And, this just popped up in my feed…
Pods as an answer for Affordable Housing?
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While this may be taking it to the extreme, I do think that that we have to start thinking outside the box.
Even in all of these new projects (rental or condo), the tiny units are using full sized appliances and other aspects of design that eat up space. I’ve been in so many small units in Europe and Asia that don’t feel as tiny because everything is scaled appropriately. Another example of wasted space is building all sorts of closets out of studs & drywall with walls that approach 5 inches thick. In Europe, you’ll find closet systems as “Furniture” or cabinetry that takes up way less space. When you are dealing with only 500 square feet or so, this sort of things matters when aggregated.
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Is this like Seinfeld?
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A cool proposal for prefab affordable housing solutions in partnership with Brooks +Scarpa (very notable design firm, architect of CAM)
The Nest Toolkit is an innovative concept in multi-family housing. Nest isn’t a standard home “model,” but a kit of parts—scalable and adaptable for use on any combination of typical urban lots. It provides Customizable Building Solutions for multi-family housing, providing the flexibility to meet the needs of each particular site, neighborhood, and bed count.
This type of thinking will help us achieve more affordable housing.
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That’s cool, but now we need the 3D printers to create modules that could be stacked and fastened for high density housing.
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There is a company on the west coast that basically builds ADU’s for you (and REALLLY nice) and then you profit share with them on the rent for a certain amount of time. If you decide not to rent it or you don’t bring in enough, you are charged, but I’m guessing in that area its not hard to rent them.
Seems like an interesting idea. Basically gives homeowners the capital to build nice ADUs and then rent them out…possibly putting a small dent in the affordable housing problem.
(I’ll try to find the link tomorrow)
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Affordable housing builders working with the city have tried using some prefab elements like trusses in the past, but it’s exceedingly expensive and difficult for infill neighborhoods where power and cable lines need to be lifted for the crane to get in so they stopped. I think it’s also difficult to construct prefab units efficiently that match other existing utility line connections (water, sewer, fiber). Could work better on greenfield sites I imagine, but those are usually off transit and social services lines.
I was at a talk on Micro homes for veterans last week and the professor from NCSU working on the project said these units aren’t very resilient. So, especially for our area, you’ll likely have to factor in wind damage, flooding potential, ‘early’ replacement into your cost benefit analysis.
Those are all really good points. I still think that the city needs to redevelop its suburban style public housing parcels that are in or immediately adjacent to DT proper. There’s just so much wasted land, and so much unfulfilled need. So many more units could be provided.
Develop auto-oriented public housing in auto-oriented parts of the city. Lord knows Raleigh has plenty of that.
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A good site to discuss is 301 IDLEWILD AVE. The city owns it and the lots next to it for a total of 1.17 acres. Currently zoned so that ~16-18 homes could be built there. Which is about what was there a decade ago. Currently empty. The site is also under and NCOD…
What do people think should be done there?
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If the city owns that land, they need to make it more productive and solve for more need with the land resources that they have. There are bus stops along Lane for transit, and it’s not a short walk from the BRT corridor. I get that there are single family homes all around it, but it needs to be developed more densely. What about a series of two-family 3 story townhouses with a larger unit on floors 1 & 2 with a smaller unit on level 3. Maybe level 3 can also have a loft room under the roofline as well?
NBE NCOD height limit is 35’ which may make 3 tough. The new Cottage Courts text change (I think it’s TC-6-18) may be considered. Some affordable builders have looked at this site before for MF but I think the NCOD spooked them.
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Check out the city’s AH Improvement Plan, especially the section that starts at bottom of page 5 but also some of pages 1-3. Reform is needed at state and federal level to help enable these types of developments.
FWIW, you can easily get 3 floors of residential in 35 feet.
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Not sure if I’ve seen land banking brought up as an idea. Granted, it’s still only a limited solution as there’s only so much property up for grabs.
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A reason to include affordable housing in highly desirable walkable areas:
“The more walkable an area is, the more likely Americans whose parents were in the lowest income quintile are to be in the highest quintile by their 30s.”
From this Citylab article: Kids Raised in Walkable Cities Earn More Money as Adults
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This just dropped in the N&O. CASA buying six acres of land east of WakeMed Raleigh for AH.
https://amp.newsobserver.com/news/business/article236883083.html
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The picture is of the old bus depot site that is supposed to be redeveloped by Stanley Martin into market rate townhouses/brownstones. I really hope this is not the property now being proposed for this project. That site has such an opportunity to be transformational for SE Raleigh. ‘Affordable housing’ is not what this site needs
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As a developer, your job is to generate the highest return possible, not perform a social engineering project. The market should guide whether affordable housing should be a component, not politicians who have no financial stake in the development.
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