tradesmen, Hadwick believes there can be new growth in these realms.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cHaving a factory to have construction would give my folks \u2026 year-round work. \u2026\u00a0 I would hope that that\u2019s an easy sell for people,\u201d she said. \u201cThey\u2019re coming in and doing the electricity, the plumbing, the drywall, the patching \u2026 making sure everything\u2019s good to go there. So there is a lot of that finished work [for skilled labor] that is still out there, and then they\u2019re producing so much faster, so it\u2019s more consistent and a higher quantity.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Kyle Krause, deputy director of the Division of Codes and Standards within the Department of Housing and Community Development, testified at a Jan. 14th hearing to his belief in the distinct promise of factory-developed housing (FDH) projects.<\/p>\n \u201cManufacturing FDH on off-site [locations] allows for site work to be completed at the same time that modules are being constructed in a factory, and construction can be performed in a controlled manufacturing environment where employees and materials are protected from the elements,\u201d he said. \u201cThese factors can reduce construction timelines, reduce material waste, and can also enhance employee safety during the construction process.\u201d<\/p>\n This story is part of a six-part series called \u201cSolving California,\u201d a project of the Solving Sacramento <\/a>journalism collaborative that explores models to improve California. Our partners include California Groundbreakers, CapRadio, Capitol Weekly, Hmong Daily News, Russian America Media, Sacramento Business Journal, Sacramento News & Review and Sacramento Observer. Support stories like these here<\/a>, and sign up for our monthly newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Aidan Wyrough The lack of enough affordable housing has plagued California for decades. Can factory-built homes be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":186165,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[87709,121,123,122],"class_list":{"0":"post-186164","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sacramento","8":"tag-factory-built-homes-in-sacramento","9":"tag-sacramento","10":"tag-sacramento-headlines","11":"tag-sacramento-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186164\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/186165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}