What's at stake?
The City of Fresno hosted two ribbon cutting ceremonies — for an affordable housing community and a transitional home campus — on Monday. They also may have introduced residents to a new developer who hopes to make a significant dent in the city’s housing goals.
The City of Fresno took part in a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Monday for a new affordable housing community full of three-bedroom rental homes, while also rolling out the red carpet for a new developer in the region.
The Blythe Village is made up of 67 three-bedroom, two-bathroom modular homes located in west Fresno on 3572 N Blythe Ave., built by Champion Homes.
Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer said he hopes the homes help what the city calls the “missing middle” class of local residents, or people “earning too much to qualify for financial assistance, but not enough to keep up with the rising cost of housing.”
“They simply cannot afford a three-bedroom home,” Dyer said.
Dyer outlined the need for more affordable three-bedroom homes as part of his One Fresno Housing Plan — his roadmap highlighting plans to help increase housing production in the city.
He added that the city committed about $3 million toward the project. City documents show the project’s total cost was around $14.5 million, with development starting around 2024.
The developer behind the housing community is Ted Moon, an investor-turned-developer from Los Angeles, and a man Dyer described as “a visionary,” a “financial guru” and “an innovative home builder,” adding that he’s “somebody I deeply respect,” and who “has found the secret sauce” in housing development.
“Ted Moon is exactly what we need in the City of Fresno,” Dyer said. “He has a housing solution that I think is going to be somewhat of a revelation for developers in our community.”
The traditional “stick” method of developing homes sees the wooden construction take place mostly on top of the grounds the home will be on. Modular development typically sees homes built off-site, pre-fabricated almost like a Lego set before being transported and assembled at its final destination.
Modular developments are touted for their cost efficiency and faster development times, and are typically more affordable than stick-method homes.
The city opened its first modular housing development last year.
Moon said at the ceremony that he became interested in building homes in Fresno after reading the mayor’s roadmap document, and after identifying the city as an area where he could materialize his plan to help combat the local housing crisis.
Fresno County has a shortage of about 35,000 affordable homes, according to a California Housing Partnership report released last year.
“You need to have speed to have social impact,” Moon said.
Chuck Bleft, the director of business development for Champion Homes, told Fresnoland after the ceremony that the project’s total timetable was around 17 months, with six months to build the homes at their site in Lindsay, California.
The price to rent one of these homes hovers around the average for the area, according to Rent Cafe. Moon said the competitive pricing, coupled with the new, increased supply he hopes his team can deliver quickly, should help lower the cost of living in Fresno.
“The market will figure itself out,” Moon said. “The market will adjust if we create the right supply.”
Moon explained in a hypothetical scenario that all of the 92,000 rental households in the city could stand to save $100-200 in rent, about $220 million total annually, if enough housing supply can enter the market this way. He added that the cost savings should trickle down to benefit everyone in the city.
“Beacause that $220 million is reinvested at the grocery store, at a restaurant, with child care services, with other services that require more jobs, that require more business, that require new industry,” Moon said. “That is how you grow.”
Councilmember Annalisa Perea echoed the mayor’s sentiments at the ceremony.
“Mayor Dyer mentioned it already, Ted, but any project you want to do in the future, you have our full support,” Perea said. “You not only set the standard for what manufactured housing can look like, but you raised the bar for anyone coming after you.”
Moon told Fresnoland that his past life involves a career in investment banking, and hedge fund and private equity investment. He said that he sees Fresno as an “undercovered market” compared to bigger cities in California like LA or San Francisco, and that he hopes to build hundreds of homes a year.
He added that a factor that led him to decide to build in Fresno lies close to home — with his wife.
“We were living in LA … and then we actually somehow ended up moving to Fresno and developing these affordable housing communities, because we think there’s a real need for that,” Moon said.
“My wife being from here introduced me to (Fresno),” he added, “I wouldn’t have thought of it otherwise.”
Supportive housing for foster youth opened on Blackstone corridor
The City of Fresno also participated in a ribbon cutting ceremony for City Studios — a 33-unit permanent housing community.
The development, on 3876 N Blackstone Ave, used to be a dilapidated 44-unit Travelodge motel before the city helped convert it into a new space. At the ceremony on Monday, Dyer described the motel as a problem location for the police department, garnering many calls for service.
The project cost about $13.5 million according to city documents, with development starting around 2024.
The Fresno Mission will manage the property, which conveniently neighbors their City Center campus.
