Planning for tiny houses

ABSTRACT

The tiny house movement is an emerging trend towards building very small houses. It originated in the United States of America in the late 1990s, largely in response to housing affordability issues and a desire to live more sustainably. It is increasingly popular in Australia yet remains a niche market largely due to non-recognition within planning schemes and inconsistent local laws. Nonetheless, tiny houses could address some pressing urban housing problems, such as housing affordability and energy inefficiencies of poorly designed, large suburban houses. This paper reports on the development of the Tiny House Planning Resource for Australia, 2017, a collaborative report aimed at assisting planners, policy makers and the wider community to better understand the emerging tiny house movement and the model’s potential to contribute to greater choice in housing supply and diversity. It uses a case study focussing on South East Queensland (SEQ) to explore councils’ appetite and readiness regarding some tiny house options. It concludes tiny houses have significant potential to be a catalyst for infill development in the ‘missing middle’, either as tiny house villages, or by altering land use planning frameworks to allow both homeowners and tenants to situate well designed tiny houses on suburban lots.

KEYWORDS:

• Tiny houses
• missing middle
• granny flats
• housing affordability

Acknowledgements

The authors would also like to acknowledge the work of the following people: Lara Nobel, Andrew Carter and Fiona Caniglia.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 A granny flat (or accessory dwelling unit) is a small secondary dwelling, either connected or at a short distance from the main house, commonly used to house adult children or elderly parents (i.e. granny)