11/14/19 Newsletter

It's been a great week for the backyard tiny home movement. In just over a week almost 300 people said they are interested in coming to the Downsizing Forum at the Council On Aging. Could you imagine if just half of those people built backyard tiny homes? The positive impact on our housing crisis would be immense and the best part is that existing homeowners would get to control and participate in the change in real time. Even better than that, we wouldn't need to sacrifice our beautiful open spaces or spend tax dollars to extend infrastructure to accommodate the new housing.

With that said, on to the rest of the news!

This Week's News

Public Hearing Round Two–

The continuation of our hearing to build Easthampton's first backyard tiny home on Mayher/Grove St will be next Wednesday (11/20) at 6:00 PM in Conference Room B at 50 Payson Ave, Easthampton. If you are available, we'd love to see you there to support the homeowners and our efforts to bring backyard tiny homes to the valley!

Downsizing Forum at the Easthampton Council on Aging

The COA is hosting us on 12/4 at 6:00 PM to talk about using Backyard Tiny Homes and Retirement Communities to stay in one's community as they age. We'll be joined by Suzie Dickson Moyer of Lathrop Communities. We've had hundreds of people show interest and are expecting to close registration next week due to reaching the COA's capacity.

If you'd like to come, reserve a seat!

Northampton Loves Backyard Tiny Homes!

Northampton's Zoning allows Backyard Tiny Homes BY RIGHT with a site plan review in their Rural Residential and Suburban Residential Districts!!! Their setback requirements in other zones are also favorable and a small breezeway connecting the tiny home to the primary home could allow you to add the home by right all over the city.

Tiny Home Infill Villages

Backyard ADUs has started looking for small in town lots in Easthampton, Northampton and Amherst to develop a new type of multi-family property. Our micro developments will include 500-700 SF tiny homes surrounded by beautiful landscaping. We expect to own some of these developments and hope to sell others to owner occupants to distribute housing wealth.

Here's an example of an infill project in Oregon:

Our Homes Are Net Zero Ready!

We completed our first round of HERRs testing and we are building Net Zero Ready homes! That means our homes can be made Net Zero by adding a ~4.5kw solar array. We are currently interviewing solar companies and hope to offer homeowners full net zero homes at no additional cost with a solar lease program!

New Cities Added to Our ADU Regulations List:

Greenfield & Warwick joined our list of cities/town that allows Backyard Tiny Homes!

And, finally who wouldn't want The Jordan in their backyard? Get the floor plans