Tiny Houses: State of affairs and requirements of potential future residents

  • Author:
  • Year: 2018

Since the Tiny House movement just arrived in The Netherlands, this is a new type of housing and target audience, whereof the specific preferences are not measured yet. The methods used are a research on the state of affairs of Tiny Houses in The Netherlands and a survey, including a stated choice experiment.

Similarities of Tiny Houses in the Netherlands are that a lot of wood is used, especially for movable ones, that are often under 20m2 because of the weight. Solar panels and non-drained toilets are common. The most difficult aspect of being off-grid is filtering water.

Building regulations can be hard to meet with a Tiny House. There are some possibilities, by demonstrating equivalence. If the Tiny House is movable, transport regulations must be met. The location for Tiny Houses mainly depends on the zoning plan, where requirements are often not compatible with Tiny Houses. But a municipality has some tools to make exceptions. Not being able to find a suitable location, as well as regulations, are mentioned in the survey as reasons for not living in a Tiny House yet. The main motivations for people to want to live in a Tiny House are lower financial costs, more freedom, a smaller ecological footprint and owning less stuff, as well as living closer to nature. In general respondents do not want a flushing toilet, prefer a location outside the city and want to live together with 1-10 other Tiny Houses. But there is a small, critical group that wants to live in the city.