Re:Toronto carpenter builds 'tiny shelters' for the homeless...
by mikem170 on Saturday April 24, 2021 @06:14PM
(#26928631)
Have I been tricked, or are you being pedantic? Based on my experience looking at a variety of specific city, town, and county zoning regulations I hardly see any that allows a primary dwelling anything close to as small as 120 square feet. 750 square feet? Sure, there's a bunch of those. 400 square feet? Some. Less than 400 square feet? Hardly any. Even places that allow accessory dwelling units are rare/uncommon.
The places where an overwhelming majority of people live (where the jobs are) have zoning regulations that do not allow 120 square foot houses, or anything close to that small. There's a lot of people who want a tiny house and can't find a place to legally put one. It still looks like zoning defines minimums for the most part, not safety codes, and there is a big difference, which was my original point.
Do you really think I'm that far off on this?
https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/minimum-hou...
“The IRC codes require that all homes must be built on a minimum of 320 square feet. The minimum square footage for a house is 120 square feet, and at least one room must be habitable. Habitable rooms meet other regulations, such as needing a closet and at least one window. Other rooms, not meant for sleeping, must be at least 70 square feet.”
It also weasel words (and apparently succeeds in tricking you with it) about what zoning requires; what you interpret as “most” is actually described inbthe article you cite with the far weaker “many”:
> Many cities and counties, however, have a minimum size requirement of 1,000 square feet or more for construction of a new home on its own land
Not “most”.