Thumbs up to tiny homes
Invercargill Mayor Tim Shadbolt is on the hunt for more affordable housing options for residents, with accommodation set to be harder to find and a crisis looming.
Shadbolt visited a ‘‘tiny home’’ at the weekend with deputy mayor Rebecca Amundsen to see what housing could look like in a small space.
The city needed to be thinking of all affordable housing options, Shadbolt said.
‘‘With things like the innercity upgrade, we need more housing for these people that are coming [for work] and it seems to be a crisis. To get rental housing, the price to buy is going up. We’re looking at every alternative.’’
It coincides with the Southland Regional Development Strategy, a Southland-wide response to the challenge of a shrinking population. The goal of the strategy is to have 10,000 more people living in Southland by 2025.
Shadbolt said, as a city, there needed to be more talk about planning into alternative housing options.
‘‘We’d like to see it at least on the table for discussion.
‘‘It [tiny housing] won’t suit everyone, but those who don’t have kids or pets, it’s definitely an alternative option.’’
Personal trainer and tiny home owner James HooperSmith said his home suited him and partner Kate Wilkinson’s lifestyle.
‘‘We just wanted our own space. We don’t have much stuff.’’
Before moving in, HooperSmith said he thought living in a small home might have some issues.
‘‘I kind of thought there might be some teething problems but there wasn’t’’
He said he was not looking back after owning the tiny home. The only downside, he said, was if a tiny home owner wanted more possessions. ‘‘If someone offered me a big home right now I wouldn’t take it. I suppose if you had a lot of toys you might have to get a garage.’’
The couple have been in the home about 15 months and because of the lower cost, had managed to build their home mortgage free.
‘‘We’d been renting for the last wee while and it was just a good opportunity to get a smaller space.’’
The couple had their tiny home built by a Christchurch company.
The build took about 12 weeks and upon completion the home was moved on a truck to its Invercargill location.
Amundsen said looking around the tiny home gave them good ideas for alternative housing. ‘‘I think we definitely need to explore all the options.’’
She said they needed to look into whether tiny homes were practical and cost effective.
There were other rules that could get in the way of building multiple homes on a section, she said.