Skip to main content

Tiny Town Benefit #7

Written by Founder on . Posted in Founder's Blog. No Comments on Tiny Town Benefit #7

A network of Tiny Towns located within commuting distance of every major city in Canada means you can move within the network and live by the city of your choice. Our network will make tiny homes a real housing option, just like apartments, condos, semi and detached housing.

Today, if you rent an apartment or own a home, you can easily move from city to city to meet your needs. Once the Tiny Town network is established, you will have the same freedom to relocate, but the process will be easier because you won’t need to deal with leaving your current home.

Using the online booking portal, you simply locate a new site in the town nearest the host city you want to relocate to, book your spot for when you want to arrive and not renew the site that you are leaving. Then it’s just a matter of packing the things in your tiny home that could get damaged when you move, disconnect your home on moving day and then drive it to the site in your new town. Connect and you’re done.

We are working to set up a national tiny house moving service as well, so if you don’t feel comfortable moving your own house, or you don’t want to keep a pickup truck, just for the occasional move, you can book the service online. They’ll arrive on the appointed day, hookup your tiny home, move to your new Tiny Town and park you in your site. Just connect and you’re home! Best of all you will know the cost of your move, once you’ve selected your next Tiny Town before you book it! 

Our network is the key to making tiny homes a viable housing option by providing legal places to live and facilitating the ability to move from city to city, just as you can in traditional housing.

Tiny Town Benefit #6

Written by Founder on . Posted in Founder's Blog. No Comments on Tiny Town Benefit #6

A tiny home is the least expensive home you can own. When you look at every other type of housing and consider what you need to live, nothing can compare to a tiny home. While you can look at everything you don’t have in a tiny home (more air and more storage space) and feel that things are missing, you can also look at everything you do have.

You have a place to sleep, storage, a kitchen, washroom facilities, laundry facilities, office/living room. Your monthly expenses are low, your maintenance is low, the time it takes to clean your entire home is small. Your enjoyment level can be a lot higher because: you don’t need to work as long or hard to cover your living expenses, you can relocate easily to a new city/town, you can have more leisure/sports/me-time because of all the above.

Tiny Town Benefit 5

Written by Founder on . Posted in Founder's Blog. No Comments on Tiny Town Benefit 5

Why own the land you park your tiny home on?

It’s an asset that ties you down, limits when and where you can go, plus it’s a huge expense. In addition to purchasing the land, you will also need electricity, water, sewer, internet, and gas. These utilities require a further investment, they will need to be maintained and they add to the things that tie you to your land. At some time in the future, you may want to move. What then? Do you sell your tiny home with the land the way traditional homes are sold or do you try and sell the land alone? Either way, moving has now become a chore.

Tiny Towns will be owned by the not-for-profit Association so that revenues can be re-invested in the development and maintenance of the towns. Rents are planned to be kept low by using renewable resources to provide the utilities for its citizens. Citizens are free to move within the town and between towns by simply booking their new location online. All sites will provide complete hookups (included in the monthly rent) so it’s just plug-n-go to connect to your site. Services provided will include water, sewer, electricity, gas, TV, internet (fiber optic connection to each tiny home). We have designed our towns with 12 tiny homes to the acre, which we call a Pod (like a mini-neighborhood). Each site has a concrete pad with tie-downs to park on, lots of green space, a central common area and gardens for the residents of each Pod. Common areas are community maintained and socializing will be available for those that want to participate.

Tiny Towns complete the concept of tiny homes as an affordable housing option by removing the biggest upfront costs, the land purchase and utility installation. Looking forward, they will enable a tiny home’s mobility through plug-n-go and provide a network with access to all major cities. We believe that while tiny homes will expand our housing options, they also have the potential to expand other areas of our lives.

Logan32 hits the Road

Written by Founder on . Posted in Founder's Blog.

We’re building the Logan32, a tiny home designed for Tiny Town living and taking it on a 49-city tour across Ontario this year to give people a sense of the tiny lifestyle. We’re starting the tour at Perth’s Tiny House & Green Home Festival on April 21st.

We are also presenting a talk at the show about Tiny Towns, so if you are in the area, drop by the festival, walk through the Logan32 and other tiny homes, and ask questions about Tiny Towns in person: 

https://the2marys-events.com [website is no longer actyive]

timbercraft denali

Logan32 Plans Donated!

Written by Founder on . Posted in Founder's Blog.

We are thrilled that Timbercraft Tiny Homes is creating custom plans for our Logan32 tiny home which will be touring 49-cities across Ontario this year before being donated to Habitat for Humanity, Canada. They are donating the plans to us, so if you are looking for a company to build you a tiny home, check out their website. Great people building amazing tiny homes  http://timbercrafttinyhomes.com

Tiny Town Ambassador

Written by Founder on . Posted in Founder's Blog.

There are 133 cities where we would like to build Tiny Towns so that THOWs owners can legally live close to their chosen host city. Our long-term plan is to build all 133 Tiny Towns across the nation, and as people are able to visit an operational town, we expect we will be able to get approvals and build faster. How do we decide the order that we build? There are 2 key factors that determine where we invest our resources first:

  1. How eager a city and municipality are to hosting a Tiny Town that we build is the first factor. We have come to realize, especially for our earlyTiny Towns, that we need to work with cities that are forward thinking and can appreciate the benefits of a Tiny Town, without being able to see one complete. Being the #FirstTinyTown is a distinction that they will forever be able to claim with pride (everywhere around the world), but this alone is not necessarily enough to motivate them. They need to be able to understand the benefits that a Tiny Town will provide by expanding the affordable housing options, as well as adding an affordable solution to homelessness in their city. We are looking for cities that are eager to discuss our plans with them.
  2. The support we have from the public for a Tiny Town will be the second factor determining the order that we come to a city. We need to know that there are people that want to live in that Tiny Town. We will need residents that will move into a Tiny Town as well as people that support the idea of tiny homes as an affordable housing option, even if they never plan to live in one. When we talk to a city, we need to be able to say we have the support of over 1,000 people that have chosen this city as their Tiny Town choice. It may sound like an impossible number, but each city selected has a population of 40,000 plus people.

So how can you help? You can become an Ambassador for a Tiny Town in your city. It doesn’t cost anything, there’s no schooling or courses, and you can help out a little here and there when time permits.

When will a Tiny Town be in my city?

Written by Founder on . Posted in Founder's Blog.

This is a question I am getting asked more and more often from people across Canada: “I want to move into a Tiny Town in my city, when can I?” I would love to be able to say we’re coming your way this year, but realistically, that’s not likely.

For us to build a Tiny Town in a new city, a number of things need to happen. First, we need support and interest from a number of people that want to own a tiny home and park it in a Tiny Town. It’s a large expense to build a Tiny Town and we need people that will move into it to support it, once it’s built. More importantly, we need each city that hosts a Tiny Town to want to work with us, along with the municipality where the Tiny Town will be. They are the ones that ultimately determine if we get the zoning and building permissions to construct and operate the Tiny Town.

You can speed up the process and get us there faster! You can become a Tiny Town Ambassador. An Ambassador is a local champion for getting a Tiny Town to their city and they are willing to invest some time and effort to make it happen. To begin, join the Association (it doesn’t cost anything). When you register, indicate that you want to be an Ambassador. After you register, log into your account and complete your profile, most importantly indicate the city you want to be the Ambassador of.

Next start to work on getting support. This is your biggest job as an Ambassador, to build up interest and support for getting a Tiny Town to your city. Start talking about Tiny Towns with your friends and social contacts. Get them to join the Association and get them to get their friends to join the Association too. It doesn’t take long through friends, of friends, of friends, to build enough support that we can bring our proposal to the city council and the municipality. If we present our proposal to the city/municipality and say we have someone that wants a Tiny Town to be built here, no one takes us seriously. But if we say we have thousands of local supporters, real people that want a Tiny Town built in their city, the council can see that that there is a good reason to move forward, allowing us to built.

We are working to build support for Tiny Towns in various cities and as an Ambassador, you can speed the process of getting us to your city, simply by building support. We’ll set up a new area of the website that will talk more about being a Tiny Town Ambassador and ways that you can help the movement become a reality all of the 120 cities across Canada where we want to build a Tiny Town. (While our plan is to build 133 cities in Canada, we are targeting just 120 cities to start.)

#TinyTownBenefit4

Written by Founder on . Posted in Founder's Blog. No Comments on #TinyTownBenefit4

We believe that mobility is a key feature of a tiny home. The fact that you pack-up and move your entire house, rather than the contents of your home makes so much sense to us (we all dislike the moving experience).

Many second-hand tiny homes on the market today, are located on a piece of property. A lot of effort goes into finding a property and setting up the services for a tiny home. Unless the property is sold to another tiny homeowner, this is a significant expense that would not be recovered. The easiest way to recover the expense is to sell the tiny home with the lot. Sort of like you would do with a traditional home.

Buyer beware! Often the tiny home is legally parked on a lot because the homeowner has applied for a building permit for a traditional home. This allows them to reside in the tiny home for 2 +/- years while they are “building” their traditional home. This is a somewhat short-sighted approach as, during the permit period, the municipality that issued the permit expects that a conforming home will be built. They may extend the building timeframe for an additional year, but in most cases that is all.

Our Tiny Town plan is to locate our towns within commuting distance (15 minutes) of large cities. We refer to them as “Host” cities. These cities can provide jobs, markets for products and services, shopping and entertainment. Our Tiny Town will have services to each tiny home lot and plenty of common area around them. Tiny homeowners will be able to pull in, connect to the services and be set up in the new town in little time. Because they do not own the site, they are free to move to another site or town whenever they want. Moving is as simple as booking the new site online, then moving on the schedule they select. Rents (including all utilities) are planned to be modest, as we are designing the town services using renewable resources.

#TinyTownBenefit3

Written by Founder on . Posted in Founder's Blog. No Comments on #TinyTownBenefit3

Many tiny home enthusiasts seem to be drawn to the country. Is it because they crave isolation or is it simply because they cannot find a welcoming, legal place to park close to the city. Unless you know a rural property owner that will allow you to park on their land, your only option is to buy land of your own. Once you own the land, you’ve lost your freedom. Moving your tiny home to another town for work or family becomes a chore and setting up in a new location, more work again.

Our Tiny Town model places each town within an easy commute of the host city (ideally 15 minutes max.) This puts you in the country enough that you can escape the rush, but keeps you close enough that you can benefit from everything the city has to offer. Moving within the network is as simple as booking the next town where you want to live, moving your house there and plugging in. It has taken cities a long time to get to the point where they can offer the amenities they do. Why not enjoy that?

#TinyTownBenefit2

Written by Founder on . Posted in Founder's Blog. No Comments on #TinyTownBenefit2

Many tiny enthusiasts seem to be drawn to escaping everything, heading off into the wild, living totally off-grid, really getting back to nature. This is a lot of work, and if you are trading the hustle of city life for the peace of solitude, you’re not going to find it in a tiny in the boonies. It’s a lot of work to live this way and you will find you are trading one type of servitude for another.

Our Tiny Town model offers shared utilities and services. Rather than running your own solar system, composting toilet or septic system, well and water system plan to plug into the town. We’re designing the towns with a central solar collection storage system. We’re planning an anaerobic town-wide sewage system to convert sewage into natural gas to run heater and stoves. We’ll have our own water storage and processing, as well as a central garbage collection, recycling program, roads maintenance and mail services, plus lots more planned. So, don’t think off-grid tiny home, think off-grid Tiny Town.