WEST OLIVE, Mich. — Trying to keep pace with its population, the Ottawa County Housing Commission is considering tiny homes as a more affordable living option.
In Ottawa County, the average sale price of a home is around $400,000, "more than double what most residents can afford," according to a May release.
Ideally available for $150,000, a tiny home (less than 1,000 square feet) designed by the commission could shore up housing supply at a somewhat more economical dollar amount.
While stereotyped as an "aesthetically unattractive" housing type for "low-income individuals," the project also seeks to dispel those misconceptions.
"They've got their first professional jobs; they're making $30 to $40 an hour; they're unable to find a home," said Paul Sachs, director of Strategic Impact for Ottawa County, describing a demographic that could benefit from tiny homes: young professionals.
When he was a newly married, young professional himself, Sachs and his wife purchased a 900-square-foot home in Holland. "It was brilliant," he said.
Years later, "that opportunity doesn't exist anymore," Sachs said. "That's what this project is committed to [restoring]."
In addition to twentysomethings, retirees are also a target demographic of the county's MicroHome Development.
The Department of Strategic Impact plans to put together a "pitch book" of sorts, finding locations, drawing up designs and supplying lists of building materials to ensure that "three to four" different tiny home concepts could be smoothly handed over to a developer.
"We're doing the research to say this is something that we can do in a very viable, scalable way," Sachs said.
Depending on the research and design process, a shovel could go into the ground in as soon as 18 months.
"We are a beautiful county, one of the most gorgeous in the state with our shoreline," Sachs said. "With that, you invariably will get population growth."
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