San Diego leaders are promoting a new way to help solve the local housing crisis: apartment complexes fully constructed inside factories and then transported to a city neighborhood for quick installation.

Such apartments can rent for less than units in new apartment complexes constructed traditionally at a site. That’s because they can be built more quickly and cheaply on factory assembly lines.

Called factory-built housing by city officials, the units are a version of affordable housing that don’t require a government subsidy.

Developers and city officials say rents are often similar to apartment complexes that are 40 or 50 years old, but not enough factory-built complexes have been installed locally for reliable comparisons.

About 2,000 units of factory housing have either been insta

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