
After 2 years, couple sells tiny home without ever living in it - colinprince
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/tiny-home-big-problems-pouch-cove-couple-1.5468181
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TacticalTable
These kinds of zoning restrictions cause so many more problems than they
resolve. If somebody _wants_ to live in a small home, the law shouldn't get in
their way. They make sense for tenant rights, or home selling, but why impede
someone's personal freedoms?

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mumblemumble
I don't even see them making sense for tenant rights or home selling. Placing
a minimum on the size of apartment someone's allowed to rent to me, or the
size of home I can buy ultimately comes into conflict with my right to decide
how much money I'm willing to spend.

Other housing codes - say, requiring the wiring not to be a fire hazard - make
a lot of sense as a way to protect me in situations where I can't reasonably
be expected to have the expertise necessary to assess the situation for
myself. But I am the ultimate authority when it comes to deciding how much
space I need for myself and all my crap.

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hellisothers
I tend to agree with this sentiment but it does sound a lot like the whole “if
people want to sign up to be slaves to Uber because they have no other options
then that is their right” argument which I have mixed feelings about. I could
imagine a situation where new construction in SF is all 100sft units because
it maximizes rent ROI which would if anything make larger spaces even more
expensive then they are.

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pochamago
Wouldn't that still be better than the current situation? It seems like a lot
of these laws, in an attempt to define the acceptable minimum as middle class,
just end up pricing lower income people out of the market altogether. I think
it should be alright to allow for lower minimums as long as the main priority
of fluid class mobility remains high.

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NoGravitas
> According to current town bylaws, a house needs to be at least 80 square
> metres, or about 860 square feet. That's more than twice as big as the
> couple's tiny home.

I have lived in a house (not just an apartment) that was smaller than that –
800 square feet – and it was a perfectly normal cemesto built in the 1940s.
Two bedroom, one bath. That's a bylaw that was written for developers, not for
people.

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glouwbug
Take a walk through Vancouver a little bit after sunset in spring / summer and
you'll see less than half the apartments with their lights off.

I understand the couple's house was too small, but hopefully they generated
some profit from whatever land they were on.

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danpalmer
I wonder if laws like minimum house sizes are fit for purpose now that we have
less space, millennials have less ability to buy houses, property prices are
higher as percentages of wages, and safety in homes has come a very long way.

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moftz
Are you not allowed to live in a camping trailer or RV on your own land in
that town? Studio apartments are around 400-500 sqft so I'm not really sure
why all homes must be larger than 800 sqft in that town. At least with a tiny
house on a plot of land, you have much more potential usable space (wraparound
porch, patio, garage, etc) than you would with a 400sqft apartment.

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xtiansimon
May not permit year round trailer _living_ because of things like sewer,
waste, etc. devil is in the details.

