Maine’s Governor just signed a law giving Tiny Houses on Wheels full occupancy status the same as any single-family home. This opens the floodgates for more types of tiny living units to gain the prize of being able to have someone buy a building lot and put a tiny house or possibly a travel trailer on it as a permanent structure.
In an earlier article, Neighborhood Housing Codes Changing to Include Everything From RVs to Yurts, I presented a scenario for exactly what has happened in Maine.
All these units have to pass are health and safety checks in order to be considered equal to their neighbor’s homes that were built to IRC standards, inspected before, during, and after the homes were completed. Under this new law, tiny homes can have no larger than 400-square-feet of living space and ones on wheels count as dwellings as well.
People with tiny houses will have to follow local zoning rules but a town can no longer deny you having a tiny home with no reason given.
Instead, if a town wants to exclude tiny homes, it will have to adopt specific ordinances prohibiting them.
Yes, there are tiny house factories across the US that build to the “Tiny House” modified IRC standards but most of the others are still built using modified cargo trailers typically bought from Home Depot or Tractor Supply.
The NIMBY people can’t be happy!
Gary Fleisher is the Managing Director and contributor for Modcoach News and Modular Home Coach.
Email at [email protected]
Sign Up to receive the Modcoach News newsletter twice a week
