Shipping Container Home Readying for Detroit Debut

[FrodosPet]

Some good news from "The City"

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http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/shipping-container-home-readying-detroit-debut-27988233?singlePage=true

DETROIT — Jan 4, 2015, 9:55 AM ET
By JEFF KAROUB Associated Press

An unusual home taking shape inside General Motors' sprawling Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly plant is intended to be part of a movement to rebuild the city's economy and deteriorating, disappearing housing stock.

Skilled-trades workers, taking breaks from their tasks at the factory that produces the electric Chevrolet Volt and other vehicles, dart in and out to do door, window and wall installation and framing, as well as electrical and plumbing work. Meanwhile, a nonprofit urban farming group is preparing property a few miles away that will welcome the project, what's believed to be the city's first occupied shipping container homestead.

Come spring, the house-in-progress will be delivered to Detroit's North End neighborhood and secured on a foundation where a blighted home once stood. After finishing touches and final inspections, the 40-foot-long former container will feature 320 square feet of living space with two bedrooms, a bathroom and a kitchen, and will serve as home base for a university-student caretakers of a neighborhood farm and agricultural research activities.

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"Finding a place where both those communities can find common ground is beautiful," said Gersh, president and co-founder of the group that operates a farm and owns property in the North End, where blight and vacancy are common, but so are signs of residential and commercial renewal. "It's scalable, works for everyone and it's also not going to ruin the environment. It's easier to maintain and can repurpose existing materials."

~ snip ~

[NBachers]

1. I like this story- it would be interesting to see pictures when it's finished.

[DarthDem]

2. +1

I'd like to see pics as well.

[Boreal]

3. Great idea

and I hope they do it on a big scale. I love shipping container homes and the only limit with them is imagination and money. I noticed the article mentioned pricing and comps but I really hope these are sold for minimal profit. Better yet, a non profit venture would be ideal and sell them at cost. Detroit is so full of poor people that that's who needs to be kept in mind. I also love the urban gardening and I would love to see Detroit go WAY outside the box and become a mixture of an urban/rural new type of city. Clusters of homes and businesses with farms in between could offer an entirely new and more natural type of living environment. City dwellers are so cut of from nature and rural folks are far from city conveniences. Lets try them together for a change. How cool would it be for a city person to go to work at a greenhouse every day? THAT would be awesome.

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. I thought Detroit's problem was unoccupied houses that are deteriorating?

Wouldn't it be better to do up the existing houses?

[MrScorpio]

5. They need to be torn down

Trust me.

Unfortunately, there's no money to tear them down.

[FrodosPet]

6. The ones that can be repaired, yes

Detroit is full of VERY old housing, ranging from the late 1800s through the 1950s. The houses that have been maintained are gorgeous.

But many of the uninhabitable houses are so decayed and or burned out, there is nothing remaining to build upon. To rehab a house, you need a good foundation and frame. Alas, these places do not have even that much.

The City of Detroit has a long way to go to provide safe, healthy, and attractive housing for all of its citizens while getting rid of, or rehabbing, the dilapidated units. It does not help that it is the most hated and feared city in America, if not the world, which blocks a lot of investment. But there ARE people who are trying.

[marmar]

8. Investment is actually flowing right now.....

..... just go downtown or midtown. ..... The neighborhoods remain a bigger challenge.

[FrodosPet]

9. Detroit will be saved by immigrants

Chaldeans, Arabs, Eastern Europeans, and people from India seem to be the quickest growing segment of the S.E. Michigan population.

And they are investing. They are looking at the rock bottom prices, lower than almost anywhere else in America for equivalent value, and getting in on the ground floor.

Within the next 10 to 20 years, Detroit will be booming. And my caucasian brothers and sisters (do I really have to claim them?) will be looking in and complaining about "all them damn furiners buying up everything".

[Bluenorthwest]

7. A couple of container building links....examples abound...

Portland:
http://www.npr.org/2012/05/30/153574677/forget-big-box-stores-how-about-a-big-box-house

Story with lots of examples:
www.oregonlive.com/hg/index.ssf/2012/07/from_the_home_front_new_twists.html