Government’s HUD Rule Prohibits Use of a Tiny House as Your Primary Residence

A proposed rule by the Housing and Urban Development Department
(HUD) on February 9, 2016, threatens “full-time RV’ers,” and further
stymies those seeking to build their tiny house as a street legal home.

The Big Issue About Tiny Houses

Tiny houses on wheels (THOWs) are increasingly adopting the term
Recreational Vehicle (RV) for house-like structures on trailers. Whether self-built,
professionally constructed, or among many pre- manufactured models, tiny houses
are too cute to ignore, and have become increasingly larger blips on legal radar screens.

Regardless of how hard their owners try to live “under the radar” in their
little trailer-based homes, many tiny house homeowners face a new
challenge.

“Solve your parking first!”

These are the words I use when opening the conversation about tiny
house design. While this “eyes wide open” approach could crush tiny
house dreams, it is an unfortunate reality. This altogether attractive
form of alternative living may seem simple enough when watched on
TV, but behind the scenes is becoming an increasingly complicated issue
as tiny house homeowners seek places to live legally in their tiny house.

Unfortunately, whether built by homeowners in a do-it-yourself (DIY)
capacity, or purchased as turnkey units, THOWs are largely illegal to
occupy as domiciles or dwellings. Many tiny house enthusiasts cite
interests in simplifying their lives, and aspire to use their tiny houses to
become more self sufficient, mortgage free, and debt free.

Regardless of reasoning and motivation, those who want to build or live
in a tiny house should understand and accept the challenges from the
onset.

The Rub of Wheeled Foundations

Tiny houses fall between the intersection of permitted dwellings on
permanent foundations, industrialized buildings (IB) designated
as manufactured housing (MH), and recreational vehicles (RV) which are
built solely for the purpose of recreation with the benefit of temporary
occupation.

Our unique little structures lack a definition that provides the
legitimacy for legal use as a domicile.

As tiny houses are easily identified by their trailer-based foundations,
building inspectors and zoning officials — known as Authorities Having
Jurisdiction (AHJ) — are put in the position to enforce local laws,
building codes, and zoning ordinances, most of which do not include
any designation for a “tiny house” or “tiny home.”

When it comes to flyovers, whistle blowers, or folks merely asking for
permission after the fact, it is all to common for tiny homeowners to be
greeted by building inspectors who have them legally removed from
their “illegal structures” or are asked to simply move on down the road.

To paraphrase a popular closing time comment: “We don’t care where
you go…. you can’t stay here.”

Big Change for Tiny House Builders

When it comes to seeking an exclusion for occupation of an illegal
building, many suggest their tiny house is an RV. Okay… that’s fine… you
can “store” your RV on most private properties, but you can’t “live” in a
recreational vehicle in many jurisdictions as it’s akin to illegal camping.

Further, due to insurance requirements, many campgrounds and RV
parks only allow for certified RVs meeting NFPA 1192 for travel trailers
less than 8.5′ wide, or ANSI 119.5 for units over 8.5′ in width (and less
than 400 square feet). Similarly, tiny houses are sent packing at mobile
home parks where zoning regulations may prohibit living in recreational
vehicles on their premises.

Sadly, while many DIY tiny home builders have eschewed the adoption
of certified safety standards like NFPA 1192 and ANSI 119.5, many large
scale professional tiny house companies have adopted these standards.

To date, the coveted seals have become a defining characteristic of
quality and safety for the production of certified recreational vehicles.
Additionally, a few tiny house friendly municipalities have adopted the
ANSI 119.5 as their building code for accessory dwelling units (ADU) and
secondary dwellings.

And, hot off the presses, companies involved in RV manufacturer
certification, like Pacific West and Associates (PWA), have developed
self-certification programs designed to provide individual units — not
just the manufacturer — with a code-based methodology for planning,
inspection, and approval throughout the tiny house
construction process. Through photos and text-based records,
documented details are reviewed, returned with changes, and — ideally
— eventually approved.

Use of Building Code Poses a Hazard

The primary goal in any building effort should be the construction of a
safe structure that doesn’t pose a hazard to its occupants or neighbors,
whether physical (building code) or fiscal (property values). For tiny
house builders, this ideal is embodied by the issuance of a certification
seal that is affixed to the trailer-based structure one might call a “tiny
house.”

The newly proposed rule, as defined on FederalRegister.org, that
endangers the use of RV standards for building tiny houses is based on a
recommendation adopted by the Manufactured Housing Consensus
Committee (MHCC) which would define a recreational vehicle as:

One built on a vehicular structure, not certified as a manufactured
home, designed only for recreational use and not as a primary
residence or for permanent occupancy, and built and certified in
accordance with either the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA)
1192-15 or American National Standards Institute (ANSI) A119.5-09
consensus standards for recreational vehicles.

HUD is now adopting the MHCC’s recommendation, but modifying it to
require certification with the updated ANSI standard, A119.5-15, and by
including a requirement that units claiming the ANSI A119.5-15
exemption prominently display a notice stating that the unit is designed
only for recreational use, and not as a primary residence or permanent
dwelling.

Now, it seems, this little seal of approval is no longer the safeguard we
hoped it would become. Commiserating complaints and claims of
conspiracy aside, the proposed rule is a punch-in-the-gut from big
business to the bootstrapping tiny house industry. “Can’t we all get
along?”

Why All the Fuss?

The prospective government ruling about tiny houses is a huge game changer, and comes a time when there were glimmers of hope for US-based tiny house builders and home owners.

It was, however, only a matter of time until the government’s
Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) stepped into the
game and squashed our tiny house hopes of using the RV
designated ANSI code as the prescriptive standard for building tiny
houses. By it’s very definition:

ANSI 119.5 is the Recreational Park Trailer Standard used by
manufacturers of park model recreational vehicles (PMRVs), and they
are strictly for recreational use, never to be used as a domicile.

Despite their pledge to continue seeking approval by HUD to allow for
park model trailers (PMRV) to be used as domiciles when absorbing the
now defunct Recreational Park Trailer Industry Association (RPTIA), the
Recreational Vehicle Industry Association (RVIA) must protect the
interests of its constituency in the manufacture and sale of
vehicles used for recreational purposes.

Regardless of a perception of difference in quality, the prices of RVs
would skyrocket overnight if RV manufacturers had to seek government
approval for vehicles that might be used as domiciles. Further, few tiny
house builders could afford to face the rigors of becoming authorized
facilities for manufactured homes.

These positions are all understandable, but there must be room
somewhere in the seemingly anachronistic crypt of codes for this new
fangled form of small structure.

Unlocking the “Tiny House”

Regardless of the newly imposed challenges, two things stand in our
way, and are the keys to legally living in tiny houses in the future:

Legitimization – A definition of a Tiny House should define how tiny
houses differ from existing classifications of recreational vehicles,
manufactured housing, and homes on permanent foundations. Along
with the differentiators are the similarities they share in the need for
clearly defined best practices and building standards that put safety first
in the construction of a Tiny House. Due to existing interests that will be
staunchly protected by professional associations of existing industries,
tiny house guides may need to be a hybrid of building codes. We hope to
see the simplicity of the ANSI 119.5 leveraged, along with best practices
for domiciles as defined in the much more voluminous International
Residential Code. Done right, all parties of interest — recreational
vehicle, manufactured housing, and home builders — could adopt the
use of these standards for construction, thereby opening up a new
markets and meeting the demand of tiny house enthusiasts.

Legalization – Acceptance of the newly defined Tiny House as a legal
form of dwelling, which could then be sought for use on private
property, tiny house communities, pocket neighborhoods, and myriad
forms of hosing developments. Thanks to the “on wheels” nature of tiny
houses, a variance to existing zoning ordinances could be applied for as
a conditional use permit, along with a period through which
municipalities could use specific requests as test cases for long term
tiny house habitation.

In the end, these goals — legitimization of the building type, and
legalization for use as domiciles in specific areas — poses a positive
change for all involved. We are feeling the growing pains of building a
new industry, and will either fail and all into the annals of history as an
interesting architectural trend, or rise to the challenge of defending our
right to live simply in a small structure.

Here’s hoping many of you are up to facing the challenge.

IMAGE: Courtesy of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development