Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility

West Bank Town Becomes ‘Big Prison’ as Israel Fences It In

1 day ago

Trump Says He’s Willing to Let Migrant Farm Laborers Stay in US

2 days ago

US Electric Vehicle Tax Breaks Will Expire on Sept. 30

2 days ago

Eyeing Arctic Dominance, Trump Bill Earmarks $8.6 Billion for US Coast Guard Icebreakers

2 days ago

Trump’s Sweeping Tax-Cut and Spending Bill Wins Congressional Approval

2 days ago

Americans Celebrate Their Independence With Record-Breaking Travel Numbers

2 days ago

US Supreme Court to Decide Legality of Transgender School Sports Bans

3 days ago

Nvidia Set to Become the World’s Most Valuable Company in History

3 days ago

Poll: 41% in US ‘Extremely Proud’ to Be American, Near Historic Low

3 days ago
Walters : Factory-Produced Housing Could Help Solve Affordability Crisis
gvw_calmatters
By CalMatters
Published 4 years ago on
March 28, 2021

Share

Two years ago, CalMatters housing writer Matt Levin described a factory in Vallejo that was building housing modules that could quickly — and relatively inexpensively — be assembled into multi-story apartment houses.

Levin described the factory as more resembling an automobile assembly line than a construction site. “They build one floor approximately every two and a half hours,” Larry Pace, co-founder of Factory OS, told Levin. “It’s fast.”

Potential Solution to State’s Housing Crisis

Modular construction offers a potential solution to one of the most vexing aspects of California’s housing crisis — the extremely high costs of building apartments meant to house low- and moderate-income families.

Dan Walters

Opinion

Statewide, those costs average about $500,000 a unit, encompassing land costs, governmental red tape, ever-rising prices for materials and, finally, wages for unionized workers who build, plumb and electrify the apartments.

“Further inside the massive Vallejo plant, there’s a station for cabinets, a station for roofing and a station for plumbing and electrical wiring,” Levin wrote. “Station 33 looks like a furniture showroom not quite ready for the floor — washer, dryer and microwave included.

“From there the apartment pieces are wrapped and trucked to the construction site, where they’re assembled in a matter of days, not months.”

Modular Housing Project Being Assembled in San Francisco

Pace said that his modules can be assembled into three- to five-story apartment buildings 40% more quickly and 20% less expensively than traditional construction, which means more bang for the buck.

Today, a Factory OS apartment house for 145 hitherto homeless residents is being assembled in downtown San Francisco in what appears to be proof of what Pace told Levin.

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Heather Knight described the project in a recent article, saying, “The project at 833 Bryant St. is being built faster and cheaper than the typical affordable housing development in San Francisco, the ones that notoriously drag on for six years or more and cost an average of $700,000 per unit. This project will take just three years and clock in at $383,000 per unit.”

In other words, by using modular construction San Francisco could supply twice as many units for the same money. So what’s not to like? Knight tells us what.

“At issue,” she writes, “is how the project was built so quickly: with modular units made in a Vallejo factory. Each unit was trucked across the Bay Bridge, strung from a crane and locked in place like a giant Lego creation. San Francisco unions don’t like the method because it leaves them out, but considering the city’s extreme homelessness crisis, City Hall can’t afford to toss the idea.”

Factory OS uses unionized workers, but through an agreement with the carpenters’ union, workers perform a variety of tasks on the housing assembly line, rather than having the work divvied up among specialists, and the company employs many former prison inmates.

Trade Unions Pushing to Stop Concept from Spreading

Politically influential construction trades unions are pushing San Francisco’s city officials to make 833 Bryant St. a one-time event rather than the beginning of a trend.

Larry Mazzola Jr., president of the San Francisco Building and Construction Trades Council, is sending a letter to Mayor London Breed and city supervisors criticizing the project’s “mistakes and over-costs.”

“The quality is crap, to put it basically,” Mazzola told Knight “They don’t have plumbers doing the plumbing. They don’t have electricians doing electrical. They get them from San Quentin, and they’re not trained at all. We’re going to fight vigorously with the city not to do any more of these.”

Modular housing is not a panacea for California’s housing woes, but it deals with one major factor. The question is whether politicians will embrace it or strangle it.

CalMatters is a public interest journalism venture committed to explaining how California’s state Capitol works and why it matters. For more stories by Dan Walters, go to calmatters.org/commentary.

[activecampaign form=19]

RELATED TOPICS:

DON'T MISS

What Are Fresno Real Estate Experts Predicting for 2025 and Beyond?

DON'T MISS

First California EV Mandates Hit Automakers This Year. Most Are Not Even Close

DON'T MISS

How Trump’s ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ Will Make China Great Again

DON'T MISS

What’s Caitlin Clark Worth to the WNBA? A Lot More Than Her $78,066 Salary.

DON'T MISS

Trump to Sign Tax-Cut and Spending Bill in July 4 Ceremony

DON'T MISS

Madre Fire Spurs Evacuations Across 3 Counties, Grows to More Than 70,000 Acres

DON'T MISS

Clovis, Sanger, Madera, and Bass Lake Will Light the Sky With Fireworks Shows Tonight

DON'T MISS

Oil Dips Ahead of Expected OPEC+ Output Increase

DON'T MISS

613 Killed at Gaza Aid Distribution Sites, Near Humanitarian Covoys, Says UN

DON'T MISS

Fresno County Authorities Investigating Suspicious Death of Transient Man

DON'T MISS

West Bank Town Becomes ‘Big Prison’ as Israel Fences It In

DON'T MISS

Israeli Military Kills 20 in Gaza as Trump Awaits Hamas Reply to Truce Proposal

UP NEXT

July 4th Quiz: Test Your Knowledge of the Founding Fathers

UP NEXT

Fresno Crash Involving Unlicensed Teen Driver Sends Woman to Hospital

UP NEXT

Presidential Election Reveals Big Shift in California Voting Patterns. Will It Last?

UP NEXT

Americans Celebrate Their Independence With Record-Breaking Travel Numbers

UP NEXT

Poll: 41% in US ‘Extremely Proud’ to Be American, Near Historic Low

UP NEXT

Poorest Americans Dealt Biggest Blow Under Senate Republican Tax Package

UP NEXT

From Victims to Perpetrators: Israeli Soldiers’ Nazi Comparisons and the Unfolding War Crimes in Gaza

UP NEXT

Dear Mayor and City Council, Fresno’s Housing Bottlenecks Are a Modern Form of Redlining

UP NEXT

Poll: Most Americans Say National Divide, Political Violence Threaten Democracy

UP NEXT

Trump Pulls Back 150 Guard Troops From Federal Duties in California

Madre Fire Spurs Evacuations Across 3 Counties, Grows to More Than 70,000 Acres

1 day ago

Clovis, Sanger, Madera, and Bass Lake Will Light the Sky With Fireworks Shows Tonight

1 day ago

Oil Dips Ahead of Expected OPEC+ Output Increase

1 day ago

613 Killed at Gaza Aid Distribution Sites, Near Humanitarian Covoys, Says UN

1 day ago

Fresno County Authorities Investigating Suspicious Death of Transient Man

1 day ago

West Bank Town Becomes ‘Big Prison’ as Israel Fences It In

1 day ago

Israeli Military Kills 20 in Gaza as Trump Awaits Hamas Reply to Truce Proposal

1 day ago

Valley Crime Stoppers’ Most Wanted Person of the Day: Rachelle Maria Blanco

1 day ago

Russia Pounds Kyiv With Largest Drone Attack, Hours After Trump-Putin Call

1 day ago

Boxer Chavez Jr Expected to Be Deported to Mexico to Serve Sentence, Mexican President Says

1 day ago

How Trump’s ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ Will Make China Great Again

Can you hear it — that loud roar coming from the East? It’s the sound of 1.4 billion Chinese laughing at us. Thomas L. Friedman The New Yo...

14 hours ago

Solar Farm in Riesel, Texas
14 hours ago

How Trump’s ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ Will Make China Great Again

Caitlin Clark Signs T-Shirt
14 hours ago

What’s Caitlin Clark Worth to the WNBA? A Lot More Than Her $78,066 Salary.

President Donald Trump speaks during a press conference in the Roosevelt Room at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 12, 2025. (Reuters File)
1 day ago

Trump to Sign Tax-Cut and Spending Bill in July 4 Ceremony

The Madre Fire burning near New Cuyama has scorched 70,801 acres as of Friday, July 4, 2025, afternoon, making it California’s largest wildfire of the year, with only 10% containment and multiple evacuation zones in place. (CalFire)
1 day ago

Madre Fire Spurs Evacuations Across 3 Counties, Grows to More Than 70,000 Acres

1 day ago

Clovis, Sanger, Madera, and Bass Lake Will Light the Sky With Fireworks Shows Tonight

A pumpjack operates at the Vermilion Energy site in Trigueres, France, June 14, 2024. (Reuters File)
1 day ago

Oil Dips Ahead of Expected OPEC+ Output Increase

Palestinians gather to collect what remains of relief supplies from the distribution center of the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, June 5, 2025. (Reuters File)
1 day ago

613 Killed at Gaza Aid Distribution Sites, Near Humanitarian Covoys, Says UN

Billy Wayne Sinisgalli, a 54-year-old transient known locally as Wayne, was found dead along a rural Fresno road Wednesday in what authorities are investigating as a suspicious death. (Fresno County SO)
1 day ago

Fresno County Authorities Investigating Suspicious Death of Transient Man

Help continue the work that gets you the news that matters most.

Search

Send this to a friend