JOINT ECONOMIC COMMITTEE [Created pursuant to sec. 5(a) of Public Law 304, 79th Cong.] WRIGHT PATMAN, Texas, Chairman WILLIAM PROXMIRE, Wisconsin, Vice Chairman CONTENTS Finger, Harold B., Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology, De- partment of Housing and Urban Development_ Biederman, Charles L., vice president, technical services, Levitt & Sons nesses.. Finger, Harold B.: Table: Occupied housing units, total and substandard, by tenure, Table: Housing starts, unit costs, and interest rates, 1913–69_ "Breakthrough," publication issued by U.S. Department of Housing Transmittal of Request for Proposal No. H-55-69 "Operation Terzick, Peter E., general treasurer of the United Brotherhood of Carpen- Price, James R., chairman of the board, National Homes Corp.; accom- Rosen, Richard H., president, Urban Systems, Inc., Boston, Mass Bolling, Hon. Richard: SUBMISSIONS Article: "Systems Builder Ezra Ehrenkrantz, Constructioos Man of the 337 Rosen, Richard H.: Appendix: "Town House Parks" (development of Thomasville CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES, JOINT ECONOMIC COMMITTEE Chairman Bolling Announces Hearings on Industrialized Housing by the Subcommittee on Urban Affairs Representative Richard Bolling (D., Mo.), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Urban Affairs of the Joint Economic Committee, today announced that the subcommittee will hold public hearings on industrialized housing, July 9, 23, and 24. In announcing the hearings, Chairman Bolling said: "These hearings will supplement the compendium of papers by experts on the subjects of Industrialized Housing,' which the subcommittee released on April 28 of this year. We have planned to receive testimony from the Department of Housing and Urban Development as well as from those in the industry actually working to put housing production on an industrialized basis. The hearings should develop valuable background for the subcommittee's further studies of long-range urban planning both here and abroad." A list of witnesses, together with the time and place of the hearings, is given below. Additional witnesses may be announced later. SCHEDULE OF HEARINGS Wednesday, July 9, 10:00 a.m., Room 6226 New Senate Office Building Harold B. Finger Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology, Department of Housing and Urban Development Charles L. Biederman Vice President, Technical Services, Levitt & Sons Corp., New York Wednesday, July 23, 10:00 a.m., Auditorium, New Senate Office Building (G-308) Ezra Ehrenkrantz President, Building Systems Development Inc., and Associate Professor of Architecture, University of California, Berkeley Peter Terzick General Treasurer, United Brotherhood of Carpenters, AFL-CIO Thursday, July 24, 10:00 a.m., Auditorium, New Senate Office Building (G-308) James R. Price Chairman of Board, and George E. Price President, National Homes Corporation, Lafayette, Ind. Richard Rosen President, Urban Systems, Inc., Boston, Mass. INDUSTRIALIZED HOUSING WEDNESDAY, JULY 9, 1969 CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON URBAN AFFAIRS OF THE JOINT ECONOMIC COMMITTEE, The Subcommittee on Urban Affairs met, pursuant to call, at 10 a.m., in room 6226, New Senate Office Building, Hon. Richard Bolling (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Present: Representatives Bolling, Moorhead, Widnall, and Brown; and Senator Percy. Also present: James W. Knowles, director of research; George D. Krumbhaar, Jr., senior minority economist. Chairman BOLLING. The subcommittee will be in order. Today, the Subcommittee on Urban Affairs of the Joint Economic Committee begins public hearings on industrialized housing to provide information supplementing that contained in the compendium of expert papers on this subject which the subcommittee released on April 28 of this year. During these hearings we will receive testimony from the Department of Housing and Urban Development as well as from a number of those actually working in the industry to put housing production on an industrialized basis. At the outset, I wish to express complete confidence that the architects, engineers, management experts, and other experts of this country are fully capable of solving the technical problems involved in industrializing housing production. Indeed, I suspect most people would think it rather silly to express any doubts on this subject in a nation whose skills are sufficient to transport astronauts to the moon and return. We, therefore, assume that there will be technical problems to solve but that they can be solved if we have the will and devote the needed organization and resources to the effort. There will be some problems, of course, connected with institutional and organizational barriers for success. Among other areas, these probably will concern building codes, zoning legislation, financial arrangements, and tax structures. In this general line of thought we will be interested especially in the kind of organizational or institutional innovations which might be suggested to produce improved results in the long run. For example, will success depend upon evolving new communitywide development corporations to take on the problems of organizing and financing a complete program for the entire area, cluding the necessary housing? in Most of the attention in the past seems to have been given to the technical and institutional or organization problems, but this subcommittee's emphasis on the longer-run and on a more rounded view (1) of the urban complex of problems suggests the importance of taking a close look at the sociological, psychological, and esthetic or cultural aspects of community development on a large scale. We must ask ourselves what kind of community will be created, not merely how many houses we can or should build. Finally, on a more mundane level, there are some practical questions about costs: How much does it cost by present techniques to make available a modern, clean, appropriately equipped dwelling unit for a typical family? What does this require by way of a monthly charge on the budget of the occupant family, whether they are owners or renters? How much can this charge be reduced by industrializing the process of producing houses? How much of the monthly cost for housing services goes to provide the site on which the structure is to be erected? How much for financing, for taxes, for insurance, for labor and materials that go into the structure, and for the capital employed in the construction cycle? How would each of these be affected by a different system of housing production? What are the barriers to achieving reductions in each of these categories of cost? How would the whole process be affected by taking a longer perspective and a communitywide view of the home production process? Our first witness this morning is Mr. Harold B. Finger, Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology, Department of Housing and Urban Development; he will be followed by the vice president for technical services of Levitt & Sons Corp., Mr. Charles L. Biederman. We are grateful to both of you for taking the time to appear as our first witnesses in these hearings. Mr. Finger, we will hear from you first. You may proceed in your own way. STATEMENT OF HAROLD B. FINGER, ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY, DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT Mr. FINGER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. We sent to the committee this morning copies of the statement I will present. I understand that they are being brought up now. I am pleased to appear before you today to discuss industrialized housing. This is a subject that I find generates very clear reactionspro and con-in industry, in labor, in user groups, in communities, among governmental officials. Over the years, there has been movement toward increased reliance on industrialization, even in what we still refer to as our conventional home building systems. By industrialization here, I mean factory-built components and subsystems. Roof trusses, preassembled window systems, kitchen cabinets, prefitted and preassembled doors are examples. Precast concrete wall sections such as those used to form the outside skin of the building in which the Department of Housing and Urban Development, for example, is located are also seeing increased use. Mobile homes and sectionalized modules made of either wood or of concrete are receiving increased attention in the marketplace. Numerous examples exist in the FHA files of Structural Engineering Bulletins on systems developed through the mobile home industry concepts, of panelized systems, and of sectionalized housing. |