Pre-Fab Housing Offers Affordable Solution in Altadena

In 1966, Jerry Camarillo’s parents moved from an apartment near St. Andrew’s Catholic Church off of Raymond Avenue to a home in Altadena.

Over the years, there were remodels, giving it an open feeling and plenty of space for gatherings at nearly 1,700 square feet. Two cousins and family friends also live in the area. All of those homes were destroyed in January’s Eaton Fire.

“Where my mom’s home is, never in a million years did we think that [the fire] was going to reach that far,” said Camarillo, a portrait photographer who lives in nearby Pasadena and was also forced to evacuate during the fire.

Pre-Fab Housing Offers Affordable Solution in Altadena — Altadena Homes (Kari Hamanaka, Lauren Schram, Getty)

In the beginning, post-fire, the neighbors banded together. The plan was to use the same contractor to lower costs. As reality set in with individual needs and circumstances, owners splintered off to go their own ways. Most went the conventional route of rebuilding with lumber. Camarillo’s mother was in the same boat.

“Then we saw the amount of money we were going to get from the [insurance] policy that my parents had,” he said. “It wasn’t going to be enough.”

Insurance would cover around 65 to 70 percent of the cost, equating to a roughly $200,000 shortfall, Camarillo estimated.

“Even with my [contractor] friend’s discount, we were probably going to build a house, but there would be no furniture, no appliances, no fencing, no garden,” he said. “So even if we had a house, it’s not really functional.”

A local newscast caught Camarillo’s attention. It featured a story on Hapi Homes, the maker of panels made from light gauge steel.

Now, his mother is one of several homeowners in Altadena and Pacific Palisades looking to alternative homebuilding methods that promise an affordable and faster path back into their residences.

In Camarillo’s case, he was seeing Hapi Homes kit pricing quoted for $82 per square foot. At the time, quotes were no less than $500 per square foot to go the traditional route. He’s now hearing of costs shooting up to $600 a foot.

Camarillo’s mother is ready to wrap up the design work soon. Building will take between six to eight weeks and he’s hoping they can break ground as early as December.

Alternative solutions

Hapi Homes is what’s known as a maker of panelized homebuilding materials. Unlike modular homes that are assembled in a factory and then placed onto a lot, panelized homes are built with panels manufactured in a facility and then assembled on a home’s site.

For the massive rebuild now underway in Altadena and Pacific Palisades, the idea of affordable and fast construction using light gauge steel is appealing with companies such as Hapi Homes and RSG 3-D seeing business spike. There’s also Samara, which is linked with Rick Caruso’s Steadfast LA nonprofit to provide homes for free to low-income residents impacted by the wildfires.

Sometimes, it can be hard to break from tradition.

Camarillo said he spread the word on Hapi Homes with his mother’s neighbors and has posted about the company on the Nextdoor app in a bid to help the community get back to a sense of normalcy faster.

“I tried with them, but there’s this innate skepticism about building with light gauge steel and the skepticism is lack of knowledge,” he said.

The tides may be turning.

Mary O’Brien, CEO and co-founder of Hapi Homes, said the number of inbound inquiries into the company has ticked up from Californians since February.

The company is currently in the design stage with 30 rebuild clients in Altadena and Pasadena. That’s still a sliver of the 6,785 damaged and destroyed properties in the unincorporated parts of Los Angeles County destroyed by the Eaton Fire. As of Monday, 86 permits for single-family homes have been issued for that same area with 1,307 applications received, according to the county.

The majority of Hapi Homes customers are rebuilding in the 1,500- to 2,000-per-square-foot range. Several of them, like Camarillo, have visited the company’s Salt Lake City, Utah factory to see the materials for themselves.

“What we’re hearing constantly are identical stories: People seeking us out because they’re underinsured and they’re looking for alternative ways to build aside from timber,” O’Brien said. “Separately, they’re looking at innovation to help them get them into their homes faster.”

Hapi Homes’ build kits range from $60 to $120 per square foot. When factoring in the price of a contractor — Hapi Homes currently has three working with several of its clients — the total is somewhere under $250 per square foot, according to O’Brien.

When a homeowner decides to move forward, they begin with the design stage, which typically takes about six weeks. The current holdup is in topography surveys, with one of the company’s clients waiting around 12 weeks to get that done. It’s performed by an outside service Hapi Homes doesn’t provide but is critical for architects and engineers to move forward.

When it comes to obtaining the actual permits, O’Brien isn’t concerned.

She pointed to one of the company’s Los Angeles County clients not impacted by the fires, who received an accessory dwelling unit permit in two weeks at the end of March.

“Look, there’s always going to be delays or unknowns, but we’re comfortable with the fact that once we have the [permit] submission in, we’re not necessarily anticipating problems,” she said. “Once the permitting is complete, we’ll have the build kit on site in 30 days. Once you have control, it’s not a long lifecycle to actually get into your house.”

“Risk in every direction”

Hapi Homes is set to open a Pasadena office this month, planting a project manager and quality control workers into an expanding market for its business.

The company isn’t the only one seeing demand shoot up on account of the rebuilding.

Ken Calligar, founder and CEO of RSG 3-D, calls panelized housing an industry disruptor, but noted it’s in the early adopter phase.

“People are not aware that there is such a thing as a resilient home because all they’ve ever seen is a wood-framed home and so that’s what we really work on is awareness and education,” Calligar said.

RSG is mainly a manufacturer of panels, although over the years it’s built out its company-owned engineering and construction divisions. The company’s pitch is housing that stands up to natural disasters and is sustainable by eliminating the waste and dumping fees associated with timber.

Deep-seeded housing issues in the state, ranging from the impact on property from continuous wildfires and earthquakes to the shrinking of insurance availability are now being placed under a microscope once again in areas such as Altadena and the Palisades.

RSG said about two-thirds of new builds using its materials are from first timers to panelized housing, with about 75 percent of the business client led from word of mouth.

“People really understand the [homebuilding] challenges, especially in California now and of course in hurricane regions,” Calligar said. “The state of California is a massive risk in every direction. It’s just a giant geography of risk and it’s not reducing.”

Most of RSG’s rebuild clients are currently in the Palisades, with the remainder in Altadena, Malibu and Ventura County.

In total, there are 40 to 50 homeowners, who have architects and expect to use RSG 3-D, Calligar said. Of that total, between 20 to 30 are moving forward with permitting. RSG also has another 20 to 30 homeowners now ready to find an architect.

The first of the company’s rebuild projects is slated to begin assembly in late September. Additional details could not be disclosed due to a non-disclosure agreement with the client, according to Calligar.

As with what O’Brien of Hapi Homes noted, it’s the financing that’s the headache. Calligar said he has seen a funding shortfall “almost universally” among homeowners. He partially attributes that to flawed modeling on the part of insurance companies when it comes to assessing risk that’s now set off a chain reaction playing out in real time for the state’s most closely watched construction sites in Altadena and the Palisades.

“It’s an existential financial problem,” he said. “If you can’t get insurance, you can’t get a mortgage. If you can’t afford insurance, you have to move.”

Calligar noted bigger problems not likely to be solved in the time it takes to rebuild the burned communities. For affected homeowners, they just want to go home.

Back in Altadena, Camarillo’s mother is 88. She’s been lamenting she may never get back into her home. The opportunity to return faster than many of her neighbors offers a sense of relief after six months of loss and uncertainty.

“It’s the human part of this. The emotional part, the brain fog, the trauma, the sleepless nights and just the panic,” Camarillo said. “Within all of that you have to pick up the pieces of your life and try to navigate and make the best decisions for you personally. I don’t wish, not even the evacuation part of this, on anyone.”