Affordable Housing Is Key Factor In City Survival

by Ersula Knox Odom
Originally posted 4/30/2007

“When a city loses its ability to provide housing for the people who support its infrastructure it stands a chance of losing the city itself”, said Tom deYampert at The Community Housing Blue Ribbon Task Force of the Florida League of Cities affordable housing workshop held on Friday, April 20 at St. Petersburg city hall. The attendees focused on a wide range of critical housing issues facing local leaders statewide.

The workshop connected city officials with the information and resources they need to improve or create affordable housing programs in their communities. Local government officials from across Florida, along with an array of housing experts, covered such topics as affordable housing resources and partnerships, emerging affordable housing challenges, and practical solutions for local governments.

Rene Flowers, president of the Florida League of Cities, who is also a council member for the city of St. Petersburg, has made affordable housing a top priority during her tenure and has formed a powerful coalition that led to the creation of the Institute for Community Housing. Other participating organizations include the National League of Cities, Florida Department of Community Affairs, Florida Housing Coalition, Florida Housing Finance Corporation and Florida State University’s John Scott Dailey Institute of Government.

The Florida League of Cities, Inc., is the official organization of the 412 municipal governments (cities, towns, villages and chartered counties) in Florida, designed and established to meet and serve the needs of Florida’s municipal officials.

Throughout the day leaders from around the state presented implemented and pending solutions from their prospective areas. The Blue Ribbon will report their discoveries by mid August 2007.

Jacqueline Smith, Housing Director of Homes in Partnership self help ownership program in the Orange County area, told the group about the 5000 homes her organization has built since 1975. Their efforts earned them the 1998 East Bay Estate Fannie Mae Maxwell Award of Excellence. They often take approximately two years to train and identify funding for potential recipients. It takes from three to six months to construct a home, about two weeks to get an actual buyer. Two years is a necessary timeframe because “people need to be taught things,” said Smith. Their recipients are generally farmers, teachers, senior citizens, migrant workers, immigrants, single mothers, single fathers, and single people. It not uncommon for the new homeowner to be the first person in their family to own a home.

Karen Jackson-Sims of HUD Hillsborough County informed the committee that a great number of HUD financed housing agreements are approaching the 30 year mark where building owners can “opt out” of these agreements. She said cities should evaluate their potential exposure, which would give them an opportunity to negotiate with the owners or identify replacements. The numbers could be staggering. One city discovered a potential 5000 unit loss within a two to five-year window. Ms. Jackson also said: “Cities need to know where the monies are coming from” in order to plan. To this end, she informed everyone about the upcoming conference: “Accessing Resources and Relationships to Build Better Communities.” This conference will be conducted in Tampa, Florida at the Downtown Convention Center on May 7-8, 2007. Co-sponsors include: HUD, Catholic Charities of the Diocese of St. Petersburg, Florida, the state of Florida, the cities of St. Petersburg and Tampa, and the counties of Hillsborough, Manatee, Pinellas, and Polk, and Freddie Mac.

Debra Johnson, Deputy Executive Director the St Petersburg Housing Authority explained that their Housing Choice Voucher program produced a blended public housing environment. She said that you cannot distinguish public from private housing. Ms. Johnson said they are successfully developing different income streams other than HUD addressing HUD’s push for organizations to develop an entrepreneur mindset. Ms. Jackson said during her presentation, that St Petersburg was taking a public relations beating, but that they have “some of the best numbers” she has seen.

Tom deYampert, manager of Finance and Rehabilitation St. Petersburg Housing & Community Development Department, passionately explained that if cities don’t plan for affordable housing, they might be planning their demise. He also said he did not want a city like Silicone Valley where firemen and police stay in dormitories during the week and drive home on the weekend because they can’t afford to live there. It is in the employer’s best interest to work this out which is why their employer assisted housing program works. Teachers and policemen are assisted with home purchases due to teacher income levels and policemen retention efforts.

Askia Muhammad Aquil fascinated everyone with details about steel container homes. The process reuses steel shipping containers as modular homes. The first home has been purchased and was the subject of a Bob Villa show with a resulting DVD produced. This effort is giving great consideration to its low cost, no termite, and natural disaster resistant potential.

John Hearst of Gulf Coast Legal Services gave the concluding presentation stressing the need to combat predatory lending and even homelessness due to affordable housing loss from owner sales.

For more information on the Institute and the Workshop visit www.flcities.com.

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Modular Skyscraper!

Skyscraper Design Gets A New Spin
By Michael Kanellos
Friday, April 20, 2007

You’ve likely heard of skyscrapers topped with rotating rooftop restaurants. But what about a whole rotating skyscraper?

Leave it to Dubai, the United Arab Emirates state known for wild architectural endeavors, to be the planned home for such a tower. The $350 million Dynamic Architecture building, a project of an eponymous Florence, Italy-based firm led by architect David Fisher, will literally spin–with each individual floor self-propelled, voice-controlled and even capable of generating environmentally friendly power.

It’s out there for sure. But the architecture firm has been touting the “club” of investors, firms and industry bigwigs behind the project as evidence that yes, though it might sound implausible, the “tower in motion” is for real. The “club” includes New York-based LERA, a structural engineering firm with a resume including the original World Trade Center towers and the Shanghai World Financial Center; German heating and plumbing manufacturer Viega; and British construction management company Bovis Lendlease.

When completed, Dynamic Architecture’s flagship tower will stand 68 stories (1,027 feet) tall, and contain offices, apartments, a “6-star” hotel, a 64th-floor heliport, and five premium “villas” on the top floor (the priciest of which will contain a swimming pool and garden).

The ambitious plans for the building were announced at a press conference earlier this month at the Burj Al Arab, a luxury hotel with a sail-shaped design and meticulously highbrow detail–a full team of British aquarium specialists employed to tend to the fish tanks, for example–that have become icons of Dubai’s recent, oil-fueled building boom.

But the Dynamic Architecture skyscraper promises to stand out even from its Dubai brethren; the tower will largely be the product of modular construction. This strategy, which involves building homes and buildings or parts of buildings in factories, is expected to grow significantly in the coming decade because it can reduce costs and is more “green” than traditional construction.

Building in a factory essentially eliminates many of the risks and problems of the outdoors. Plywood and other building materials no longer have to sit around the job site, where they can get warped or coated with mold. In the end, this leads to sharper, tighter construction, according to advocates. Jobs get done more quickly, too, because electricians and other subcontractors can work simultaneously. Additionally, architects say that factory building gives them more opportunities to experiment with eco-friendly technologies like bamboo flooring.

In the case of the Dynamic Architecture tower, 90 percent of the building will be constructed in an industrial plant in the port town of Jebel Ali. It will then be assembled on a central “core,” which will be built with traditional construction techniques in an estimated six months. The core also will be a fixed structure–which helps if you’re trying to travel from floor to floor in a building where the floors can rotate independently of each other.

Dynamic Architecture estimates that it will take only about a week to assemble and “stack” a floor onto the core once it’s constructed. Production and installation, according to the firm, will require 90 on-site technicians and workers, as opposed to a traditional 2,000–ambitious, indeed.

The modular-building aspect of the skyscraper is innovative, for sure. But what everyone will be talking about will undoubtedly be the fact that it rotates. Each of the building’s 68 floors will be autonomous–the 48 prefabricated modules that comprise each floor will be already fitted with electricity, plumbing and air conditioning. On each floor, these are connected with a “smart joint” developed by Bosch that allows power from systems in the central core to flow onto the moving floors’ infrastructures. According to architect Fisher, the plumbing and electricity systems are largely influenced by technologies used in military aircraft in which one jet fuels another while both are aloft.

The floors’ motions, too, are individually controlled. Through voice activation, presumably through a central hub on each floor, the level can turn to position it according to where the daylight is, change the views, or even just rotate slowly for the effect.

These days, it often goes without saying that an audacious new urban construction project is green. But since it seems like just about every real estate endeavor in Dubai has to be larger-than-life, the Dynamic Architecture tower’s energy infrastructure is, well, greener-than-life. The team behind it hopes that it will optimally be able to power not only itself, but five other buildings of equivalent size.

The driving force behind this is a set of 48 horizontal wind turbines, fitted between the rotating floors, that are expected to produce 1.2 million kilowatt-hours of energy annually–worth an estimated $7 million. The firm estimates that no more than eight of the turbines will be needed to power the building, and consequently the remaining 40 will be left available to provide energy for neighboring structures.

Additional green energy will be contributed by solar panels affixed to the roof of the building.

According to Fisher, construction on the tower should begin by the end of 2007 and be complete within 18 months. Should its inaugural tower in Dubai prove successful, Dynamic Architecture has no plans to stop there. The firm hopes to continue production of building modules at its factory in Jebel Ali, with a goal of building similar towers in 11 other cities including Tokyo, New York, Moscow and Milan.

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Modular Classrooms

Portables Could Provide Relief
By Brent Schanding
April 11, 2007

Portable classrooms may be necessary to alleviate a swell in projected student populations, according to Kerry Whitehouse, assistant superintendent of operations for Shelby County Schools.

In a memo to board of education members released Thursday, Whitehouse said it could be more than three years before a permanent student facility is built. So the addition of four portable units — that would provide eight additional classrooms — could offer temporary relief to crowded high school students.

“We’re very comfortable this will help absorb this growth for the next three years,” Whitehouse said.

More permanent relief will come from a forthcoming campus development on Ardmore Lane, which will house a new district high school, in addition to middle and elementary schools. Tentative plans call for the new high school to be ready by 2010, with construction of other schools to follow.

“With the construction we should get relief enough where we can remove the portables if they’re not needed in three years,” Whitehouse said.

Whitehouse said portables could be set up at the west end of the school or near the school’s music wing. The board still has to approve the use of portables.

The units, similar to modular homes, have previously been leased at East Middle and other schools in the district to address crowding concerns.

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Homes Ready To Roll

Factory-built houses getting upscale look
By Jim Wasserman
Sunday, April 8, 2007

Factory-built housing is touting environmental benefits and a fresh look to win a new generation of buyers as the industry continues to fight an image of cheap design and endure the same housing slowdown pummeling conventional home builders.

Among the industry’s innovations: tiny backyard houses where baby boomers can house aging parents, two-story log houses and one of California’s first three-story factory-built town houses — now selling in West Sacramento.

The century-old manufactured-housing industry still competes with prices estimated at 20 percent to 25 percent lower than building on site and faster move-in time. And its housing remains a fixture of the highways, where trucks haul their wide loads — half a home at a time — to their locations. But the nation’s housing slump and tighter lending standards for factory-built homes are forcing some changes that tilt toward more upscale buyers.

Fans of what’s variously called “prefab” or “modular” or “manufactured” housing say the industry is poised for new growth as architects explore fresh designs and more people associate the housing style with higher standards, better energy efficiency and less construction waste. If so, benefits could spill over regionally, where four home-building factories — three in Woodland and one in Sacramento — are among California’s 10 house manufacturing plants.

Definitions abound for this type of housing and can be confusing to buyers. “Manufactured” homes – the majority – are built to a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development code that industry experts say makes “a well-built” house. “Modular” or “prefab” homes are fewer in number but tend to be higher end, more expensive and conform to the state’s stricter Uniform Building Code. It’s the modular sector that’s grabbing the most attention for cutting-edge design.

“In the Northeast it’s been a really big business, and it’s been going across the country,” said Sheri Koones, Connecticut-based author of “Prefabulous,” a book exploring breakthrough factory-built homes from Massachusetts to San Francisco Bay. The book features log homes, lodges and mansions — all built in factories.

“There’s a tremendous need in California, particularly because everyone is so interested in energy efficiency and sustainability and green construction,” Koones said in a telephone interview.

Already, a Sacramento factory that built the West Sacramento town houses has geared up to do more higher-end house construction. Another factory in Woodland is making a similar move.

“It’s still a small part of our overall product,” said Allan Lemley, general manager of a Karsten Homes factory in Sacramento, where 150 employees manufacture up to two houses a day. “But we expect it to grow.”

Behind the move are harder-to-get home loans for manufactured houses produced in California. (Last year, nearly 8 percent of the 107,000 new single-family houses built in the state were produced in factories.) Lenders are skittish about loaning to buyers of mobile homes and manufactured homes because so many defaulted in the 1990s after a run of easy credit. The lending crackdown has shrunk the industry nationally to about a third of its former production — to about 117,000 houses a year from 350,000 — said Lemley. Indeed, the industry’s big publicly traded companies have seen their stock prices hammered just like the nation’s biggest home builders.

“Now with modular you can get the same kind of financing as a site-built house,” Lemley said.

As Lemley aims to build more modular houses and Koones touts them as the future of factory-built homes, they still represent a mere sliver of the industry in California. Of 8,281 factory-manufactured homes sold last year in the state, only 329 were in the higher-end modular segment, said Jess Maxcy, president of a Rancho Cucamonga-based industry trade group, the California Manufactured Housing Institute.

He said about 1.4 million Californians live in 658,000 manufactured homes in the state. Though nearly six in 10 are in mobile home parks, today’s trend is away from mobile homes, Maxcy said. Typically, nearly 70 percent of manufactured houses are now put on regular home lots. Locally, Karsten officials say, most still end up in rural areas.

Harriet Lane, the factory-built West Sacramento town-house development, is a modular project that conforms to state standards. The houses were built in sections at the Karsten plant and then assembled at its site. Now finished, with an edgy urban look of metal and wood, the project offers views of the Sacramento skyline and sells individual town houses for $339,000 to $359,000. Like nearly all factory-built housing it looks the same inside as any other project.

Fairfield-based Valley Home Development has carved out another niche with its new “granny unit.” That’s in response to a 2004 state law making it easier to build small second houses on existing residential lots.

“A lot of the (manufactured housing) segment has been concerned that its business has slowed. We’re going the other direction. We’re ramping up,” said the firm’s owner, Steve Vallejos.

“We found out our target market is the baby boomers. They’re dealing with their aging parents as well as their kids,” he said.

The one-bedroom, one-bath manufactured homes are sized from 400 square feet to 1,200 square feet and cost between $36,000 and $65,000. Total costs with installation, permits and fees usually run about twice the home’s cost, he said.

“The whole process takes about three months, from permits approved to handing them the keys,” Vallejos said. The tiny houses are built at the Woodland factory of Western Homes Corp., a division of Michigan-based Champion Enterprises Inc.

In Karsten’s Sacramento factory, houses are typically built in half sections and then assembled at the home site. The houses start as newly built floors on the north side of the 100,000-square-foot-interior facility and are gradually rolled south where teams of workers add walls, a roof, windows and interior walls. Eventually, in a process that takes about two weeks to build a house, workers paint interiors and install cabinets, appliances and lights before the half houses are rolled outside for trucks to haul away.

Recently, a dozen manufactured homes were displayed at Cal Expo, one of many home shows where retailers and manufacturers put their wares before the public. Prices ranged from $60,000 to more than $200,000, not including cost of land, fees and thousands more dollars for foundations and site preparation.

“We’re trying to get out there and change people’s perceptions,” said Maxcy, with the California Manufactured Housing Institute.”Those perceptions are often rooted in past decades when the industry kept costs low at the expense of good design, Koones said. Often, too, perceptions are associated with an unpopular word in the industry: “trailers.”

“The quality of the product today is vastly different than what it was 20 years ago,” said Dan DeVarennes, Karsten sales manager. “Consumer demand has changed. The consumer has really pushed us. They don’t want the old trailers.”

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US Representative Tom Udall Requests Modular Homes

Udall Requests Modular Homes For Tornado Victims
By Associated Press
04/06/2007

CLOVIS, N.M. (AP) – US Representative Tom Udall has asked the Federal Emergency Management Agency to provide temporary housing for residents displaced by a string of tornadoes that hit eastern New Mexico last month.

The New Mexico Democrat tells the director of FEMA in a letter that there’s still a great need for housing.

Udall suggests that FEMA use some of the mobile homes left over from temporary communities set up after Hurricane Katrina.

Udall says providing temporary housing for eastern New Mexico residents is an important step to restoring normalcy to their lives.

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Pre-fab-ulous? Yes!!!

ONARCHITECTURE – Pre-fab-ulous? Builder does it the Swedish way
By DAVE MCNAIR
April 5, 2007

The architectural dream of churning out factory-built houses the way Henry Ford churned out Model-Ts is nothing new. In fact, the curator of Assembly Required: Contemporary Prefabricated Houses, a show in Richmond last year, described the “prefab” house as “modern architecture’s oldest new idea.”

Indeed, Sears, Roebuck & Co. started its Houses by Mail program in 1908, and in the 1920s Buckminster Fuller introduced the futuristic precursor to his geodesic dome. Unfortunately (or fortunately for some), factory-built house designs, at least in America, seem not to have escaped the architect’s studio, and when they did, it was to create what Americans have learned to associate with the term “prefabrication”– double-wides, or the cheap manufactured contraptions seen sailing down interstates behind “oversize load” signs.

In the last decade, so-called modular and panelized houses have gained wider acceptance. Indeed, we’ve chronicled their development in these pages, showcasing the UVA architecture department’s successful ecoMod project, the growing use of factory-built SIPS panels, and most recently a factory-built ThermaSteel house ["Man of steel: Scouten touts new technology," March 8].

However, despite the success of these technologies, the stigma associated with prefab houses persists.

For example, when architect Alan Scouten built his house in Ivy of ThermaSteel, a combination of steel and styrofoam that has proven strong enough to withstand hurricane winds and provides superior insulation, a neighbor attempted to sue him because he believed the house was going to lower property values.

According to Swedish builder Per Sjolinder, that prejudice against prefab houses is uniquely American. In countries like Sweden and Japan, he says, prefabrication is the rule, not the exception.

“In Sweden, we have been building prefab houses on a large scale for 75 years, and today over 90 percent of all homes in the country are put together in a factory,” Sjolinder says, adding that factory-built houses have become a way to increase energy efficiency in a cold climate and lower housing prices in a country of high labor costs.

Indeed, as far back as 1985, The New York Times was touting Swedish mastery of the prefab house. At a development in the Hamptons, 50 Swedish “kit” houses went up in as many days, 1/50 of the time needed to build comparable stick-built houses. The combination of craftsmanship and technology impressed even a US government technology expert.

“The Swedes have basically taken the building craftsman and given him a lot of high-technology equipment,” Henry C. Kelly, a senior associate in the Office of Technological Assessment, told the Times. ”Essentially, they are hand-building a house, but doing it with high technology in a factory so they can do it quickly. There’s no question about the quality.”

On a beautiful hillside in Ivy, Sjolinder and his company, EuroHomes USA, are building two model houses– one 2,300 square feet and the other a whopping 6,200 square feet– that he hopes will showcase the best of what Swedish (and American, he points out) innovation has to offer. In addition, the ambitious Swede wants to create America’s first prefab factory operation building Swedish “closed-wall” panel houses. Eventually, Sjolinder says, he hopes to produce 500 to 1,000 homes a year.

As Sjolinder explains, closed-wall systems are much different from the panelized or modular construction most Americans are familiar with. In addition to being completely customized, the walls of both houses arrive with everything in them: windows, doors, electric and plumbing hook-ups, switches, hardware, any electronics, and even the exterior wall covering. Sjolinder says that once the design and components of a wall are chosen, 35 to 40 of them can be built in his factory in several hours, enough to construct the shell of his 2,300-square-foot model, which took only a day to raise.

Touring the unfinished houses, it’s virtually impossible to tell their components were manufactured in a factory. In fact, on close inspection, the walls reveal innovative details and materials. For example, instead of the wood shims normally found around a door casing to make it square, a standard practice in stick-built construction, adjustable bolts hidden in the door casing secure it to the frame, making it easier to adjust if the door becomes unaligned. Window sills can never rot because they are polished stone, and the Swedish-made triple-pane windows open and flip around ingeniously.

And, of course, since the electric and plumbing are already installed (inspections for both take place before the wall panels are delivered), there’s minimal subcontracting work involved. Still, Sjolinder points out that craftsmen are important to the process of piecing the house together and adding various details.

We also took note of the wall construction, which at first looked like a standard stick-built wall. Apparently, after years of using SIPS panel and other similar technologies, which have only begun to gain acceptance in the US, the Swedish building industry realized that they actually cause health problems.

“The houses we made were sometimes so ‘tight’ that moisture couldn’t go anywhere,” says Sjolinder. “And so we had problems with mold. People were getting sick. In Sweden, they tried to use machines to suck the air in and out, but they were often very expensive and added an air pressure to the inside of the house that wasn’t natural.”

The solution, he says, was to create a four-layer “breathing wall” encased in a thick Gore-Tex panel. Functioning much like the popular Gore-Tex jackets athletes love because they’re light, warm, and breathable, the walls provide the same kind of superior insulation that SIPS panels do, without trapping air inside the house. In fact, Sjolinder claims it should cost only $125 to $150 a month to heat and cool the 6,200-square-foot house.

From room to room, unusual details continue to catch the eye: drawers that cleverly require a post-toddler’s strength to open, hidden latches on doors to keep them from slamming shut, radiant heat beneath the basement floor to control moisture, “whispering floor” panels to block the sound of stomping feet, European-style gas water heaters that heat water as it passes through the system, and a stairway and ceiling posts milled from poplar trees on the property.

At the end of April, Sjolinder says, he’ll hold the first of several open houses to showcase his prefab models.

So might these models finally change American attitudes about factory built houses? If the excitement Sjolinder displays as he shows the house is any indication, it may not matter to him.

“I’ve been thinking about and planning this for nine years,” he says. “And I still think it’s fun.”

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FrameMax Lands One Of World’s Largest Contracts

FrameMax Takes On Algerian Housing Project
By Kelly Sheehan
APRIL 04, 2007

Algiers, ALGERIA — FrameMax, a San Diego-based turnkey steel framing company, has been awarded one of the world’s largest light gauge steel framing contracts for a project totaling four million square feet and requiring 13,000 tons of material. The project, named “Gendarmerie Nationale” and commissioned by the Algerian Ministry of Defense, includes 150 multi-housing units for military members and their families on 88 sites across the country, Phil Ellis, president and CEO of FrameMax, told MHN.

Construction is slated to begin in mid April, and the project is expected to be completed within 18 months. The Algerian government is rebuilding its infrastructure, following a 2003 earthquake that killed more than 2,000 people, injured 8,500, and left more than 150,000 homeless.

FrameMax will use its automated steel framing process, that helps reduce construction time, as reported by MHN in February. When building codes and seismic conditions are entered into the FrameMax application, the software analyzes the building and creates a 3D model for its walls, floor joints and roof trusses. FrameMax’s prefabricated frames, roll-formed from raw material steel coils, are delivered to the job site ready to assemble with layout plans. According to Ellis, any developer can master installation, even those who aren’t trained in steel framing. The consistent modular panels are riveted or screwed together using pre-punched holes, eliminating waste that is often produced during the construction process.

In order to meet the building deadlines and avoid overseas shipping, FrameMax will oversee fabrication being completed in Algiers, Algeria throughout the project. During the first phase of construction, the company will supply framing for 150 five-story housing buildings, each building totaling 16,000 square feet. In addition, 45 two-story, 14,000-sq.-ft. administration buildings will be built.

Ellis said that this project represents a significant step in Algeria’s approach to the structural engineering of mid-rise buildings. “Algeria is leading a worldwide trend, switching from other materials such as concrete and wood, for better performance under extreme seismic conditions,” he said. “FrameMax is able to provide a cost-effective solution that provides safer housing throughout the country.”

FrameMax’s engineering meets the country’s new building codes that resemble the UBC 9 Code used in the U.S., but with stricter limitations. Bullet- and blast-resistant exterior wall proofing are also required for the project. In addition to this undertaking, FrameMax has also been contracted to supply an additional 12 million square feet of light-gauge steel framing to the country for other construction efforts.

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Trendsetter To Build Gulf Region Condos

Alabama-Based Developer Chooses Fleetwood’s Trendsetter Homes for New Gulf Region Condominium Development
PR-Inside Press Release
2007-04-02

RIVERSIDE, Calif., April 2 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — The Fleetwood Homes division of Fleetwood Enterprises, Inc. , an industry leader in factory-built housing for more than five decades, announced today that its modular housing division, Trendsetter Homes, has been selected for a new 160-unit housing development on the Gulf Coast.

Consisting of a mix of single and two-story buildings with four different elevations, the Alabama condominium development will offer floor plans ranging in size from 1,140 square feet to 2,030 square feet. The units will be built in the new Trendsetter Homes modular facility in Douglas, Georgia. The developer will begin showing model units to potential buyers by late summer. The three Trendsetter projects Fleetwood has announced over the past two weeks — Ft. Bliss barracks, Alabama workforce housing, and these condominiums — are expected to result in total revenues of approximately $30 million.

“These homes will be constructed in a factory-controlled environment according to the same local building codes which govern site-built homes,” said John H. Riddle, Vice President of Trendsetter Homes. “We are working with an architectural firm with offices throughout the Gulf Region that has provided design assistance on our residential projects to ensure that they are compatible with local standards.”

Riddle said that Trendsetter’s relationships with local architects, builders, and developers represent an extraordinary advantage for its construction work in the Gulf Coast region. He added that Trendsetter was established with the objective of being flexible in its construction designs and working with firms that had expertise in complementary areas to create buildings that are uniquely suited to specific projects.

“In addition to the advantages modular homes provide in speed to completion, Trendsetter’s homes offer a high level of durability because they have been engineered to meet the high wind ratings required in the Gulf Region,” said Riddle. “They are also more environmentally friendly due to minimal construction site impact and recycling of waste. Accordingly, noise pollution and traffic caused by deliveries and subcontractors are greatly reduced.”

For more information about Trendsetter Homes, please visit http://www.trend-setterhomes.com/.

About Trendsetter Homes

Trendsetter Homes is the modular housing division of Fleetwood Homes, which operates 20 manufacturing facilities nationwide and is headquartered in Riverside, Calif. Trendsetter produces modular residential and commercial buildings in a factory-controlled environment for residential builders and the military. The Trendsetter Homes website can be accessed at http://www.trend-setterhomes.com/.

About Fleetwood

Fleetwood Homes is the housing brand of Fleetwood Enterprises, Inc. , a leading producer of recreational vehicles and manufactured homes through its subsidiaries. This Fortune 1000 company, headquartered in Riverside, Calif., is dedicated to providing quality, innovative products that offer exceptional value to its customers. Fleetwood operates facilities strategically located throughout the nation, including recreational vehicle, factory-built housing and supply subsidiary plants. For more information, visit the Company’s website at http://www.fleetwood.com/.

Contact: Kathy Munson, Director of Investor Relations, 951-351-3650

JoAnne Foist, Director of Marketing Services, 951-351-3367

Source: Fleetwood Enterprises, Inc.

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Home Depot to Sell Modular Housing at New Orleans Stores

Home Depot and Homestar Builders will begin selling modular homes in New Orleans through Home Depot stores.
27 March 2007

The Home Depot and Homestar Builders will begin selling modular housing at Home Depot stores in New Orleans as part of a pilot program launched in conjunction with the New Orleans Home and Garden Show this week.

The modular housing pilot program will address some of the housing and housing labor shortages affecting the region as it continues to rebuild in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

The modular homes produced for the program are manufactured in Texas and Alabama and will be built to meet the International Residential Building Codes — the same as required of site-built homes. Code compliance will be inspected by third-party inspectors to assure quality and compliance.

“There’s such a high demand for skilled home construction labor in New Orleans that it really makes it difficult to meet the overwhelming need for affordable quality housing there,” said Steve Chittenden, project manager for The Home Depot’s Home Services. “Working with Homestar Builders, we believe we can help meet this need by offering uniquely designed, quality-built homes that are manufactured offsite, transported to the owner’s property and finished using products and services offered through The Home Depot.”

The size of the homes will range from 620-square-foot homes with one bedroom and one bath, to 2,078-square-foot homes with four bedrooms and two baths.

Homestar Builders will provide on-site project supervision including site preparation, set and build out, and financing and insurance if requested. The homes will be for sale with options so home owners can customize their homes.

For more information, visit www.myhomestar.com.

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Modular Mansions

Modular Mansion For Sale
By Susan Nova
March 30, 2007

Prefabricated homes are no longer unusual in this area. As the technique of manufacturing modules in a factory has become more sophisticated, any configuration and size, even mansions with five digits of square footage and high-end detail work, are possible.

One new modular home in the Cos Cob section of Greenwich, set on a quarter of an acre, has been listed by Maureen Fox of RE/MAX Associates in Greenwich for more than $2.4 million. With four or five bedrooms and 3.5 marble baths, the 4,150-square-foot Colonial has marble fireplaces in the family room and master bedroom, Brazilian cherry floors with inlays, crown moldings, bay windows and tray ceilings. The shingle-and-stone house has a full attic, a full basement and a two-car attached garage.

Modular houses were erected here as early as the turn of the 20th century. Stamford had at least two Sears Roebuck & Co. houses two decades ago, when “Houses by Mail” by Katherine Cole Stevenson and H. Ward Jandl was published. Sears sold prefab houses from 1908 to 1940, starting as low as $153 for a four-room house, without bath, to one with eight rooms, 2.5 baths and a two-story portico with fluted columns at $5,972 or more.

“I wish to acknowledge the receipt of the ready-made building,” Irvin Cameron of Powell, Kan., said in a 1918 letter to Sears. “The house is all right in every respect and has saved us labor and money. I would recommend its use to anyone going to a new country as we did. Having the house on the train with us, we were able to have it up and move into it two days after we reached Powell. We now have as nice a little house as anyone.”

The Hodgson Co., Alladin Homes and Montgomery Ward also sold houses by mail after 1895, but Sears was the most successful with 100,000 sales, according to the book.

One or two Sears houses may survive in Greenwich, but a new type of prefab, multimodule house was erected here in 1934.

Quentin Twachtman, a construction engineer and son of famed artist John Henry Twachtman, was erecting a modernist prefab home on Riversville Road by July 7, 1934, according to a Greenwich Time story.

The 47-module house was intended to demonstrate the potential of a modern, low-priced home, according to Quentin Twachtman, who worked with his architect brother, J. Alden Twachtman. The house would not be sold or rented, but it was furnished and used to introduce this type of construction to Greenwich.

“When complete, the edifice will be composed of forty-seven different sections,” the story said. “The technical term by which the building is called is ‘pre-fabricated.’ “

The one-story house would have a living room, dining room, kitchen, three bedrooms, two baths, a furnace room and a one-car garage.

“The various sections necessary for the construction are poured, ten at a time in a foundry in East Port Chester,” now Byram, the story said. “When finished, the building will be fireproof and air-conditioned. There will be no radiators but ducts in the floor will supply the necessary heat from the hot-air furnace.”

“A membrane containing electrical wiring will be placed in the flooring between oak and cement walls,” the story said. “The building is composed mainly of cement with an outer veneer of brick.”

The story found the three-quarter-acre lot ideal, with its nearby brook and “thick foliage and shrubbery.”

No information could be found on whether the Twachtman experiment had any success, but the house is no doubt gone by now.

Nearly 12 years later in March 1946, the first postwar prefab house in Greenwich was under way. It was to be a 51Ú2 room bungalow on Ridgeview Avenue in the Rock Ridge section of town.

In December 1943, building had come to a halt because construction materials were devoted to World War II. Only $134,820 in building costs were recorded that year, according to “Greenwich Before 2000.” In the 10 years after 1946, building expenditures totaled $10 million.

Built for Mary Francis by well-known contractor Herbert Nordholm, the Rock Ridge bungalow’s cost was estimated at $10,000.

The bungalow’s basic house modules, called shells, were built by Johnson Homes Inc. in Pemberton, N.J. They included only the four walls and the framework, a form of prefab construction that today would be called panelized. Nordholm finished the rest on site. He had to find hardware, plumbing supplies and some lumber, all still in short supply at the end of the war.

“While the federal government has supported the manufacturers of factory-built houses through special priorities, it is still difficult to obtain the materials to finish such projects on the site,” Greenwich Time said.

In that era, there were 25 pre-fab manufacturers in the country.

In 1947, the Greenwich Housing Authority completed Mianus Village in 44 working days, providing housing for 40 veterans on the old Olmstead property, according to “Greenwich before 2000.” Those homes probably were pre-fabs, too.

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