I like to read about the progress of the "Tiny Homes" movement in the Bay Area. It is such a fascinating concept to allow more people to have a home, even if it is a small one, since the alternative for many is often to have none at all.
There have been several newspaper articles written recently on the subject as the concept applies to the homeless population of San Jose. This is a movement that tries to mitigate the scarcity of land in this part of the Country and allow more people to have a home, albeit a small one, instead of living on the streets.
The latest articles I read were in the
San Jose Mercury News by Barbara Marshman, recounting the back and forth in the movement at the level of the San Jose City Council. Many forces at are work here, among them a concern and push back from local residents, afraid of the proximity of new neighbors living in this kind of housing arrangement, but also a quest to find a solution to the homeless situation in the County. A follow up article on 12/13/17 by
Ramona Giwargis reports that the City Council voted 9-2 to build one tiny home village of 40 units.
Another push back is from people advocating that faster results can be had for the benefit of homeless residents, with the money allocated to the project, in the form of a program to lease existing apartments (to house some of the homeless people).
Even if it is not for the homeless population, Tiny Homes can be such an attractive concept for reducing one's carbon footprint and simplifying one's life, or for vacationing. I believe there is a lot of future for this concept in an environment like the Bay Area where there is so little land to build new housing. With some zoning changes, I can see that whole developments could be built for tiny homes: cheaper homes to buy, with smaller land, allowing home ownership to a whole range of population currently coping with the cost of housing, with the possibility to create interesting forms of new residential neighborhood arrangements. It is very easy to imagine that smaller homes can present various advantages to several subsets of the population.
More information can be found on several web sites, among which:
Tumbleweed Tiny Houses,
Architecture Art Design, and for the Bay Area,
Delta Bay Tiny Houses, claiming to be the only Tiny House Community in Northern California.
Thankyou for reading.
Francis
Silicon Valley real estate specialist
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I believe there would be a large demand for small homes like these, located on small lots. The cost surely would be more accessible than the normal price of a small house on the traditional 5000 sq.ft piece of land, in our crowded local cities and counties. A lot of the value is in the land in the Bay Area, and with this type of arrangement you can envision a subdivision of many smaller lots, costing a fraction of the current prices.
