DELAND, Fla. – DeLand is considering allowing tiny-house communities as a way to bring more housing options — and affordable housing options at that — to the city.
The city wants to expand options for people who either can’t afford a traditional house or prefer to live minimally. Tiny homes can range anywhere from $50,000 to $300,000.
DeLand is currently drafting rules on where and how tiny homes could be built.
“The planning staff has done a lot of work researching what other communities and other states have done so there will be standards of what they look like,” Mayor Chris Cloudman said.
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Cloudman said the city is considering allowing the tiny houses around the downtown DeLand area.
“We’ve looked at a slightly different variation of townhouses or condos — in kind of a village format,” Cloudman said.
The tiny homes would likely have to be on a permanent foundation — not on wheels — and typically range from 200 to 600 square feet. They would also have to meet all of Florida’s building codes for plumbing and electrical.
“You could have a single tiny home on your property and help either an aging parent or even a child just starting out be able to still live at home but be more independent,” Cloudman said.
The Neighborhood Center in DeLand sees this as an opportunity to help more people. The center helps people experiencing homelessness and works to prevent it.
“It would allow us to develop an area behind our bridge shelter to put transitional housing,” the center’s CEO Savannah-Jane Griffin said.
The center is looking to use shipping containers to create a small tiny home community right next to the shelter.
“There’s so many unique ways to have these containers created and they’re really lovely so we’re planning to put nine of them on an open lot behind our Bridge Shelter where people coming out of the shelter can then stay in the transitional housing for one to two years,” Griffin said.
The tiny homes proposal will go before the city’s planning board on Sept. 10, then head to the city commission on Oct. 6.