what amenities would you enjoy in your tiny home community?

Hello permies!

I am a permaculture enthusiast seeking to start a small tiny home community on a model permaculture farm in the PNW region. The community would be set up as tiny home plots around a central hub. I aim provide an attractive environment and community for tiny home folks, who already have their own mobile tiny home. I am trying to gauge interest in the types of community amenities that tiny home owners (or future owners) desire. Here is my list of items that I have so far:

-spacious kitchen
-dining/rec room
-fitness/yoga room
-library
-wifi internet
-laundry
-composting toilets/showers
-hot tub or pond
-workshop/tool library
-store w/ produce and sundries (honor system)
-fenced dog park


What else would you like to have offered? Which items are the most valuable? Least valuable? How much would you pay/month for each specific item? (This is to gauge value and prioritize, quantitatively) What is the maximum you would pay/month (as rent) to park your tiny home on a nice property with utility hookups?

Thanks!! I'd love to hear your responses!

Please feel free to PM me if you would like more info or if you'd just like to talk!

I would want a certified commercial kitchen, so as to boost income making opertunities,and food preservation.
A bunk house would allow visitors of all kinds.
A walk in cooler, Coolbot style, agin for income opportunities and food preservation.
A material barn. A place for building material to wait to be reused.
Communal rocket stove fired low mass bread oven.
I personally would prefer a swimming pond to a hot tub.
A windmill,hydropower,solar power panels and/ or battery bank. Something like this, a hyper local utility.
Pickup truck and or trailer.
Outdoor theater for comunity meetings, movies, plays presentations, etc.

A diverse community food forest. [Unless each tiny house has a plentiful parcel of land attached to it. Bare minimum half an acre preferably an acre.]

I will confess this is from someone who dreams of huge land and a personal farm, but likes the idea of a tiny house and is trying to envision life in a tiny home community, rather than someone looking to live in one.

Thanks for these great responses!

William: Great additions, and I agree that a pond would be more ecologically aligned. On the same token, I am thinking of a root cellar, instead of coolbot. Also, a certified kitchen is definitely an interesting idea. I will have to look more into that, as it may be much more expensive and necessitate strict rules!

Kyrt: This community will ideally be built in proximity to a productive food forest, as one of my main goals is to design a small model permaculture farm I would also like to allow tiny homes to have their own tiny plots if they wish! I hope to at least have 10 acres.

How much would you be willing to spend to live in this (idealized) environment? I've seen other tiny home communities charge from $200-600/mo.

Are you basically providing a lot to park a tiny home, a lifetime lease on which to build one, or tiny homes for lease?

If this were a purpose built community and not just designed for temporary stays then I would really want to see someone make 1 or 2 trailers and all of the houses able to slide on and off said trailer to be attached to permanent foundations. I think it is a bit extreme when people buy expensive trailers and have no intention of moving around in their house or a vehicle to do such. I have no problem with people who want to travel, but a lot of people do this to skirt around local laws and I wish this wasn't necessary.

The 2 towns I have come across that are willing to legalize tiny homes want homes attached to a foundation for tax purposes, and the added expense of buying a trailer to use it one time seems counterproductive. I wish all the money spent on these trailers was used to lobby the government into accepting the tiny house movement. This would go double for a community, as I am fairly certain the cost of 25+ new trailers is enough to get the attention of politicians at the state level.

Multiple cooking areas would be on top of my list. Having rocket mass heaters and plenty of wood fired stoves and ovens on top of other kitchen tools and preparation areas seems to go hand in hand with food growing spaces and a community. Both large shared areas and some smaller spaces out of the way for private functions would likely be appreciated by people.

A central utility station with electricity, water, internet, firewood, and any other shared resources would be a great idea. It would be nice if it was located near the community kitchen area. People could charge phones and laptops, grab water for drinking and cooking, grab firewood to cook with, and kick back after a meal and go online or perhaps look up recipes before cooking. All of this without having to make a dozen trips back to their tiny house. It would require people to be in charge of replenishing firewood supplies and I can easily see some less than careful people causing issues with the power and water, but if done right it could create a community hub built around mostly renewable resources.

I am personally of the belief that my living space should be as small as is reasonable (smaller than the average tiny house) and my work spaces should be several times as large. Storage sheds for supplies and separate work spaces for each tiny house would be important for people looking for a homestead lifestyle. People with more money than time or energy might not need the workshop area, but probably could use the storage area. This is where I think modern homes went wrong; It doesn't make sense to me to keep thousands of square feet of buildings heated or cooled when people rarely occupy many of those areas.

I have been interested in the tiny house movement for a handful of years now, so I could go on for days. All of this depends on what type of community you are looking to create. One geared towards homesteaders might want more infrastructure and growing spaces. One geared towards the elderly might have everything closer together and ready to move in. Tiny houses can be as individual as the people that inhabit them.

Sorry to not have been clear; this would be for a lot to park your tiny home. Essentially, I would like to provide an attractive environment and community for tiny home folks, who already have their own mobile tiny home.

Yes to all this ...

-spacious kitchen
-dining/rec room
-fitness/yoga room
-library
-wifi internet
-laundry
-composting toilets/showers
-hot tub or pond
-workshop/tool library
-store w/ produce and sundries (honor system)
-fenced dog park

I would also like to see
- coworking space (where I could have an enclosed quiet room for a phone/internet meeting)
- easy access to propane refill or exchange
- access to running / hiking trails

I would gladly pay $200 - $400 a month.

Wash house with washing machine and drying space

I think this basically boils down to a permiefied KOA campground when all is said and done. Which isn't a bad thing. They have a popular model and do a lot of things right.

Wifi
Laundry
Community center
Pond / river
Outdoor activity area
Fire pit
Community kitchen
Playground for the kids

Daniel: Thanks for your response, I think that is a really good point. If we could have trailers available it would be a lot more attractive to tiny home owners who don't have one, as it is likely that we would also want the houses attached to foundations. I envision that we will want more permanent members, to sustain a close knit family-like community atmosphere. As the business grows, I will want to build more tiny homes for guests or nightly rentals, so that anyone can experience tiny home living in a permaculture environment.

Jay: Yes, I have been looking at campgrounds and trailer parks as possible models, as it is one way to get around the prohibitive rules against tiny homes. I'm not familiar with KOA but I will definitely do more research, thank you!

Speaking to those who own (or want to own) mobile tiny homes, do you feel like you have adequate options for where you can park (live in) your tiny home?

Eliza,
Great discussion.
I wonder about the whole tiny house movement, minimalist living is not for everyone.
I worked road construction for quite a few years living out of a travel trailer. Lived in one year round in hot ol' Phoenix, Arizona. Storage is definitely a premium.
My parents and a sister and her husband lived at one of those 55 and older parks, they each had fifthwheel trailers with slideouts. The park rent was 350/month or you could pay yearly $3000. The park had a swimming pool and hot tub, club house and laundromat. Post office with a mail room, each tenant had their own box. Sewer, water, electric hookup, cable and phone.
I would plan on running sewer pipe to each pad, before I forget have a concrete pad for each patio and tiedowns to keep stuff in place. Running water, maybe a shared well.

Mike, I actually had not even thought about the mail room/post office, and that seems relatively important. Figuring out the details with utilities and foundation attachments is also necessary! Thanks for your insight.

Many people keep mentioning storage. What would be an ideal way to solve that issue in a community? How would you prefer to store your extra items?

You want to keep your place nice, classy even. Each tiny house would have a nice sized shed adjacent to patio area. I know it seems big, but a 12 x 16 shed would give each tenant room for their overflow. http://m.lowes.com/pl/Wood-storage-sheds-Sheds-Sheds-outdoor-storage-Outdoors#!&offset=20 Maybe paint to match their home.

I am looking to develop a similar community in the mountains of north-eastern California.  However, the biq question for me is, what would residents of such a development do for a living?  What do you envision for your tiny community?  Is your development near a major City? or are you setting up a place for people to pull into for the short term, like a "campground".  

A garage/workshop would be my number one thing.    

For those of us who love our tools, a garage, complete with an auto lift, would be a must.  This would be good for anyone who wants to work on their own vehicles, or build structures, etc, the usual type of stuff.