Piece in Cambridge Day on low cost infill housing on city owned 'sliver' lots in Boston

[hu...@comcast.net]

I’m not sure how this might apply to Somerville and Davis Square—I don’t know how many city-owned lots there might be. Certainly the cost savings for low income buyers by taking the cost of land out of the equation would be enormous, if such plots exist.

 

https://www.cambridgeday.com/2026/04/29/we-could-build-market-rate-housing/

 

I’m not sure if the close to 50% savings in construction costs attributed to manufactured housing withstands scrutiny, however.

https://www.construction-physics.com/p/the-elusive-cost-savings-of-the-prefabricated

“…wherever and whenever we look, we generally see the same story: factory-based homebuilding yielding at best relatively modest cost savings, and often no savings whatsoever. This is what we see in the US historically, it’s what we see in the US today, and it’s what we see in countries around the world.”

 

Nonetheless food for thought.

 

-Hume

 

Hume Vance

211 Morrison Ave.

Somerville, MA 02144

617 895-6979 c

617 628-5759 h

 

[Jeff Byrnes]

I’ve had some discussion about this elsewhere, and the consensus is that the cost savings from manufacturing definitely doesn’t withstand scrutiny.

 

But removing the cost of land from the price tag is definitely a big deal!

 

Cambridge’s 2072 Mass Ave will be 100% affordable, and offer homes to folks below 50% AMI, because City of Cambridge is basically giving that land away to the builder. That’s a 100% subsidized project being built by a for-profit builder, who also did Frost Terrace next to Lesley.

 

Somerville owns the empty parcel next to Gilman Sq Station, and the Gilman Sq Neighborhood Council has been trying to convince the City to move forward with an RFP to choose a developer for it for years, so even when we do have the land to give away, there’s struggles.

-- 
Jeff Byrnes
he/him
 

🌐 somervilleyimby.org

🟦 bsky.app/profile/somervilleyimby.org
📖 facebook.com/SomervilleYIMBY

🐘 better.boston/@SomervilleYIMBY
📷 instagram.com/SomervilleYIMBY

📱 704.516.4628

--
Davis Square Neighborhood Council · https://DavisSquareNC.org · https://linktr.ee/DavisSquareNC
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Davis Square Neighborhood Council" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to davissquaren...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/davissquarenc/045101dcd97b%24fdb2f1c0%24f918d540%24%40comcast.net.