Where is the lack of affordable housing not an issue?
It is particularly severe in urban areas of California. People are renting garages to live in in some neighborhoods around Los Angeles.
The Mercury News reported in April, 2017 the median price for a single-family home in the nine-county Bay Area region climbed to an all-time high–$800,000. “Most people can’t afford to buy the house they are living in now,” said Doreen Roberts, a broker with Master Key Real Estate Mission, a residential realty brokerage in Fremont.
The crunch is not hitting just people of moderate incomes. Universities are having trouble finding affordable housing for students, faculty and staff, all of whom will seek opportunities elsewhere if they cannot afford to live near enough to the schools, according to Bisnow. Custodial staff at San Francisco State University who make $16 to $17 per hour are having to travel two and a half hours from Stockton to get to work.
Some Students Seek Education Elsewhere
“We are getting our asses kicked by New York. We pretty much accept the top art students in the world, and we lose them to Pratt in Brooklyn because they have housing,” California College of Arts Director of Research and Planning David Meckel said. “The California Conservatory of Music has the same problem. They just lose them to Julliard.”
Modular Builder Busy at Stanford
Modular manufacturer Clark Pacific has worked with Stanford University on a prefabricated student housing project, reducing construction time by six months due to modular methods, and is working with the school on another, according to Don Griffith, Director of Corporate Development.
A mini boom in student housing is underway in Northern California. Over 80,000 attend the region’s universities, but there are only about 9,000 beds in an area where rents run $3,300 a month in the general housing market, resulting in students’ often sharing living quarters. So far, some 5,000 units are planned through 2025 at the various schools in San Francisco alone.
“There has been little to no new student housing built, sometimes for decades until only recently,” Amcal CEO Percy Vaz said. Amcal specializes in affordable housing. Vaz says the return on student housing is similar to multi-family, and may be slightly higher. He notes that the University of California has begun a $1 billion push to add thousands of on-campus beds to its extensive system by 2020, and some projects will be for 5,000 to 6,000 beds.
Modular Dormitories also Dot the East Coast
Ferrum College in Ferrum, VA has two modular dormitories built in 2011, as MHProNews reported here March 4, 2011. Additionally, according to The Daily Orange, SUNY-ESF (State University of New York-College of Environmental Science and Forestry) at Syracuse, NY will add a 34,000 square foot modular dormitory to accommodate 84 students to be ready for the fall semester 2014. Also a modular project, Centennial Hall opened in 2011 to house 452 students, but now the school needs more housing.
Because of their standardization, dormitories lend themselves to the efficiencies of modular and/or prefabricated construction. ##
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