Financing. I have landed in New England and plans to build Redwing Cottage, my tiny house, have begun. I have had a few stops and starts. Financing the tiny house has been my biggest challenge. In the end, I took out an equity loan. An uptick in home prices presented the opportunity to squeeze $60,000 out of the value of an old house I purchased in 2019. $60,000 will NOT be enough money for this project. I know this and stewed on it for some time, almost abandoning my plan to build. But I am going to jump in anyway. A recent brush with cancer made me realize that this is my only life and I am going to do this thing! So by hook or by crook, I am going to start the process, realizing I could end up with a shell and no dwelling permit for quite some time.
Finding a builder. Surprisingly, I found two. I’m in the process of getting bids and feeling a little nervous because there are other costs outside of the build: permit fees, foundation cost and hiring an electrician and a plumber. There will be some lean days ahead as I try to fill in the gaps using my regular salary. I have a spreadsheet with all my personal expenses and assets, which I track right up to retirement in 3 years. The spreadsheet is called “longterm budget” and also includes payments for loans averaged over the next three years, including the HELOC I’m using to build the tiny house. The goal is to maximize my monthly discretionary income in retirement: the money I’ll have left over after all loans and other expenses are paid. It also includes a snapshot of projected income from the tiny house, which I plan to rent as a short term rental to help supplement my retirement income.
Design. Knowing the tiny house will be used as a guest house is critical to how it will be designed. Keeping it small will help make it less expensive to build. How small is too small? Will it be comfortable enough? I settled on 10 wide by 24 feet long. I’m going to orient the long side to face the street, making it perpendicular to my primary house. Because it will be set back from the street, this is the most private placement. It presents the shortest side and fewer windows that look out on the neighbor and the primary house, where I live. Screening will be used to keep privacy at a maximum.
Special permit. Making sure the design is appealing to the neighborhood is critical, since my neighbors will have an opportunity to voice their opinions to the board who will issue the building permit (or not!) I have taken into consideration what I feel is the most pleasing placement. I think I can use my current driveway, at least for now and I’ll have plenty of yard left to plant apple trees and a meadow garden, long on my list.
Site plan. This is my next step! Now that I have the design, size, height and placement, I can draw a site plan to include with my special permit application. The process can take up to 3 months and costs $375. I will be going in front of some gentlemen I had the opportunity to work with when I advocated for a bylaw change in 2021 to add ADUs. The bylaw passed but unfortunately, my suggestion to make detached ADUs by right was overruled, under some not-so-transparent conditions, in my opinion. Special permits add some complexity to the process but I feel confident I will be successful.
