Humboldt County is creating a legal path for people to make a tiny home or emergency shelter village in response to the county’s housing crisis. On Thursday, the Humboldt County Planning Commission hosted a workshop on a few kinds of housing situations set to be legalized and hashed out the details.
The ordinance is in many ways a gradient for different housing communities. Planning Commissioner Noah Levy called for the development regulations to exist on a spectrum.
“I hope that this ordinance can allow for a range of tiny house villages and emergency housing villages that, frankly, offer greater or lesser amenities,” he said, noting with more requirements for amenities in the law, the development price will increase.
The ordinance creates a permitting path for both tiny house villages and types of emergency housing in response to the county’s shelter crisis, which was previously declared by the Board of Supervisors due to the large number of people living homeless. During public comment, homelessness advocates lauded the move, who have long pointed to emergency housing as a solution to bring people out of homelessness.
Nezzie Wade, executive director of Affordable Homeless Housing Alternatives said during public comment she supports the ordinance. She added that “a big concern I have with the ordinance is there is nothing in there, at all, addressing really low income, our unhoused population,” she said. She also suggested that restrictions like parking be dialed back in a future draft.
Commissioner Peggy O’Neill shared the sentiment, noting there’s nothing that would prevent an out-of-town developer from putting some dilapidated trailers on a piece of property, and charging predatory rents.
“I think that we need to make sure that we’re just not creating an ordinance that allows developers to just build some houses as cheap as they can and then turn around and charge as much as they can,” she said.
Planning Director John Ford said “we, from a policy perspective, are proposing that these would actually be more affordable units by nature, because they’re less expensive,” he said, adding that the commission can add income requirements.
O’Neill also noted it would cost millions to install a tiny house village. The ordinance requires water, sewer, parking, foundations and electricity hookups.
Some of the rules for a tiny home village require pricey work like foundations and paving. The primary difference, explained planner Megan Acevedo, is that emergency housing can have shared bathroom and kitchen facilities, while tiny houses have them individually. Currently, tiny homes can be put into RV parks or as an accessory dwelling unit. Commissioners hashed out how strict to be with regulations — with central aims to increase the housing stock and address homelessness.
Commissioner Sarah West called for the ordinance’s limit of 20 units-per-acre to be removed; Ford said the limit was set to be in line with residential medium density.
Parking requirements, too, were considered as a potential regulation that could add barriers. Tiny home villages and emergency housing must have one parking spot per unit in the first draft. Noah Levy said he doesn’t think the requirement should stay — other commissioners, including Chair Thomas Mulder and Commissioner Lorna McFarlane said they didn’t want to force people on the verge of homelessness to sell their car to move into a village and said they’d like to keep the parking requirements.
Some during public comment noted that the first draft regulations favored near-town areas over rural places — like requiring a category four road or municipal hookups to water and sewer, though a special permit can be obtained for water and sewer on site.
Commenter Praj White, speaking on tiny home villages, said “It appears the ordinance is excluding many communities that could benefit due to the limited zoning options. It feels inequitable to many parts of the county. Not everyone wants to live in town,” he said. Other commenters called for agricultural zones to be included or solar and composting toilets to be allowed. Many said that the Yee Haw community near Trinidad could finally be permitted through the ordinance, where people live in RVs and buses on a property that’s technically against code.
The question of who would run the communities was brought up. Ford noted the ordinance was meant to be as far reaching as possible, including public and private land. Nonprofits could run emergency housing villages, and O’Neill said federal and state grants could be used.
According to the staff report, the work for the ordinance was funded by a Local Early Action Planning (LEAP) grant from the California Department of Housing and Community Development.
The commission will revisit the draft ordinance again. John Ford said staff will reach out to public commenters and housing organizations to get more information — because the public comment was only 3 minutes, Mulder said he’d like there to be more input.
The full meeting can be viewed on Access Humboldt at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d77QzASnbE0
Sage Alexander can be reached at 707-441-0504
