Big issue with ‘tiny houses’
North Smithfield goes so far as to pass amendment that prohibits pint-size starter homes in all zones
NORTH SMITHFIELD — In an era when the cost of owning a home only seems to be going up, local officials, at least, don’t seem to favor one of the novel options for getting people started in home ownership – a tiny house, as they are more commonly known.
The North Smithfield Town Council, in fact, acting on recommendations by the town’s ordinance committee and planning board, recently approved an amendment to the local zoning ordinance prohibiting tiny houses as an allowed use in all zones, just as it already prohibits mobile homes.
There are currently no mobile home parks in North Smithfield nor recreational vehicle parks where a tiny house owner might pull up and set up residence in North Smithfield at least temporarily.
In fact, tiny houses haven’t yet become the rage in Rhode Island with only a few being offered for sale in the state online, including one in Westerly and another partially completed tiny house in Lincoln that would also need a place to be located, according to its posting. There is an online group, Tiny House R.I., that lists a membership of 285 interested people and holds occasional meetings on homes of up to 400 square feet built on wheels.
So, with no major proposal for tiny home development currently confronting local planning and zoning officials, why did North Smithfield act to ban them entirely, you might ask?
Town Administrator Gary Ezovski explained the town’s reluctance to consider the new housing option was primarily one of potential lost property tax revenues and an added concern that potentially temporary residents would have less involvement in town life.
“It is trying to preclude development that isn’t favorable to the town,” Ezovski said of the town
“No one is saying that you have to build a house that is 5,000 square feet, but it has to be a house. We want it to be a real house. They need to qualify as a true home.” —North Smithfield Town Administrator Gary Ezovski
council’s second vote confirming the amendment to local zoning that both defines a tiny house in the ordinance and then lists it as a use not allowed in all zones.
“It’s not a real building. They are on wheels. Are they houses, I don’t think they are,” Ezovski said of the small, but in some cases high tech, living accommodations.
“No one is saying that you have to build a house that is 5,000 square feet, but it has to be a house,” Ezovski said. “We want it to be a real house. They need to qualify as a true home,” he said.
In that sense, a traditional home ranging in price from $200,000 to $400,000 or more, is built on a foundation on a parcel of land approved for development by the town and then becomes part of the town’s taxable property generating the revenue needed to support local services like the police department, fire and rescue services and local schools.
A tiny house, which, unlike a recreational vehicle which might be used just weeks at a time, could allow a single person or a couple to stay in their small square foot residence most of the year, even through the winter given the availability of specialized building materials and utility systems. They are of course, built on a steel frame with wheels and can be towed to wherever their owner wants to live.
Ezovski points to the mobility option and size as factors that could keep tiny house owners apart from the community as a whole.
Buying into the town as the owner of a permanent home could represent a strong connection to the town, according to Ezovski. “So people are here and they have an investment within our community and are going to be involved in the community,” he said.
Town Council President John Beauregard also supported the town’s stand on tiny houses after the council’s vote offering that technically the town would want residents “to pay taxes on a home.’’
“It’s not like these are a problem for us right now, it is just trying to stay ahead of it zoning,” he said.
Tracey Powell, a longtime resident of nearby Connecticut and the owner of an ultra-modern, 150-square-foot tiny home she completed with the help of her brother, Trever, and friends in the architectural design community in 2015, has a much different take on tiny houses than what local officials consider them to be.
Powell is still living in her tiny home, Lil’ Lodge, and has it located at an RV Park in New Hampshire. The set-up works for her as a busy architectural consultant in Boston who travels a lot and likes to get outdoors easily when she is home.
Lil’ Lodge made news in Rhode Island back in 2015 while it was located at Dryvit Systems Inc., in West Warwick, the company that manufactured its special light weight insulated wall panels. The home was also put on display at the Architecture Boston expo in the fall of 2015.
Powell, who remains a tiny house advocate and hosts an online forum for Greater Boston tiny house enthusiasts, said she spent approximately $65,000 to design and construct Lil’ Lodge with her supporters on the project and has continued to update it while living in it since.
Although some might dismiss tiny house living without knowing much about it, Powell said tiny homes are a growing option favored by singles and millennials who may not be able to afford the cost of buying a larger home.
“Tiny houses are really amazing,” Powell said of her own choice for housing.
The costs of foundation built homes continue to skyrocket, she said, and at the same the demographics for single person households in the United States also remain on the rise. Today single person households make up nearly 50 percent of the population according to the last U.S. Census, she said.
“I’m 40 and living as a single person,” she explained. “Most of us can’t afford to buy a home that is a quarter of a million dollars for a home or a condo,” she said. Some young adults today see tiny homes as an alternative to those high residential costs and also as opportunity to pay off the high loans costs of an education at the same time. The expense of a tiny home can be covered under the same lending options used for buying a recreational vehicle and a place to locate it found on a family member’s property, the purchase of a small lot, or as in Powell’s case the rental of an RV campsite at a $300 to $400 monthly cost. The better RV campgrounds offer full utility services that allow hook up of the tiny homes sewer line connections and electrical and water services.
Powell’s Lil’ Lodge is small at 150-square-feet, about the size of a cruise ship cabin, but its design makes good use of the available space while still offering furnishings such as a washer and dryer, and a dishwasher.
Although she doesn’t own land for Lil’ Lodge at the moment, Powell said she doesn’t mind locating it at an RV park. “I grew up with RVs, we had several of them, so it is not something that is unusual to me,” she said.
Powell travels a lot for her job as an architectural consultant and that reduces her need for more living space and home maintenance time to a degree. “You could want it a little bigger for full-time living depending on what your intentions and lifestyle are,” she said. “I like to spend a lot of time outside, hiking and biking like a majority of us,” Powell said.
Scott Wolf, the executive director of Grow Smart RI, is not an advocate of tiny houses specifically since Grow Smart focuses on housing affordability in much a broader sense, but he too would suggest a different stance for North Smithfield on the topic.
“I think that with the problems of housing affordability we have in the state, we should be offering as many options for housing and home development that we can, and tiny houses are one of those options,” he said.
A tiny house could be attractive to a young person just starting out in home ownership, Wolf offered, as well as to an older couple thinking of downsizing from a larger home.
And while some communities may be opposed to such a housing alternative, Wolf said he finds it “ironic” at times that communities who promote the larger, traditional housing developments as the way to meet their housing needs also create housing more likely to bring in families in need of schools and other municipal services.
“If a community is concerned about the number of school-aged children that come with new homes, they should be embracing tiny houses,” he said.
A concern for all communities, he said, should be that of the affordability of their housing stock.
“We have a lot of people in Rhode Island without housing choices because their access to affordable homes is limited,” Wolf said. “We should be trying to expand the options of housing in the state and not limiting the options for housing in the state,” Wolf said.