Is it possible to build on marshland?

I am looking at a tiny sliver of property in an urban area which is mostly marsh. I think the neighboring conventional houses are on stilts and all lead out to a boardwalk. This sliver is right in-between two very large conventional homes.

Does anyone have ideas about the cheapest and low impact way to build a small home on a marsh?

Any creative ideas are appreciated, I have zero experience but I just want to start making something happen, and this land is very cheap. It has residential zoning, and my ideal thought is to make it into a home for someone wanting the tiny house life while having access to the city, and I'd like to rent it when I'm done to have some residual income.

Am I being too idealistic?

much love xoxo

Cheapest would be to park a mobile tiny house there (but most zones don't like this).

Have you looked at required building setbacks for the zoning(how close your building can be to the edge of your property)? that land looks too small to be buildable with restrictive zoning in most places.

In my recent housing searches, many people offered VERY small plots of land for sale, that are not buildable, usually to sucker someone into taking it off their hands - i hope this is not the case with this tract.

I'd definitely talk to the city/county to determine if the lot is buildable.  Dustin's correct, it could very easily not be legal to build there.  Or once the setbacks are satisfied the resulting house may only be 4 feet wide or something silly.

Secondly, I'd check with the city/county/state to determine how you can build on a marsh legally.  Some places won't let you due to wetland ordinances.  If nearby houses are on stilts then it's likely doable.

Thirdly, if you intend to rent it out later, verify that the municipality will allow rentals in that area.  

If that all checks out, I'd be pretty tempted to build on stilts as well.  It's probably the lowest impact way to put a structure in place on a marsh.  Luckily a tiny house won't weigh that much and the piers/stilts may not be big or expensive.

Actually, one other thing to think about is how stilts are installed there.  The building inspector could be able to tell you.  If a big outfit needs to get in there to drive the piers 30' deep, that might be hard or expensive to do on a narrow lot.

Maybe, once you start building your tiny house, the "large conventional" neighbors will wish they had bought the sliver and may offer you a higher price than what you paid to keep your "shack" away from their nice starter castles.  Yay!  Sell it for a $20K profit and get another lot somewhere else.

Thank you for the replies everyone!

I suppose I am unsure of how to even research these things. I tried looking online at the county website, but also this town is unincorporated. I guess it is better to call the country for answers instead of online?

Thanks for helping me think of all the important questions that must be asked!

It's our pleasure  

Yeah, just call the county or municipality.  They'll tell you which one deals with each concern.  Maybe they'll come up with some new ones for you as well.