There are great hopes that the incoming new “granny flat rules” will deal with our tiny home issues. My fear is that in most cases unfortunately they won’t.
Incoming law changes will allow granny flats (or Minor Residential Units) up to 70 square meters in size to be built without a building consent, provided they have a simple design, meet the Building Code, and are built by authorized professionals. These changes will be great for property owners, who would like to add a MRU, or a tiny home to their property. However, they don’t cover the most common situation where the owner of the tiny home and the owner of the property that this is parked on are not the same.
In this case we still need to tidy a few things up:
- the definition of a “building” within the Tasman Resource Management Plan needs to align with the definition in the Building Act to avoid confusion and enforcement under the Resource Management Act and
- we need a clear definition of when a tiny home becomes “immovable”, in which case requirements of the Building Act apply, or a when it remains a “vehicle”, which is governed by different legislation.
The Western Bay of Plenty District Council has compiled a very straight-forward internal policy document that may be worth implementing here in Tasman.
In my understanding, tiny home occupants are very happy to contribute their fair share towards the district’s infrastructure costs. To enable this, there are a number of options:
- for longer term arrangements, require property owners to declare any land tenancy of more than 8 weeks, which would then trigger rates similar to MRUs (these could be recovered via land rent or whichever arrangements they might enter into with their “land tenants”). At that time an independent WOF-like assessment should be required by TDC to provide comfort around sanitary conditions and suitable infrastructure arrangements.
- A shorter term solution could be a new monthly, six-monthly or yearly “pass” (similar to a WOF or vehicle registration) where tiny home occupants purchase their Council levy directly from TDC (like Council rubbish bags).
Lastly, TDC should commit to using primarily an educational rather than a regulatory enforcement approach: inform residents about the rules and engage with the community before (what currently seems like) persecuting the weakest elements of our society.