Housing Revolution in Taos

00:00:00 [Speaker 1] When it comes to building affordable houses and towers, Jonah Reynolds will tell you that there are only three words that really matter, sustainable, sustainable, and sustainable.
00:00:13 [Speaker 1] Reynolds, the son of Michael Reynolds, who gave us the off grid earthships of the seventies, is owner of Pangea Design Build The company recently began building seven homes with a three d printer, a method Jonah Reynolds is convinced will or should, anyway, dominate home construction around the world for reasons Reynolds will explain later.
00:00:36 [Speaker 1] Reynolds’ three d printer Chamisa Verde project is eventually expected to result in a community of about 200 what are considered affordable homes, all built with a three d printer.
00:00:48 [Speaker 1] Homes are expected to cost between 180 and $200,000.
00:00:54 [Speaker 1] Qualified buyers are expected to be able to walk in the door with help from the city for about fifty eight thousand dollars with a mortgage payment of around a thousand dollars a month.

00:01:04 [Speaker 1] Before we get into the details of how three d houses are printed and whether you might qualify to purchase such a home or whether you even would want one, Reynolds gives us a little insight into his personal vision of the role logic, appropriateness, and even compassion play in the construction of sustainable affordable houses and what all that has to do with a three d printer.

00:01:31 [Speaker 2] When you’re designing things that need to be sustainable, you’re always looking at your resources and how many resources you have, both materials and money.
00:01:41 [Speaker 2] That is at the root of things and so from that stems a lot.
00:01:47 [Speaker 2] One of them is what is appropriate, what is not appropriate, what is logical and that’s really at the center of designing and building things that are sustainable or regenerative and so when you follow that at the root, affordable housing comes out of it, whether it’s small, like three bedrooms and a thousand square feet for the town of Taos at Trimisa Verde or if it’s 10,000 square feet and eight bedrooms.
00:02:16 [Speaker 2] It makes sense to do what is most helpful and appropriate for the people and the planet.
00:02:23 [Speaker 2] You put that together with feeling empath and passionate and caring for it also, and it’s a really good combination.

00:02:31 [Speaker 2] How do we do that in such an extremely tight budget?
00:02:36 [Speaker 2] That’s three d printing because it’s really fast, and I can still get a building that that performs in terms of heating and cooling.
00:02:43 [Speaker 2] These buildings, there’s not enough room in the budget for the off grid systems and so we’ve adjusted how buildings that are built with three d printing are designed and fortunately we’re able to design something that’s compatible with the printer as well as compatible with the budget and compatible with something that is actually affordable for locals in Taos.

00:03:09 [Speaker 1] Draws from the past as well as keeping his eye on the future.

00:03:13 [Speaker 2] Fortunately, we here in Taos live in a place that has had people here for over a thousand years, the Red Willow people, and and the way they’ve lived and their knowledge and their culture.
00:03:25 [Speaker 2] And so we wanna look backwards in time and learn as much as we can and apply that to what we do today so that we can, hopefully, if we’re open and learning and aware enough, we can say, yeah, we’re doing things available for people some generations from now.

00:03:43 [Speaker 1] In terms of what his buildings look like, Reynolds describes a home that is simple but quite pleasing to the eye.

00:03:51 [Speaker 2] The look is the textured concrete.
00:03:54 [Speaker 2] So it’ll look like a bunch of rows of concrete with a beautiful texture.
00:03:59 [Speaker 2] They’re just simple square rectangle buildings because that’s the most affordable, and that’s the finish.
00:04:06 [Speaker 2] So we’re gonna water seal the walls on the inside and the outside, but that’s it.
00:04:10 [Speaker 2] Once they’re printed, the walls are.

00:04:12 [Speaker 1] Taos city planner Bill Evans gives us an insight into who was expected to be living in these homes.

00:04:18 [Speaker 3] We wanna get these homes, you know, to the mom and the dad and the couple of the children that never had an opportunity for their own place.
00:04:27 [Speaker 3] They’re stuck in a high rent cycle and it just doesn’t get any better.
00:04:30 [Speaker 3] Here they have something, to come home to that they can call theirs and it fits in their budget.

00:04:35 [Speaker 1] If you’re hearing this in Santa Fe and are now dreaming of moving into one of these three d printed homes, you need not apply.
00:04:43 [Speaker 1] That explains the qualifications.

00:04:45 [Speaker 3] You gotta be living in Taos County and working in Taos County for five years.
00:04:51 [Speaker 3] We don’t want these getting sold outside.
00:04:54 [Speaker 3] We want them to come to the people here in our neighborhoods that we see every day and let them have the first opportunity at these homes.
00:05:01 [Speaker 3] We will allow people to apply that make up to about 71,000.
00:05:07 [Speaker 3] This is not, someone to come along and buy all seven of them and make them short term rentals.

00:05:12 [Speaker 1] To control the continued affordability of homes over a a long period of time, Evans says the city has tacked on numerous deed restrictions.

00:05:22 [Speaker 3] We have deed restrictions in place that will not allow that.
00:05:26 [Speaker 3] You know, just as a person, a family deserves to get into this home, they also deserve to move on if they like.
00:05:34 [Speaker 3] And we have first right to buy that home back.

00:05:38 [Speaker 1] The city?

00:05:38 [Speaker 3] Yes.
00:05:38 [Speaker 3] Because we want to then be able to turn that right back around for affordable housing for somebody else.
00:05:44 [Speaker 3] You can make a 100 homes for 200 people if you stick to that over the years.

00:05:50 [Speaker 1] The city also picks up the cost of the land, the 5% down payment, and cost of water and sewer hookups.
00:05:56 [Speaker 1] These costs must be returned to the city when the home is sold.
00:06:01 [Speaker 1] To say that Reynolds has high hopes with the three d printing of homes would be the understatement of understatements.

00:06:10 [Speaker 2] I think this is gonna change things more than the Internet has.
00:06:13 [Speaker 2] I know that says a lot.
00:06:14 [Speaker 2] Well, it’s it’s fast and time is money.
00:06:18 [Speaker 2] So it just it allows these buildings to go up faster and and much more affordably.
00:06:24 [Speaker 2] When designers and contractors are looking at budgets, you know, that makes all the difference.

00:06:30 [Speaker 2] You know, like, right now, I can’t think of a reason not to print every single building.

00:06:35 [Speaker 1] If you’d like more information about three d printed homes, you can visit Reynolds’ website at angiabuild.com/3d-printingforwardslash.
00:06:47 [Speaker 1] For KSFAR Radio News, Dennis Carroll.