Tiny homes coming to Boulder City?

The Planning Commission is slated to consider changes to zoning in Boulder City that would allow for “tiny homes” (typically less than 400 square feet in size) to co-exist with mobile homes.

From the beginning of its history, Boulder City has been a place where home sizes were mostly on the smaller end of the scale compared to housing in other places. A typical home built for a dam worker in the 1930s was based on the “shotgun shacks” common in the South and could reportedly be put up by two carpenters in just 12 hours. As more permanent housing began to take shape in the 1940s, typical home sizes were between 800 and 1,000 square feet. By way of comparison, as of 2022, the average home size in Nevada was just over 2,000 square feet according to the American Home Size Index.

Interest in smaller homes has seemingly ballooned since the housing crunch, the subsequent recession of 2008, as evidenced by major media coverage and multiple TV shows that highlight what have come to be known as “tiny homes”.

However, there was no zoning allowance for these types of homes in Boulder City. But action taken by the Nevada Legislature in 2021 mandated that all municipalities make such allowances.

One of the options allowed by Senate Bill 150 would allow cities to allow for tiny homes within existing zoning for mobile homes and that is the option that the commission was slated to discuss at their June 21 meeting.

(The meeting is scheduled for a few hours after this edition of the Boulder City Review goes to press, so the outcome was not known at press time, however, city staff is recommending that the commission approve the proposed zoning changes.)

Under the proposed zoning changes, tiny homes would be allowed both in mobile home parks (facilities where occupants typically own the home but the entire park is a single property and space for each mobile home is rented monthly) and in mobile home estates where each space is an individually recorded property and space is typically owned by the person who also owns the mobile home, although the occupant may be a renter.

The proposed changes to zoning would not adjust any other aspects of city code including minimum lot sizes so anyone wishing to put a tiny home in an existing mobile home development would have to do so on a lot sized for a typical mobile home.

Also of note is that these changes are only being put forward in order to put Boulder City into compliance with state law as outlined in SB150 and there are no current plans or proposals for tiny home development within the city.

State law mandates that a public hearing such as the one scheduled for June 21 take place before the commission makes a recommendation. The city council would have to finalize any changes in zoning. The city has until the end of this year to come into compliance with SB150.

At the same meeting, the commission will also consider zoning changes to an area adjacent to the current solar power development that would change its designation from open space to Manufacturing-Energy or Energy Resource to allow for the construction of a long-planned electrical substation and to provide for future expansion and leasing of solar facilities.