Cal Weeks | September 2021
Sonoma County continues to struggle with housing scarcity, but thanks to new housing materials and construction modalities, such as Modular Housing, we have an opportunity to more rapidly scale the rate of our housing production. Generation Housing advocates for more, more kinds, and more affordable housing in Sonoma County; this is one approach that could offer a more expedient path towards those endgoals.
What are Modular Homes?
Put simply, the biggest difference between modular homes and conventional homes is that the former are built primarily off-site, while the latter are built on-site. This means that once a pre-built (or “prefab”) structure is completed in a factory setting, it is then transported to the site and assembled by a homebuilder. Such an approach generally offers greater economies of scale and more predictable timelines than on-site construction, which can be impacted by the weather, subcontractor schedules, and fluctuating materials cost.
What are some of the key specific advantages of Modular Housing?
It’s EFFICIENT:
- Cuts construction time by up to 50%
- Cuts cost by 25-40%
- Reduces impact on local planning departments by moving a significant portion of project review to the factory setting managed by the state
It’s SUSTAINABLE:
- Can be built utilizing renewable energy
- Generates less materials and labor transportation, significantly reducing the carbon footprint that commonly accompanies conventional construction processes
- Considerably reduces overall construction waste
It’s SAFER:
- There are fewer opportunities to fall from a height, the most common source of injury
- On-site construction is shorter and requires fewer workers per site, improving ability to manage workers and safety practices
- More of the process is performed in a factory, avoiding the dangers posed by rain, wind, heat, and cold
It CREATES OPPORTUNITIES TO INNOVATE:
- Manufacturing housing in a factory enables greater ability to experiment with automation and new efficiency processes that would not otherwise be available to conventional on-site construction
- Brings Research & Development to a stagnated industry with the aim and opportunity to reduce costs, increase productivity, and improve quality and sustainability.
Why is Modular Housing important?
While certainly not the end-all solution to our housing deficit, Modular Housing represents a powerful tool to scale our housing production more rapidly around transit corridors and transit stations. By doing this, we can maintain urban-growth boundaries and densify lots that are underutilized and have high-resource potential.
We applaud Factory_OS, a Bay Area company, for its commitment to innovative, sustainable solutions to our housing crisis. We also thank its leadership for partnering with Generation Housing to find ways to add to Sonoma County’s affordable housing stock.
For more information on Modular Housing construction generally, Fannie Mae has an informative resource here. For more on Modular construction featuring Factory_OS, see this recent New York Times article.