Tiny houses Pima County Arizona

[Ella1]

Pima County Arizona, which takes up a lot of southern Arizona, is permitting tiny houses now.
http://webcms.pima.gov/cms/One.aspx?pageId=259596
I don't know if Tucson City is.
Tuff Shed (Tucson) is making them but of course the home builders association wants their piece of the pie too!! tuff-shed-tiny-houses
I do not know if any of the other counties or cities permit them. Might be worth looking into.

(I have no association with any of the above.

 

[Headache]

NICE!! I'd like to see more of that especially after a couple lost their battle with the town they live in up here in the PNW. I'll see if there is a way I can send them that link. Thanks!

 

[TrainChaser]

I believe that Eugene, Oregon, is headed that way, too: http://www.tentcityurbanism.com/2015/04/tiny-houses-embraced-by-city-of-eugene.html

Here in W. WA (where the minimum is 400 sqft, there is a business owned by one or more Mennonites that builds really nice sheds, up to 16x32' (384 sf). They build them at their place and deliver on a truck. Good straight 2x4s, solid plywood, no OSB/etc crap, no 48" between studs, etc. I would love to start with one of theirs, insulate it, etc.

 

[SUV_RVing]

Very cool. I love that part of Arizona. Spent a couple of weeks in the Ajo area earlier this year and really enjoyed it. I'd love to have a tiny house out in the desert there...

 

[Ella1]

SUV, that's a great idea! Ajo is in Pima county. I'da thought it was too far west. So then maybe it's down to local building codes.
Tuffshed.com shows a few variations of their products.
Of course there's water and sewer to consider, too.

 

[Tussah]

Pima County Arizona, which takes up a lot of southern Arizona, is permitting tiny houses now.
http://webcms.pima.gov/cms/One.aspx?pageId=259596

In Cochise county, just east of Pima county, you can build just about anything you want on your land.  In Cascabel, about 20 miles north of Benson, one fellow built the most adorable tiny house with a loft bedroom, nearly all out of found and/or hand crafted materials (river rock walls from local washes, for example)   He had a separate compost toilet outhouse.   He and a couple of friends had gone in together to buy the land, and they each built their own separate homes on it.   It was really unique and beautiful.

 

[TrainChaser]

We need to hear more about things like that.

 

[SoulRaven]

Be sure to click the links about the requirements of both the house and land as they are very specific about what must be done. We lived in Pima County in the 90s when they really started to be strict and drove the more "casual" living types further out away from the county.

 

[Auto360]

Train Chaser,

I intimately know the sheds that you speak of made by the Mennonites. On my bicycle trip from Oregon to Md this last summer I would find the dealers in all the small towns I passed through and I would bed down in those for the night. I slept through many rainy nights in those sheds! The sheds are built ok for the most part but the untreated siding does not hold up to the weather. I have seen many, many, that look pretty weather beaten. I would suggest a person either paint it or put some type of weather proof treatment on the outside. The carpentry work did look ok though. I love analyzing that stuff. They are a bit on the pricey side and if you do the "no-credit check" financing you will be paying about twice the cost of the shed if you pay the full term. At this time I know where two of those are near where I live (call home) in Tucson that people are living in.

 

[TrainChaser]

I've wondered if people did that!

All of the sheds I've seen here are painted -- I've never seen an unpainted one.

The big ones are about $5,000. I've watched some YouTube videos of a single person starting from scratch in spring and just getting it enclosed by snowfall. It would be easier for me to pay the $5,000 and start insulating it right away.

 

[Auto360]

I doubt many people sleep in them the way I did. I don't advertise it. Only one place in Kentucky that had a whole bunch of them were locked. I checked every single one and the very last one I came to had a "normal" door like a house. It was locked but it hadn't been closed all the way so I was able to get in. Most of those places don't open till 9 or 10 am so I was easily out before anyone came along. Only one time were people around. They didn't even see me but I went up and told the guys I slept in one of their sheds. They just laughed and said no problem, any time. As a side note, I never left trash or anything behind. I even closed the windows if they had been opened. I have a lot of interesting stories of where I slept on that trip...
Two or three times I stayed in the sheds that Home Depot/Lowes sells but I really didn't like those. Always had to wait till late at night after they closed to slip in one along with my heavily loaded bicycle. Hard to do in a lighted parking lot where all the doors face the building. One night a massive storm was rolling in (Witchita, Ks) and I was having a conversation with a police officer and even told him that I was headed to HD to find a shed to sleep in. He laughed and said "he didn't hear anything".
Well, sorry about all this, a little off topic here.