• ~ Highways, the Department of Taxation and the Department of Air Pollution. A permit to build may then be granted. The cost of these bureaucratic hassles will ultimately be passed on to the consumer. (pp. 21-22) A sum of $1,500 is customariJ.y assumed by commercial builders to be the average, additional amount required to build a house in code-enforced areas. More specifically, total costs of identical houses in two similar northern Illinois towns were recently calculated. Code requirements in one community raised the building costs $2,000 above the costs of building in the other community. When this additional cost was carried by the homeowner over the full term of the mortgage payments (30 years at 7 percent interest) monthly payments were increased by $13.31. Based on the custom of allocating 25 percent of one's budget for housing, an additional $640 of annual income would be required to qualify the owner of one of these homes for a mortgage. The final cost of the house would total an additional $4,790. The National Association of Home Builders has estimated that each $1,000 reduction in the price of a new house would enable an additional 75,000 families to become eligible to purchase needed housing. Presently, two-thirds of the population of this country does not earn enough money to afford the lowest-priced, minimal-but code-enforced-new housing. (p. 24) The National Commission on Urban Problems maintains that, "The increase in the cost of money has added more to the ultimate cost of a house than any other single item." A rise of a mere 1 percent interest on a $20,000 mortgage increases monthly payments by $15. Nowadays, it is not uncommon for people to pay 10 percent interest on money borrowed to build code-approved housing. Yet, bankers have openly testified in Congressional hearings that their total cost for providing a home mortgage is on the order of 1-1/2 percent. The cost to the bank for making such a loan is only 0.30 percent of this total charge. Loan servicing and administrative expenses amount to 0.50 percent, and only 0.65 percent of the total is expended in determining the risk factor for bank losses through foreclosure. In her classic study of American housing, Edith Elmer Wood had this to say about the money squeeze: "The crux of the housing problem is economic. Under the ordinary laws of supply and demand, it is insoluble. In our modern industrial civilizations, the distribution of income is such that a substantial portion of the population cannot pay a commercial rent, much less a commercial price, for a home fulfilling the minimum health and decency requirements." One may take issue with some of Miss Wood's premises on the basis that they were written in 1931, but remember that banks today issue money for construction loans only on code-approved housing. It is rare, indeed, to find any lending institutions which will loan money to owner-builders, even if they meet code requirements and even if they build in a code-protected area. Generally, a bonded, licensed contractor must be legally committed to the project before institutionally loaned money is made available for a h5>use building project. (p. 27) In these times of "energy crisis," the UBC (Sec. 141 O) and the UHC (Sec. H 701a) require "heating facilities capable of maintaining a room temperature of 70 degrees F. at a point 3 feet cS:::: ~~ 2 D a ~~~ J ·1f~,~~ I. Z.. 3. February/March 1976 RAIN Page 13 above the floor in all habitable rooms." This clause excludes wood heating as an adequate method beca_use, in the words of one building official,". .. a BTU rating cannot be established for wood heat." Rural owner-builders employ wood heaters as their only source of heat, and for this they are often held in violation by building inspectors. Wood is a readily available fuel in many rural environments, and its utilization does not contribute to the depletion of fossil fuels. Codes developed as safeguards for dense urban conditions have been adopted for use in rural areas where people's actions can cause little harm to others. Such overcontrol was never originally intended. Rudolf Miller, founder in 1915 of BOCA, the Building Officials Conference of America, stated the purpose of a building code as follows: "The building laws should provide only for such requirements with respect to building construction and closely related matters as are absolutely necessary for the protection of persons who have no voice in the manner of construction or the arrangement of buildings with which they involuntarily come in contact. Thus, when buildings are comparatively small, are far apart, and their use is limited to the owners and builders of th'em, so that, in case of failure of a any kind that are not a source of danger to others, no necessity for building restriction would exist." (p. 18) rorN. COIT ,.;...~-----'"" ~l'RJC-e MCXJlJLAR. b _. MOtJU OWN(R-IJIJILT Cost per square foot comparing the least expensive of each type of low-cost housing with an owner-built house of comparable caliber. Interest is based on a 20 year loan at 'l°/o. Relative figures are more important than absolute values which will change with time and location. The Code contains a series of well-illustrated case studies of owner-building which show the great cost savings, enthusiasm of the builders, and the possibility of getting more personalized homes through this process. It focuses on young West Coast builders who have been central to recent efforts to get revisions of the codes to allow owner-building and the techniques they've developed to evade political harassment through code "enforcement." In spite of harassment, owner-building still accounts for 40 percent of new housing in rural areas. 4: 5. Squatting by stages. The art of the game is never to make a move which is so drastic as to attract attention. -Architectural Design 8173
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