Tiny homes, a relatively new category of manufactured homes somewhere between a park model and a travel trailer, are growing in popularity.
Ryan and Tatjana Becijos knew they wanted a tiny house. They just didn’t know where to put it, according to the Columbus Dispatch.
So a few weeks ago, the San Diego, Calif., couple packed up their Volvo and drove 2,100 miles to New Paris, Ohio, a Preble County village a few miles from the Indiana border.
The couple became the third residents of Cedar Springs Tiny Village, one of a growing number of communities exclusively reserved for tiny homes.There’s no easy place to put the homes.
“You see tiny homes all the time, but you don’t realize you can’t just put them anywhere,” said Ryan Becijos, 32, a computer programmer on leave from his job.
Most cities prohibit tiny homes because they are not on foundations or because they fall below minimum size requirements for a permanent residence. Owners might be able to park them on a rural lot, but then must find electric, sewer and water connections.
“In most places in America, you can’t live tiny, period,” said Kevin Polk, executive director of the American Tiny House Association. “There are very, very few places in the country that allow a primary residence of that size.”
Even RV parks, the most common answer, aren’t always hospitable to tiny homes.
