Housing_and Community

The State of California Affordable Housing Competition

In 1981 the State of California Governor's Office of Appropriate Technology and the California Department of Housing and Community Development held a competition to foster new and innovative ideas for the creation of affordable and environmentally sound housing. There were three basic categories for entries; innovations in the administrative or financing aspects of creating housing, innovation in building materials or methods, and actual project designs.

The first category produced entries recommending streamlined permit processing, innovative financing, cooperative housing programs, exclusionary zoning, and the like.

The second category produced an interesting proposal for a building material produced from rice straw, a waste product, and proposals for manufactured housing.

The final category produced design entries ranging from single family homes, to multi-family subdivisions. Some of these were actual projects, either recently constructed, under construction, or proposed.

There were more than 500 entries. Fifty were picked as winners. The Luckham Company (called Specialty Building Company in those days) submitted a winning entry called Scott Creek Park for a 70 unit townhouse style subdivision in the City of Fremont. Another winner was the 58 unit La Solana townhouse subdivision then under construction in Hayward. The Luckham Company was also the builder of La Solana!

What the Competition Required

We knew that making housing affordable would involve using many tools. First, it would be necessary to design housing that could be built at a reasonable cost. Next, it would be necessary to find a way to finance the purchase for qualified moderate income buyers.

Finally, the design entries not only needed to be affordable, they also needed to be energy efficient. We knew from the competition entry forms that the designs would be subjected to a rigorous evaluation using the CALPAS (California Passive Solar Evaluation) computer program. CALPAS subjects a computerized model of a building to actual weather conditions recorded for a specific location.

We were certain that in order to be successful we would have to offer an innovative approach, including design innovation, and creative financing. Plus, we wanted to provide solid evidence that our plan would work, and meet our objectives in both the economic and design fields. We were committed to having Scott Creek Park become a real world showcase project rather than just another "blue sky" idea.