tiny house movement

and for many years before that in South Africa.

The last episode, I talked about what I really love about living in my tiny home.

So do go back and listen if you miss that.

However, my lease at Riverside Community where I've been living for over three years ends on the 18th of January.

So I need to be gone from here.

And I've decided to move to Auckland to be close to my daughter.

So that means my tiny home is up for sale.

I've already had a few people ask about it.

And under 400 square feet, they can meet, um, uh, a certification, um, that is, um, that's acce- and so there is a national certification for that, and that's how you do it.

So that's kind of the on- When people talk about tiny homes, people mean different things, you know?

Mm-hmm.

Uh, I, I've seen somebody referring to 800 square feet.

Uh, you need to have a nice bathroom and a shower.

I mean, it's amazing how...

And I, we actually oversize showers in our tiny homes because if you have a nice shower, that lets you get started on the day or finish the day in a real nice environment.

And then they need to be well-insulated because, you know, i- i- no matter what size of the home, if it's too hot in the summer or too cold in the winter, [laughs] that's not gonna be an attractive home.

Listen to Where Is Austin Tice? from NPR's Embedded and BBC Radio 4 on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

We're in Eastern Colorado, where a scrappy father of four is building tiny homes.

Oh my gosh, this is huge inside.

This might be bigger

And it's residential construction, two by four walls, R15 insulation, a metal roof, and a wood exterior painted green.

Vanderwerf started BHV Adventures, whose motto is live boldly, live small.

In addition to building tiny homes, he envisions a network of tiny home communities, inspired by the RV park he owns down the road, where his own tiny home sits.

He calls it Big Ben's.

But, but, but I, I think there's so much more to do with granny flats and I, I think, um, as time goes on and I guess some, uh, I'm hoping some of the rules will start to relax, but I think, you know, once we start getting a bit more ability to kind of build a space that is gonna be suitable for, you know, aging families as well, I think there's, you know, there's, there's so much more to do.

Um, there's also the, the uptick of, you know, tiny homes and homes on, on wheels.

Like they're, they're coming out and they're coming out strong.

There's legislation coming out in council at the moment that's gonna start easing the rules, I suppose, or giving a little bit more guidance on what's allowed for a tiny home, and I think that's gonna be a, a, a big thing.

Mm.

So there's a gray area there and there's a bit of a loophole.

So, so I mean there's, there's, you know, there's things to really pay attention to when it comes to tiny homes and when it comes to, you know, all these secondary dwellings because it's such a, an uncharted space.

I think, I think it's the next, it's the next way to go, I think.

And I applaud those people.

You know, I watch this show, Tiny House, Tiny Houses or whatever.

I applaud the people that go, why do I need all that extra space? In a tiny house, we live closer together where it's a more intimate thing with the family.

I like that.

I like those little houses, by the way.

What's behind, again, is the regulation, is the zoning that allows the tiny home or even just a smaller home to exist.

What gives tiny homes a little bit of a leg up is the fact that it's kind of an impermanent residence.

But some municipalities, especially north of the Mason-Dixon, don't allow them to be in use during the winter season because they're under the RV code.

And they'd say, oh, well, how do we know if the lines are properly insulated and so on? Rather than thinking about how do we make sure that we create more housing in this market? I think the tiny homes and ADUs, which often are tiny homes, you can fill some of that gap.

But we just have a long way to go.

from a zoning perspective and and if you ask me to you know take the velvet off the crystal ball i i think it will happen but i think we're probably still another 10 to 15 years because i think what will have to happen is the younger generation will have to gain uh seats on these zoning boards seats on these you know commissioners and supervisors you know whatever the kind of regional local governing body is in order to see those changes it remains to be seen whether they'll do what past generations have done.

And some of them are completely well-intended, but they just don't understand all the constraints you're working with.

But one of the things that we kept getting hit up with at the time was, what about space for tiny homes on wheels? Will you have places for that? And if you remember post-recession, there were these people building like kind of houses on trailers.

and driving around and parking it in places.

Big on TLC at the time.

Yeah,

exactly.

And so I think tiny homes on wheels are cute.

I think that they're interesting and I think they're crazy,