Scalable Starter Home Production Plan

Credit: William Wright/KCHA

WHAT IS THE WA SCALABLE STARTER HOME PRODUCTION PLAN?

Washington state is experiencing a housing affordability crisis, exacerbated by a shortage of affordable starter homes for first-time homebuyers seeking viable pathways to homeownership. The shortage impacts low- and moderate-income first-time homebuyers disproportionately, limiting their access to the unique benefits of homeownership— including its capacity for multigenerational asset building— and contributes to broader socioeconomic challenges. To address this challenge, the State sought proposals from a qualified organization, or a consortium of organizations, for the development of a comprehensive and actionable multi-year strategy and plan. That contract was recently awarded to Civic Commons.  

PRODUCTION PLAN OBJECTIVEs

  1. Develop a robust multi-year strategy to scale production of affordable starter homes.

  2. Identify and promote offsite and prefabricated construction methodologies to enhance efficiency and cost-effectiveness.

  3. Evaluate existing in-state and out-of-state business operations to identify opportunities for collaboration and operational enhancements.

  4. Integrate existing efforts to identify and secure underutilized or available land opportunities and other land-use strategies to maximize impact and reach.

  5. Propose a pilot program to demonstrate feasibility and scalability of recommended strategies.

  6. Establish clear benchmarks and timelines for short-term successes and long-term sustainability.

SHARE YOUR IDEAS

The strategies and tactics for increasing housing supply have been the subject of many a summit, symposium, and report. Factory-built housing has been tested in pilot efforts, including one sponsored by HUD in the Seattle market, with differing degrees of success. Adequate supply requires moving beyond re-cataloguing known technical ingredients. It demands a holistic, adaptive approach that targets the deeply-rooted culture of bespoke designs and on-site stick framing.

Because the Production Plan aims to build an ecosystem of early adopters who can drive a truly systemic and equitable scaling of production, it must be shaped by ideas from experienced housing professionals, policy advocates, prospective first-time homebuyers, and everyone else who cares about the production of starter homes for any reason.  

 
 

Your insights are critical

Please share them now via an anonymous online survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/starterhomesWA. The survey will take you approximately 13 minutes to complete. It’s important to hear from as many voices as possible, so please share the survey link broadly with others in your networks. And please watch this site for updates about upcoming symposia and other ways you can share your ideas.  

WHAT WILL THE SCALABLE STARTER HOME PRODUCTION PLAN INCLUDE?

The shared goal is to provide the WA state legislature with a Production Plan and actionable set of recommendations focused on: 

  • Policy and Regulations 

  • Project Development (comprising land acquisition and construction methods, including use of offsite) 

  • Workforce Training and Development 

  • Financing (including increased public resources) 

  • Ecosystem Solutions Playbook

    • The Ecosystem Solutions Playbook will: 

      • be useful for acting on a range of strategies that will facilitate new construction of homes affordable to first-time homebuyers. 

      • enable and utilize a variety of construction methods. 

      • identify gaps in the ecosystem and solutions for addressing these issues. 

      • foster achievement of results within the regulatory environment. 

  • Pilot Program Playbook

    • The Pilot Program Playbook will: 

      • guide implementation of a demonstration pilot project (or two) that will test the model of the innovative off-site construction methods.  

      • guide assessment of the model’s ability to produce high-quality, sustainability-forward homes. 

      • present a comparison of volumetric, panelized, and other approaches. 

ADDITIONAL BACKGROUND: THE PLAN’S RESEARCH ROOTS 

Severe inequities in homeownership have been reported for decades. A large body of research, including the studies below, documents those inequities and underscores a critical fact: while supports to assist homebuyers are essential, they in and of themselves are insufficient unless we also increase the supply of affordable for-sale homes.  

  • 2021: Research from the Office of Washington Lieutenant Governor Denny Heck established the connection between racial disparities in wealth and homeownership, and the City of Tacoma published an analysis of systemic homeownership disparities. 

  • 2022: With funding approved by the 2021 Washington State Legislature, the Department of Commerce and the Homeownership Disparities Work Group published recommendations for improving homeownership rates for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color in Washington state. 

FAQS

  • A: Yes. 

  • A: A "starter home" or “entry-level home” is generally considered to be a property that serves as an entry point into homeownership. Starter homes typically have lower square footage than most family-sized homes. In its programs, the Washington State Housing Finance Commission establishes specific price ranges for starter homes in a given area based on that area's median income, with the goal of making these homes affordable to first-time homebuyers with moderate incomes.  

  • A: “Offsite construction” is the practice of manufacturing, assembling, and/or fabricating components, subassemblies, and/or modules of a building at a location that is not the final building site.

    Sometimes referred to as “prefabrication,” it can take many forms, including components & subassemblies, panels/panelization, and modular/volumetric modular. When designing with an offsite mindset, the focus is on repeatable elements that can be produced with offsite resources and a design that allows for all concepts and components to be entirely site-built when project-specific factors require.

    Offsite approaches are most successful in certain contexts, including: markets with high construction costs and labor scarcity; locations with seasonal or other build constraints; program or multi-phase projects with repeated designs and layouts; rectilinear sites with limited overhead encumbrances and topographic variations; instances where speed to delivery is a driving priority; and situations engaging a committed group of owners, architects, and contractors, ideally with offsite experience.  

  • A: The original mobile homes looked similar to trailers or campers. They had an exposed coupler for a trailer and wheels. These features made it easy to hook up the mobile home to a vehicle and move it to a new location. These original mobile homes are not built anymore, because they don’t meet the standards set in the National Mobile Home Construction and Safety Act of 1974 and the HUD Manufactured Home Construction and Safety Standards released in 1976. 

    The construction process for a manufactured home takes place almost exclusively in a factory. Once complete, the parts of the home will be brought to the home site to be assembled. Even though most manufactured homes are not moved after assembly, it is possible to move this home type if it has a pier and beam foundation. HUD standards have grouped all types of movable, factory-built housing as manufactured. Since the requirements for manufactured homes are mandated by a federal standard, they are not subject to the requirements of local or state building codes and associated inspections. 

    While modular homes are also built in a factory, they are built in pieces and then assembled at the home site. Modular homes are constructed to meet a state’s and local municipality’s building codes. This means that modular homes will be held to the same regulations that on-site constructed homes are held to in the city or county. Since different states, or even cities, may have different codes and regulations, modular homes can vary from one location to the next. Regardless of a modular home’s location, one thing that is consistent with their construction is that they are placed on a permanent foundation; modular homes are not designed to be relocated once completed. Some modular homes may even be placed over a foundation with a basement. Once a modular home is assembled, it will very closely resemble an on-site built home. Modular homes offer a variety of layouts and floor plans, with both one-story and two-story options. 

    This answer includes content excerpted from https://www.bobvila.com/articles/mobile-home-vs-manufactured-home 

  • A: The pilot program is an essential part of this work. It will serve as the Production Plan’s “proof of concept” by testing the Plan’s recommendations, and the hypotheses underlying them, in a real-world build. The project team will recommend a pilot product type to WSHFC and will define pilot program objectives, scope, expected outcomes, and strategies for evaluating effectiveness and scalability. If requested, the team will support implementation of the pilot program. 

  • A:  Civic Commons assembled a project team led by Black Home Initiative network partners who have been working on this issue for some time: CFH Consulting, Green Canopy NODE, Housing Development Consortium of Seattle-King County, Louis Rudolph Homes, Maul Foster Alongi, and Rohde Consulting Group. They will convene and coordinate several work groups focused on specific aspects of the Production Plan. 

CONTACT US

If you have ideas or questions, reach out to us at info@civic-commons.org.