Finally! Tiny home subdivisions and developments are becoming a reality. The problem with the tiny house movement has always been- where do you put them? Because for most people, living is more than just a roof over your head, however small, but it’s important to be part of a community. If you are going to live in such a small space, it’s nice to have some shared resources, like a meeting room or a laundry. Everybody in the industry knows this; tiny home pioneer Jay Shafer calls it ” a contagious model for responsible, affordable, desirable housing.”
But zoning codes across America prohibit them, concerned about property values and identifying them with trailer parks. Now it appears that it is finally happening. Rod Stambaugh, founder and president of Sprout Tiny Homes, has a plan described in Outside Magazine: …to build the world’s first tiny-home subdivision and revolutionize the rural economy in the process.
. © A sprout tiny home He decided that more homeowners paying property taxes and utility bills can only be a good thing for his community. Boneyard Studios. How tiny house communities can work for both the haves and the have nots. Ryan Mitchell lives and breathes tiny houses. He has been running the popular website The Tiny Life for the past five years; is currently planning a tiny house conference for approximately 120 people in Charlotte, N.C., where he lives; and has written a book on tiny living that’s due to be published in July. To top it off, he recently finished construction on a tiny house of his very own. Mitchell’s dream, however, is a community of tiny houses. When asked what that would look like, he describes a grouping of mini-cottages around a large communal structure, which would include space to have shared meals, shows, and workshops.
How idyllic! Nevertheless, clusters of little huts in line with Mitchell’s vision are beginning to show their heads around the United States – though sprung from perhaps a different direction than he and the legions of tiny house followers might expect. The majority of tiny houses are, in fact, built on wheels. Alek Lisefski’s tiny house sits behind a larger one. When it comes to tiny houses, it takes a village. Tiny houses are all the rage these days, as people look at the idea of living with less, without a mortgage, without the responsibility that comes with a bigger house. But as Eve Andrews writes in Grist, it's not easy. ...building a tiny house community from scratch is not as simple as it seems.
Local building and zoning restrictions, not to mention securing startup money to buy land, are just a few of the obstacles to achieving a cottage-laden utopia. © The Tiny Project Most in the tiny house world try and stress the differences between tiny homes and trailers; one of our favorite tiny homesteaders, Alek Lisefski, is quoted saying Some people sort of fail to grasp that living in a house like this is the exact opposite of living in an RV,” he says. But in fact, they are in almost every case, trailers, built on chassis, and trailers go in trailer parks for legal and practical reasons. . © Sustain Not everyone wants this; as I wrote in Why Hasn't The Tiny House Movement Become A Big Thing? How tiny house communities can work for both the haves and the have nots. Top 5 Biggest Barriers To The Tiny House Movement. I was driving into work today when the idea came to me for this article.
Why does it have to be so difficult to achieve the life so many of us would love to live? There are no simple answers to our reasons, but we need to face them head on. Since I don’t like to focus on the negatives too much, my next post will be on some of the possible solutions and approaches to overcome these barriers. UPDATE: Here are the solutions to these: Part 1 and Part 2 Land One of the largest hurdles for people wanting to live in a Tiny House is access to land. Loans At this point, banks don’t feel that Tiny Houses are a viable option because they don’t have a good resale value. Laws Despite the approach of putting a tiny house on trailer, this isn’t the magic bullet that it is often claimed to be. Social Pressures In our society today, bigger is better, more is better, we are conditioned to want more and more stuff. Fear This ties into a few of the above points, but is none the less a real barrier. Related Posts. Why Hasn't The Tiny House Movement Become A Big Thing? A Look At 5 Big Barriers.
© Sustain TreeHugger has been covering tiny houses for years; I even own one, the remains of a previous career trying to promote the idea of the tiny house. Notwithstanding the success of people like Jay Shafer and his Tumbleweed Tiny House line, it is still an incredibly tiny niche. What's holding it back? Over at The Tiny Life, Ryan Mitchell lists the Top 5 Biggest Barriers To The Tiny House Movement; the first three L's are well known to me, I am not certain about the last two, and I think he is missing a big one.
Land One of the largest hurdles for people wanting to live in a Tiny House is access to land. Land is expensive, in growing short supply and people want a balance of having land and being close to city or town centers where they can access services, entertainment and employment. One of the main reasons people are interested in tiny houses is that they are relatively cheap. Loans Where I am now, in the middle of nowhere, a minimum of about 550 square feet. Laws Social Pressures. Tiny House Village | Sonoma County. We have been talking with Sonoma County’s zoning department about building a tiny house village. The officials seem to love this idea as much as we do, so we’ve started investigating some of the details involved and taking concrete steps to make it all happen. In many ways, tiny houses work best in concert with other tiny houses and shared amenities.
This is a dream long-shared by many including myself. The place will be zoned as an R.V. park, but will look and feel more like the concept drawings I’m presenting to the left. I’ve used the same design principles that go into each of my tiny house designs to create an environment that feels contained but not confining—vibrant but not at all crowded. This village will be structured as something like a co-op. I have no doubt that this will be the most beautiful "trailer park" in the world. If you would like to receive updates on this project via email: Subscribe to our newsletter DENSITY: 16–22 houses-per-acre LOCATION: Northern California. Napoleon Complex is a Community for the Tiny House Movement.
The Cold, Hard Lessons of Mobile Home U. “Don’t get too hung up on appearances,” Frank Rolfe reminded us as our tour bus made its way to the first of several trailer parks we would visit on a bright Saturday afternoon in Southern California. “Remember, you don’t have to live in these homes.” It was Day 2 of Mobile Home University, an intensive, three-day course on how to strike it rich in the trailer-park business. Seventy-five or so students had signed up for the class, which Rolfe offers every other month in different places around the country. Most of the enrollees weren’t real estate speculators; they were jittery members of a hard-pressed middle class. They were nervous about retirement. Or they were worried about their jobs moving overseas. Or they were making $100,000 a year, maybe even $200,000, but felt the need to earn more. Continue reading the main story ‘The trailer park is people’s last resort, and we recognize that.’
But the most striking aspect of their business is how happy their tenants seem to be.