As the Corpus Christi, Texas City Council looks to move forward with manufactured housing as a practical, affordable option for urban infill, the trend is also moving forward around the country.
According to KRIS TV, the council discussed whether manufactured homes can be a viable option for affordable infill residential development in single-family zoning districts this week, and is working to tackle whether the difference in quality of site-built and manufactured homes will affect the safety of neighborhoods.
The council also discussed what affect, if any, there might be on property values.
Manufactured homes are currently only allowed in certain zoning districts, and other cities in Texas prohibit these homes in single-family zoning districts in order to not affect property values.
While no decisions have been made yet, other urban areas will likely view the moves of the Corpus Christi City Council as a potential model for how to operate.
As the Daily Business News reported last month, Corpus Christi resident Andy Taubman once again presented manufactured housing as an affordable solution to an ongoing challenge for the city.
Taubman, who is a former chairman of the Streets Committee, believes that using manufactured homes as infill is viable, and has proposed the solution to the city council on two separate occasions in the past. He has also been willing to place two manufactured homes at his cost on property he owns as a demonstration.
The Caller-Times reported that Taubman’s proposal last year drew criticism from former council members, in part because of questions about how long the homes would last.
But, when Taubman presented to the council this week, he said once again that he would self-fund two demonstration projects on lots he already owns, and the design of the homes would have a similar look to traditional pier-and-beam constructed homes.
The council responded with strong support for Taubman’s proposal.
“It’s the right path to resolve an issue we’ve had for a long time,” said City Councilwoman Paulette Guajardo.
Moves Around the Country
Former Bend, Oregon mayor and property firm president Allan Bruckner has put a similar proposal forward. In a recently penned op-ed in The Bulletin, he makes the case for manufactured housing as a solution to the city’s affordable housing crisis.
“One of the obvious and most talked about problems in Bend is our need for affordable housing. Yet so far there has been no effective approach to solving this need. There has been some success for apartments, which require a subsidy to the developer, but very little progress for single-family dwellings,” wrote Bruckner.
“Why not consider a subdivision based on factory-built housing (previously called mobile homes [sic]) that doesn’t require a subsidy. Economical factory housing is advertised for around $50 per square foot, whereas low-cost, site-built housing in Bend costs around $100 per square foot for a 900- to 1,200-square-foot house. (Costs for land, water, sewer and road are additional.)”
Bruckner also spoke very strongly about the negative perceptions of manufactured housing, and how it needs to change.
“While they have a historic negative image as creating slum like conditions, or depreciating like junk, that need not be the case,” wrote Bruckner.
As Daily Business News readers are aware, MHProNews and MHLivingNews continue to cover the challenges as well as the numerous advantages that the manufactured housing industry provides in the U.S., making affordable, quality housing easily available to most of the population.
MHProNews and MHLivingNews publisher L.A. “Tony” Kovach provides deep insight into this opportunity in Obstacles and Opportunities in Affordable Housing – October 2016, and the understanding that the solution to affordable housing is hiding in plain sight.
For more on Taubman’s prior efforts in Corpus Christi, click here, and here. ##
(Image credits are as shown above.)
Submitted by RC Williams to the Daily Business News for MHProNews.
