Google Fights Bay Area Housing Prices With Pre-Fab Housing (siliconvalley.com)

An anonymous reader quotes the Bay Area Newsgroup: With rental costs skyrocketing and homes out of reach for many, Google has hit on a solution that may help it attract workers to the crushingly expensive Bay Area. The tech giant plans to buy 300 units of modular housing to serve as temporary employee accommodations on its planned "Bay View" campus at NASA's Moffett Field, according to a source familiar with the plan. Experts heralded the move as not only good for Google, but as a potential template for others to follow as the high cost of construction combined with expensive real estate make affordable housing hard to come by... Modular housing has the potential to be "a real game changer" for the Bay Area housing crunch, said Matt Regan, senior vice-president of public policy at the Bay Area Council, a business group of which Google is a member...

The Bay Area boasts many sites suitable for modular rental housing, undeveloped so far largely because the cost of traditional building is too high for the rent the facilities could generate, Regan said. With prefab housing costing up to 50 percent less, "all of a sudden sites like that become economically feasible to develop," Regan said.

Comments

That makes me MAD!

[OYAHHH]

Moffett Field is government owned property. Google has absolutely no right to it. It is home to a significant population of burrowing owls, which are an endangered species.

Now these people are gonna turn it into a frigging trailer park for silicon valley trash.

Re:That makes me MAD!

[Beau1080p]

I live in Hayward, just across the bay from Facebook and Google. If I were offered a job at either of them I would consider turning it down solely because of the commute problem in this area. In nominal conditions I can make it to Stanford Hospital in about 43.6 minutes. In commute conditions without access to the commuter lane that can stretch to 2 hours or more.

Would 300 units even make a dent in the problem? The Google lunch area alone (been there) accommodates several times that number. At best this would be temporary accommodations.

And the problem with temporary accommodations is that they tend to turn into permanent accommodations. And it is rarely very pretty.

Google has the cash and clout

[Registered Coward v2]

to offer loans to their employees in exchange for equity sharing. Google could under write (or more likely secure funds from other lenders) home loans with the proviso they get some % percentage of the increase in value when the home is sold. They could even reduce the % overtime as an incentive for good employees to stay with them. If an employee leaves, they could freeze the % if the borrower is up to date; or even offer to give up the equity in the event of a layoff as part of a package. In the later case, it could possibly be a tax free way to add to the severance; depending on the tax law and how the deal is structured. Such an approach would let employees get into the market and take advantage of its crazyness while tying employees to Google as well. The Moffat Field homes could serve as transitional places as employees look for a home; or as housing for employees that would prefer to rent. If my company at the time had such a deal I'd still be there and living on the coast side; enjoying the benefits of living in a small town by the ocean with a short commute into the Bay Area and the city. The coat side isn't for everyone but for those of us that liked the environment and loved fog it was great place to live. All the advantages of the city and the valley with none of the BS.