An Innovative Approach to Home Ownership
To address the current housing affordability crisis, it’s important not only to build more housing but also to find ways of constructing different kinds of housing. One innovation that’s gaining momentum provincially is smaller-scale, modular housing. The idea is to have studio or one-bedroom houses fully constructed at a manufacturing facility and then transported to the destination property, rather than being built on-site the way traditional housing is constructed. There are some significant cost advantages to this approach, which, in turn, can lead to lower-priced housing options. Recently, the City was approached by Brauer Homes, a housing developer in Belleville, about a potential partnership around this new style of home construction. At next week’s City Council meeting, we’ll consider a pilot project at this City-owned property here on Gore Road in the east end, where a number of new modular homes could be located. In exchange for the use of the property, some of these modular homes would be offered below market price. However, even the regular market price of these homes will be more affordable in comparison with other traditional forms of housing. While the average market price of a condo in Kingston is now above $400,000, the price point for these modular homes would be closer to $200,000, providing a more attainable path to homeownership in our community. There are a number of details still to be worked out, but it’s innovative ideas and partnerships like this one that can help us address housing affordability here in Kingston.
One Response
Factory built modular housing is a solution that has been deployed for years – definitely not a new or innmovative idea.
Habitat ’67 is a great example (75 years ago) of modular construction.
Challenge is getting the construction industry, by-laws and snail paced micro-planning reviews to realize that current practices are very, very dated.
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