A new economical trend, "Tiny homes” zoning discussed by Logan County

[June 08, 2016]  LINCOLN - On Wednesday, June 1, 2016, the Logan County Board’s Planning and Zoning Committee held their monthly meeting. Their discussion focused mainly on small footprint homes and on setting up a building codes and standards.

Committee member Dave Blankenship presented the idea of small footprint homes at a P&Z meeting a couple months ago. Blankenship said he would like to “get on board” with the trend of small homes.

Blankenship said he has seen some nice small homes in DeWitt County and would like to “be ahead of the game.”

Zoning Officer Will D’Andrea said the “emerging trend” of small homes comes from groups trying to solve homelessness, be ecological, or downsize housing.

D’Andrea said as he has looked into the small homes trend, there are some questions he has. He said some structures are considered recreational vehicles or campers, which Logan County does not allow to be used as permanent dwellings.

D’Andrea said “there is a struggle with the [small homes] movement” on where put these homes. There can also be problem with hooking up to utilities such as sewer and water. Many do not have laundry facilities. There are some basic issues that would need to be resolved.

D’Andrea said our ordinance has minimum square footage requirements for some zones. In the R1 District where most of the subdivisions are located, there is a “1200 square foot house requirement.” In the R2 District, it is a “1000 square feet” and in R3, it is “800 square feet.”

Blankenship said he would like to have a subdivision ordinance for reduced square footage homes between 400 and 900 square feet. He feels these homes would need to be in a small homes subdivision.

D’Andrea said that subdivision regulations do not dictate what the zoning is and “would not address house size.”

Blankenship said he does not think the small homes need to be “integrated in with other homes.” He said perhaps there could be “stipulations where they could congregate themselves” or “be by themselves” if they are a certain “amount of distance from other housing.”

Blankenship said the ones he has seen in DeWitt County are not in subdivisions.

Committee member Gene Rohlfs said small homes in an area by themselves would satisfy current ordinances.

D’Andrea said that in Ag zoned areas there is “no minimum square footage requirement.” He said, if someone wanted to build a “stick built on foundation small home of 600 square feet, I would check to make sure they had well and septic, and would issue a permit for it.”

Blankenship and committee member Kevin Bateman both said they would rather these home be modular homes than mobile homes.

Blankenship asked if the committee wanted to consider doing a subdivision ordinance strictly for “tiny homes.”

Rohlfs said the committee should look at the demand for small homes before doing a tiny homes ordinance.

Committee considering Building Codes and Standards

For the past couple of months, the committee has also been considering setting specific building codes and standards.

Bateman said he wants a structure where the person getting a permit from D’Andrea would “have to go through a minimum of two or possibly three stages before they get an occupancy permit.” Bateman wants certified inspections of the foundation, structure, and electricity.

Rohlfs said he feels an inspection of plumbing should also be included “to protect anyone buying property.”

Blankenship said traditional home inspectors are “primarily visual” and may not cover areas such as plumbing. He said occupancy permits are not as good as inspections for plumbing done by a “plumbing inspector.” Blankenship said the county could just use part time inspector on an “as needed basis” for inspections.

Rohlfs asked whether zoning ordinances would limit inspections because people would say, “we are only going to satisfy what the county is requiring.”

D’Andrea said there would be a question of what code is being used.

Blankenship said he feels minimum standards should be set for areas such as electric and plumbing. He said if more standards like the Building Officials and Code Administrators (BOCA) and National Frame Building Association (NFBA) standards were adopted, it “could open a can of worms.” He said, “These codebooks are very long and hard to comply with.”

However, Blankenship suggested that minimum standards would be easy to set and enforce.

D’Andrea said he will continue to research standards in other areas.

The next Planning and Zoning meeting will be Wednesday, July 6, 2016 at 6:00 p.m.

[Angela Reiners]