Marystown looking to give residents an affordable option with ‘mini-home’ subdivision
The Town of Marystown is hoping to help fill a need for people keen to live in a smaller, more affordable house but would still like to have a home they can call their own.
The answer, says Coun. Mike Brennan, co-chair of Marystown's planning and development committee, is a mini-home subdivision.
The town has done some research in the last couple of years, Brennan said, and discovered a significant number of people in the region are looking to downsize.
Life circumstances change and maintaining even an average-size house can become unmanageable for anyone, particularly single parents and seniors, he said, and mini homes are modern and affordable, and have lower overhead costs.
“That's the people we're looking for,” Brennan said.
“I would not want to see a developer think, oh, this is cool, let's go in and put 50 homes here and I'll rent them all. That's not what we're after.”
Council is proceeding with plans, and a location has been selected off Marine Drive, adjacent to Mt. Vincent Crescent, one of a couple of areas considered, Brennan said, which was chosen because it has an existing right-of-way and room to expand if need be.
“We're waiting now on the engineer drawings, conceptual drawings, and the cost analysis, but it is something that we are definitely progressing to get complete, and we're hoping, in partnership with minihome developers, that they can put their homes there, you'll be able to go look right at them and say, ‘I like that one, I'm going to buy it,'” he said.
Mini homes are long and narrow and range in size from approximately 750 to 1,600 square feet, Brennan said.
“That's the whole idea of the mini home-type lot, is that the subdivision itself will be more suited to that style of home to begin with,” he said. “That's what we're trying to follow.”
MINI MISNOMER
Mini or modular homes are essentially the same, differing in the number of pieces involved.
A mini home is a manufactured single-section house, while modular homes are made up of two or more pre-built sections that are assembled. They come in many designs, and the price varies, depending on a number of factors and options.
Scott Mansfield, vicepresident and chief projects officer for Homeworx Modular Home Systems Inc. in St. John's, an authorized builder for Kent Homes, is not a fan of the “mini home” tag. It's a marketing term that should be “canned,” he says.
“It's a misrepresentation of what the home is,” Mansfield says.
“It's all manufactured housing. Mini home is really a meaningless term. It's manufactured homes, whether it's one piece, two pieces, three pieces. A mini home is built in one piece, a two-story is built in four and a bungalow is built in two.”
No matter the case, buyers get a “fully up-to-code, extremely energy-efficient, functional building,” Mansfield said.
Demand for the homes is high, Mansfield said, and Homeworx has delivered hundreds of them around the province.
“I've got my quota of builds for the year and if I get 20 more people who are interested, it'll be next year before I can service them,” he said.
CHANGING DEMAND
Darren Brake, owner of KSAB Construction Ltd. in Corner Brook, a dealer for Maple Leaf Homes for the past 15 years, says that in his experience, the market for mini homes fluctuates.
“Some years are better than others. In the past two years, it seems to be the phone is ringing a little bit more,” he said.
Brake says mini-home subdivisions are “very attractive.”
"We're seeing some communities where they embrace it and have been successful with it, for sure,” Brake said, citing Deer Lake as an example.
“It makes it affordable on all levels — road construction, house price comes down. It just works. It's the right way to do it,” he says.
Homeworx has been manufacturing homes for 13 years, and Mansfield says the company has had to spend a lot of time educating the public about the industry. The only basis for comparison for many people is the type of dwellings you find in trailer courts.
Manfield says there's no need to keep modular homes separate from others in a town.
“As much progress as we've made, and we've made a lot, there's still this perception in some people's mind that this is somehow a subpar, lesser structure, and it's actually the opposite,” he said.