Denver Makes Space for Tiny Homes

"The Denver City Council voted on Monday to make it easier to build tiny-home communities in most of Denver," reports Andrew Kenney.

"The new city law allows tiny home villages to be built across industrial, commercial and mixed-use sites, along with certain sites in residential neighborhoods. Villages could appear on future development sites, spare city land, or even church properties," according to Kenney.

The city's first sanctioned tiny home village, Beloved Community Village, set the context of the new law. The village opened in 2016, has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars, but has been unable to expand or to duplicate its successes elsewhere in the city. The new law would make it easier to build similar villages.

Much of Kenney's focus in the wake of the City Council's action to approve permissive regulations for tiny homes is the possibility that the new law could pave the way looser regulations on mobile homes. Eventually, Kenney also ties the approval of new regulations for tiny homes to the city's recent approval of Blueprint Denver and the Comprehensive Plan 2040, which guide housing production until the year 2040.