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!

[FireballX301]

Google has the right to it, because the government signed a sixty year lease handing it to them to use as they see fit.

That being said, it won't be long until you start seeing JP style coffin hotels start springing up. The main problem with bay area housing and the lunacy surrounding it is NIMBYism at its worst - the majority of places will build high density to handle surging populations and rising rents, but the city fragmentation (the 'bay area' is at least 30 mostly independent cities all packed together each with its own muni code and rules and housing authority) means no significant high density housing will ever get approved (tons of projects are shot down because the locals want to 'protect their own property values', which is a codeword for 'we dont want poor people living near our homes').

So instead we get horrible sprawl, horrible commutes, and the price-out of the support service economy since nobody can afford to be a barista on the peninsula. Google's solution here is to straight up build a company town because mountain view wouldn't let em start building high density apartment blocks

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.

Re:That makes me MAD!

[ShanghaiBill]

Moffett Field is government owned property.

It is federal property, and thus city and county zoning laws can't be enforced, and the NIMBYs and BANANAs can't just stop everything from being built. Google is building there because it is the only place they can build.

The South Bay is miles and miles of low-rise sprawl, with plenty of room for new housing, new businesses, etc. But it is very difficult to build anything. Liberals hate to hear it, but NIMBYism is a major cause of inequality in America. The lack of growth and sky high prices reduce opportunities for low income people who can't afford to live there, while handing millions to the already well off in the form of artificially inflated property values.

Thank you Google for these 300 units, but SV really needs 300,000.

Re:That makes me MAD!

[rudy_wayne]

Would 300 units even make a dent in the problem?

No,

300 units is like throwing a single drop of water into a lake. And, according to one story I've read, the price Google is paying for this works out to $100,000 per unit. For a bunch of pre-fabricated shit boxes that will look like a slum hotel within a year.

Re:That makes me MAD!

[Tailhook]

Google has the right to it, because the government signed a sixty year lease handing it to them to use as they see fit.

So this lease obviated the Endangered Species Act? Google could frack for oil there because fuck you we have a lease?

I suspect someone is being naive. Not sure if it's you or Google, but this doesn't add up.

Re:That makes me MAD!

[interkin3tic]

99.99% of "poor people" are "poor" due to irresponsible behavior.

Quite the opposite.

I don't know what the current number is but 4 years ago Google had almost 12,000 people in their Mountain View headquarters. That's almost one-sixth of the entire population of the city, from just one company, in an area that's not equipped to handle that many people. Fuck that.

The bay area has been absurdly overpriced single unit zoning for decades. If they don't like it, they could have started building up. Homeowners, as they always do, said "no, That'll reduce my property value and increase congestion unles we build up the BART and I don't want that either." The whole "I got mine, FU" blows back on them? Great. I hope they build the ugliest prefab houses and it halves the home values in the area.

Re:That makes me MAD!

[zippthorne]

...the price-out of the support service economy since nobody can afford to be a barista on the peninsula.

Shouldn't that part, at least, be self-correcting? If there is demand for coffee then the price should rise until the baristas can be paid enough to afford the rent?

Re:That makes me MAD!

[drinkypoo]

So this lease obviated the Endangered Species Act? Google could frack for oil there because fuck you we have a lease?

What causes you to imagine that siting a cluster of temporaries out on the tarmac is going to threaten any endangered species? It's already a big fucking parking lot. The site survey was performed by NASA and they don't seem to have a problem with Google's plan.

Re:That makes me MAD!

[TheRaven64]

It's not just the Japanese, it's basically every other country. When I first played SimCity, I found it horribly unrealistic: how on Earth could you build a city that segregated places people live, places people work, and places people go for recreation and required you to drive between them? Then I visited the USA and discovered that real city planners were doing this. Outside of the densest areas, US cities seem to combine the worst aspects of ubran and rural living: high population density and long driving distances to everywhere you'd want to go to regularly.

Re:That makes me MAD!

[TheRaven64]

It's a translation problem. In English, a liberal is someone who subscribes to Enlightenment ideas relating to equality and freedom. In American, it means 'someone I don't like' (confusingly for English speakers, American grammar, like Japanese, has different forms depending on the speaker, and the word 'conservative' has the same meaning when spoken by a different set of people).

Re:That makes me MAD!

[Gr8Apes]

Would 300 units even make a dent in the problem?

No,

300 units is like throwing a single drop of water into a lake. And, according to one story I've read, the price Google is paying for this works out to $100,000 per unit. For a bunch of pre-fabricated shit boxes that will look like a slum hotel within a year.

But it could be that drop is the last straw.

Now, as for pre-fab looking like shit, well, that's merely a matter of the quality of pre-fab chosen. Just remember that something that isn't pre-fab can also just as easily look like shit. There was a modular hi-rise built somewhere where the modules were concrete units that just slipped into a supporting framework, IIRC. The finished product looked better than some of the more classically designed and built hi rises.

Re:That makes me MAD!

[Gr8Apes]

99.99% of "poor people" are "poor" due to irresponsible behavior.

Quite the opposite.

I'd say a lot of evidence is out there to the contrary. I see much newer vehicles in what we consider poor neighborhoods than what's in my driveway. (Those would be the neighborhoods we'd consider as candidate population for these cheaper units)

The bay area has been absurdly overpriced single unit zoning for decades. If they don't like it, they could have started building up. Homeowners, as they always do, said "no, That'll reduce my property value and increase congestion unles we build up the BART and I don't want that either." The whole "I got mine, FU" blows back on them? Great. I hope they build the ugliest prefab houses and it halves the home values in the area.

Seems like the simpler solution in this case is for Google to build an office building where it's workers live, not in an absurdly high priced area where only a small number of its employees live. Not all employees have to be under one roof, after all.

Re:That makes me MAD!

[nine-times]

I'd say a lot of evidence is out there to the contrary. I see much newer vehicles in what we consider poor neighborhoods than what's in my driveway.

You think all poor people are poor because they're irresponsible, and your big evidence is "I've seen poor people that drive a newer car than mine"? I mean, what, you couldn't even find a vague and misleading statistic from the Heritage Foundation to back that up?

trailers for techies

[turkeydance]

same thing done for mill workers back in the day.

Re:trailers for techies

[Nethead]

I owe my soul, to the company store.

Company housing

[rfengr]

Company housing, company cafeteria; now they just need suicide nets.

Re:The working Poor of California.

[hawguy]

Earn $200K a year, live in a trailer!

If it means I don't have to fight traffic for an hour to get to work (even if I'm in a bus), I'd be happy to take that salary and live in the cheap housing.

I hope they go full hippie

[drinkypoo]

Prefab building stuff is often glued together. Mmmmmmm, glue.

They ought to do a bunch of these eco-fabulous container homes, not just because they're granola-friendly but because they're seismically secure...

Meaningless dribble

[onyxruby]

This is meaningless dribble. Prefab housing will never be built in numbers large enough to be anything other than green-washing. If Google wanted to do something meaningful about housing prices it would do one of two things:

Set up shop in a place where housing isn't already undergoing a huge shortage.
Lobby to remove height based restrictions for housing.

These are the only two real world options. You have to either change the supply (remove height restrictions) or you have to change the demand (set up shop elsewhere).

You cannot circumvent the laws of supply and demand. Even though government after government has attempted to do so over the years.

Re:Dorms

[ShanghaiBill]

Why doesn't Google have Dorms on their Campus?

Because that is illegal. At least for a while, they allowed camper trailers in their parking lots, but I don't know if that is still true. They provide shower facilities for both campers and bike-to-workers.

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.

Re:Google has the cash and clout

[swillden]

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.

That would make bay area property owners happy, since it would increase the ability of highly-paid Google employees to pay even higher prices, thereby driving property values up more.

Re:The working Poor of California.

[fluffernutter]

You definitely don't have kids. Or a wife. Or want a girlfriend.

Re:The working Poor of California.

[rudy_wayne]

Or move somewhere else, where you make $75,000 a year and own a nice home and live a much better life.

Re:Construction costs aren't the problem

[__aaclcg7560]

It's not the cost of construction. Developers build "luxury" housing because it has higher profit margins. Convincing developers to build other kinds of housing with lower profit margins is a tough sell.

Re:300 units?

[Khyber]

Uhh, Beau1080p up above said, and I quote..

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.

10 minutes after you.

Bet we just found a shill account.

Solving the wrong problem

[JeffOwl]

Or they could maybe build a facility somewhere else and expand there. Somewhere the engineers AND the janitor can get a place to live within a 30 minute drive. And the people who provide the services that allow a community to exist, like firefighters, teachers, food servers, etc... It doesn't have to be out in the boonies either. It will still need to be an area with a relatively high average education to supply and attract the right talent, so there will still be some affluence, but it isn't difficult to be better from a housing and traffic situation than what they have now. Otherwise this modular housing is just a waste of time and money, they should be building an arcology on their main campus.

Re:Solving the wrong problem

[jsepeta]

I hear land is cheap in Wyoming.

Re: Google Trailer Park

[richardellisjr]

Prefab homes aren't necessarily mobile homes. In some cases they are just as good if not better than traditional homes. The way some are made all the framing is made in a factory and trucked in and assembled on site. This allows factory level efficiency and reduced cost but results in a house you can't tell was prefab.

The trouble isn't the tech workers

[rsilvergun]

they make enough to afford housing, albeit barely. The trouble is they want services, and that means low paid people. Police, Fire, Emergency responders for a start. Then cooks, laundry, taxis and for some of the better off (who can afford kids) teachers. All of these are at best middle class jobs. Nobody likes paying for them to have nice homes in expensive neighborhoods, but they sure want the services.

Re:The trouble isn't the tech workers

[drinkypoo]

Police, Fire, Emergency responders for a start.

Have you actually looked at what those jobs pay in the Bay Area? They are not low-paying jobs, even to start. For example, the current starting salary for a cop in SF is $80k. That's not piles of money, but it's not poor, either.

Re:The trouble isn't the tech workers

[alvinrod]

That's actually not very good. Some estimates have median 2-bedroom rent in SF over $50,000 annually. There's a general consensus that you shouldn't spend more than 25%-30% of your income on rent, and on an $80,000 salary that means no more than about $2,000 per month which means a tiny studio apartment in the least expensive parts of town.

$80,000 may seem like a small fortune, but you seriously need to account for how damned expensive San Francisco is as a city. You're going to be much better off only making $50,000 somewhere in the mid-west but spending $10,000 to rent a much larger apartment.

Imagine

[TheSync]

Moffet Field is about 2,200 acres, or 3.4 square miles. If it was rebuilt with the population density of the inner core of Shanghai (~120,000 people per square mile), it could house 400,000 people, along with offices, restaurants, etc.

This is entirely a government-caused problem.

[jcr]

All we need to solve this is a free market for housing, without all these fucking NIMBYs using their local city councils to prevent new construction.

-jcr

Google's plan will likely be sunk by same problems

[Koreantoast]

TechCrunch published a fantastic essay a few years back explaining the very complex, interlocking set of political interests and problems that have caused Bay Area housing costs to explode. Surge in high paying tech jobs, extreme NIMBY by neighborhood councils, California legislation, owls, and well meaning activists have led to the complete cluster that the SF housing market is today. Construction costs have never been a significant issue. I also feel like Google's plans are going to be disrupted by these same factors once the vested powers figure out what's going on.

Re: [not quite] Time To GTFO!

[Space cowboy]

Or, you know, a shit-load of cash.

Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook (I think) amongst others are all in and around that area, and they pay very well. Sure, you'll be paying through the nose for a house/flat, but if you see yourself as having a career here, then that house/flat becomes an investment. Property values aren't likely to drop significantly in the next decade or so, in fact they're very likely to increase, so money put in now is likely a good return on investment.

Work, save, wait, quit, move.

That shitty $1M 1500-sq.ft ranch is now worth $1.5M and it'll still sell quickly, pay off your remaining $900k of mortgage and you're left with a pretty large nest egg to go live somewhere else. That's how it's worked out for me, anyway. I bought said shitty 1500 sq.ft house for $760k about 8 years ago, I get paid well, so I've been paying off the mortgage at 2x the monthly rate, and I now owe ~$300k. The house is worth ~$1.4M, Another 7-8 years and it's all mine.

There can be a plan, even in Silicon Valley. Just play the game and use the rules to your advantage.

one step closer to the revolution! (hah!)

[Thud457]

conditions in the bitmines were deplorable back in '17...
We lost 217 coders to Starbucks butt just in April.

does not compute

[swell]

So you slap a prefab on a small lot. The prefab costs 10K, the value of the lot is 1M. Does that make sense? Maybe the lot is on government land and you seem to be getting it almost free ... it's not free however. It's worth 1,000,000 today and far more tomorrow.

That land value has to be considered. It is far more important than the box you put on it. The only way to maximize the use of that land is to build up. Skyscrapers. Then you can house 500 people on 10M worth of land.