City Council members are looking at the possibility of allowing modular homes inside the city limits.

It’s an interesting idea to help solve the city’s housing crunch. Homes are expensive as the supply of good homes for sale is far outnumbered by people looking for well maintained homes. Many of the homes a family would look at buying on the market right now are either rental units or homes that need major updates — electrical work, roof, heating or cooling systems — as well as cosmetic touch-ups.

“There’s plenty of housing in the city, but not “great quality housing stock,” said Crystal Surdyk, city development director. “There’s a lot of work that needs to be done on what we have.”

Modular housing would require changes to state law and city zoning ordinances before becoming a reality in Jamestown, so it’s not as if the solution discussed this week by Surdyk and City Council members will happen tomorrow. And that’s a good thing, because simply allowing modular homes in Jamestown requires thought and planning — and the most recent city housing plan mentions nothing of modular housing.

Housing stock made some improvement in terms of value from 2010 through 2017, the time between the first Neighborhood Revitalization Plan by czbLLC and the 2017 update by the same group. Much of the work on neighborhoods has been done by the Jamestown Renaissance Corporation, which was charged with implementing the 2010 plan. The 2010 Neighborhood Revitalization Plan does state sites that become available through demolition should add new housing stocks at competitive, market rate prices. It also states new construction should be accompanied with the removal of excess low-quality housing. The 2017 progress report has recommendations for properties that should be acquired, demolished, rehabilitated or the subject of proactive code enforcement, but the recommendations don’t deal with building new housing. Further, the report cautions against further concentrating poverty in areas of the city with stagnant housing investment by building affordable housing units.

Jamestown needs new, modern housing stock. But the last thing anyone wants to see is a glut of housing like Jamestown had decades ago where home values plummeted and homes remained on the market for months at a time because there was too much supply and not enough demand. And, as czbLLC officials have noted twice since 2010, adding new housing stock has to be done the right way.

Modular housing may be a piece of Jamestown’s housing puzzle — but the ideas in the czbLLC plans and reports should be kept in mind as city officials consider modular housing.