By Mona Dougani, Queens University News Service
As rents rise and affordable living options rapidly dwindle in Charlotte, one might think the city would welcome the idea of an economical “tiny house village.”
However, the city of Charlotte is not yet prepared to accept that concept. Before that can happen, zoning laws must be changed.
“The biggest setback to building a tiny home village would be the single-family residential standards,” said Maxx Oliver, zoning administration specialist for the City of Charlotte.
In other words, the laws that govern what constitutes an adequate lot for a single-family home.
In most cases, zoning does not allow for more than five single-family homes per acre. What’s more, each home must front a public right-of-way. There are other requirements as well that do not match up well with the idea of a tiny home community.
As long as these requirements remain, the kind of tiny home developments that are making homes more affordable in other parts of the country will not be seen in Charlotte.
The city will not consider changes that will make tiny homes an affordable housing option until it completes the “Unified Development Ordinance (UDO),” a revision of the city zoning code, according to Miles Vaughn, divisions manager of housing services for the City of Charlotte. The ordinance is not scheduled to be completed before Fall 2021.
“I wouldn’t say that the city will never endorse or finance that type of development, but I think it is a process that we are trying to fine–tune,” Vaughn said.
Kevin May, UDO planner and planning project coordinator for the city of Charlotte, agreed.
“Right now, we are keeping an open ear, and it’s an open ear not just to the community and the community’s needs, but it’s also to what forms of development are being desired at the end that would put the product out there.”
The Charlotte Journalism Collaborative is supported by the Local Media Project, an initiative launched by the Solutions Journalism Network with support from the Knight Foundation to strengthen and reinvigorate local media ecosystems.
