[kevinburke]

Here's one proposal for affordable housing in San Francisco: modular units that are extremely cheap to assemble and can be combined into a much larger building.

The developer can have them here instantly and wants to build on a plot near Cesar Chavez and rent to the city. The city's not interested because the buildings are not built here and they'd be a little more expensive than existing SRO's.

http://sf.curbed.com/2016/10/31/13481254/micropad-tour-patri...

[jseliger]

The problem in SF is not the cost of physical building itself. The problem is zoning, permitting, legal, harassment lawsuits, etc.: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/11/a-tale-o.... Or see https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing.

Fixing the problem is almost entirely about regulatory / legal issues.

[kevinburke]

I guess that's why I left that comment: solutions exist, the problems are more about political will.

[twelvechairs]

Why not just build an apartment block? Do you really need the flexibility of being able to move units out?