GREENFIELD — Those hoping to join the tiny house movement shouldn’t pack up and head to Greenfield just yet.
The zoning ordinance passed by Town Council this week, which allows accessory dwelling units in town, does not allow what many people consider “tiny houses” — small homes on a chassis that can be moved from place to place. However, small, detached dwellings can be built by special permit under the ordinance, as long as they’re under 900 square feet, attached to a permanent foundation and on the same property as a primary residence.
Erroneous reports in other media outlets implied that Greenfield had passed a tiny house ordinance, which it did not.
“The tiny house movement is a big movement nationally, and they basically can be on a wheel system like a mobile home — that’s one major difference between an accessory dwelling unit and a tiny house,” said Director of Planning and Development Eric Twarog, adding that the state does not have an official definition of a “tiny house.”
Under the town’s ordinance, accessory dwelling units must be on a permanent foundation.
Twarog said the other major difference is that an accessory dwelling unit is an accessory to a main single-family home, whereas a tiny house could sit on its own lot.
“If an individual was able to build a tiny house — if the state building code had regulations about what one was and how it had to be built, and your town building code also approved them — that could be your primary residence on a piece of property,” Planning Board Chairwoman Roxann Wedegartner said. “I think that is the best way to describe it so that people don’t get confused by the two things, which are very different.”
However, if a person wanted to move their tiny house to Greenfield and found the owner of a single-family home that would allow them to put that tiny house on their property, Twarog said that would be allowed as long as the tiny house meets state building code and is on a permanent foundation.
“It’s all semantics,” Twarog said. “It could probably still be called a tiny house, but under zoning it would be an accessory dwelling unit at that point.”
Greenfield’s Accessory Dwelling Unit Ordinance does not specify a minimum size requirement for the dwellings, and there is no minimum size requirement for a house under state law. Twarog said the smallest home he’s seen allowed elsewhere in the state under state building code was roughly 252 square feet. A small two-bedroom ranch house might more typically be 1,000 square feet or more.