A LOCAL company is awaiting Planning Department approval for a scheme that could see prefabricated homes offered to residents for as little as $80,000.

Architectural firm Design Source International is hoping Government will see its proposal as one answer to the island's housing crisis. If the company's plans are accepted, studio, two-bedroom and three-bedroom units could be available as soon as next year.

In the interim, the company is in talks with the Bermuda Land and Development Corporation (BLDC) to erect a model of a three-bedroom unit at Southside, St. David's.

"We want everyone to understand that the building process is a cookbook," explained company principal Paul James. "We can cook anything. We can cook a luxury home with these ingredients or we can make affordable housing.

"Our focus has been on affordable housing because no one else has focused on it. It needs to be focused on for a lot of reasons but we think the most important right now is we can get several problems addressed and introduce a new method of building at the same time."

The homes, which would be manufactured by an American company, are supported with a structural steel framework instead of the more traditional block walls and stone roofs. One of the most fundamental advancements in 20th-century building, steel provides a strong support and is cheaper than traditional products.

"Traditional construction has become so expensive," said Mr. James. "Our vision is to offer Quadrate 2000 (Q2) homes that will maintain the traditional look of Bermuda homes, with pastel colourings and slate roofs, but at much less expense to the home buyer. We hope to have the model (at Southside) here for the first of the year."

Mr. James stressed that the company did not intend to start a community of modular homes. Buyers would need to have property on which to place them.

"What people often forget in Bermuda, you're so used to associating a house with a piece of property that you never separate the cost. In this instance, say you have a property of $200,000. If you take that cost and add it to the $80,000 unit you basically have a $280,000, say $300,000, quotient.

"Today, if you found a two-bedroom house ? even on a very small lot ? in Bermuda for $300,000 you'd be delighted. So essentially you do have to buy or own land in order to own one of these homes. We are not offering $80,000 homes on a lot. We take the homes to their lot."

The idea that the stigma of having a prefabricated might be a turn-off to potential buyers was dismissed by Mr. James. According to the developer, their quality would make it impossible to distinguish the units from more traditional homes.

"Mobile housing served a big need in the United States and Canada, by providing very, very cheap housing to people who basically had no money," he said. "There's a big difference (in what we're offering). A modular home is a site-built home. It's built in pieces so it can be taken to a site.

"The only similarity between a mobile and a modular is that they're both manufactured in a controlled site. The difference is in the quality. You can see that right away."

Mr. James and Sue Rebello, a designer with his company, began working on a proposal to bring modular homes to the island a year ago. In that period, they have seen others initiate similar plans ? the Department of Works and Engineering in partnership with a non-profit group, Bermuda Homes for People, hopes to build around 100 low-cost homes at Southside from as low as $195,000.

Similarly to Mr. James, the group intends to achieve cost benefits through the use of steel and concrete components in building.

"We have proposals in to Bermuda Homes for People to provide this system to be used on the homes they have proposed for the Southside area," Mr. James said. "We're trying to work with them. I've had dialogue with (John) Gaston (one of those involved in the project); limited dialogue but nonetheless, they're interested in giving us the opportunity to price and modify our units if necessary, to comply with their design. These are, in the end, a method of building."

Mr. James denied the two groups were competing for the same market, but admitted more could be achieved if they worked together.

"There isn't any real conflict," he stressed, adding that his proposed model would be erected across the street from Bermuda Homes for People's Southside development.

"One of the things in Bermuda that happens a lot is people seem to have the same idea, and think they can't work together. I think a collaborative effort will get us further in helping address the problem. Whether we build it at Southside, wherever we build it, it's going to be a cost-effective solution and it's long overdue.

"I attended an automated builders' conference recently. They were asking: 'What's your occupancy rate? How long do you have to wait before a unit sells?' My response was that everything would be sold before it was even built because the demand is so much greater than the supply.

"Nobody could grasp that. They didn't understand how a place could be in that condition. Why are we in that condition? It's a good question."

People interested in learning more about Q2 homes can telephone Mr. James at 295-4494.

l A home for $80,000 ? see on Page 5