Horry County crafting standards for tiny houses, shipping container homes

Downsizing from a 3,000-square-foot house to a place about one-third of that size brought both comforts and challenges to Tiffany Krause.

“It’s cozy,” the 22-year-old said. “It’s easier to keep clean. It’s less maintenance to worry about. … Little bit harder when you’re trying to confine so many things into one small house.”

Krause moved into the South Strand home two years ago. She lives with her mother and 23-year-old brother in a development called The Addison along the Garden City Connector. Most of the brightly colored cottages offer less than 1,000 square feet of space, but they sit within a mile from the ocean.

The beach is what drew Krause’s family from Tennessee, and Horry County officials expect other homebuyers will also be interested in smaller abodes near the coast.

But county policy doesn’t provide a clear path for developers to build tiny house communities — The Addison’s homes are actually zoned as condos — and that’s a hurdle local leaders hope to change.

Over the next two months, county staff will be crafting proposed regulations for tiny house communities. Planners will consider site requirements, infrastructure needs and ways to incorporate communal spaces for sidewalks and green space.

Supporters agree any new policy must focus on promoting tiny home subdivisions, not isolated construction.

“It ought to be in a community of tiny houses,” said committee member Chris Clark, who works for Accord Architects and Engineers. “Then you have a well designed, a master planned area and these things architecturally would be appealing to most people.”

Clark’s firm is in the process of planning a local village of shipping container dwellings for homeless veterans.

That project and the small home discussion come as the tiny house movement begins gaining traction on the Grand Strand. The movement encourages simpler and more efficient living. Committee members say the small homes’ popularity first blossomed on the West Coast before sweeping to the East.

“Not that it hasn’t been done before around the country, we’re just starting to do that here,” Clark said. “We’re trying to make it, as I keep saying, as aesthetically pleasing as possible, if it’s a tiny house or a shipping container. It fills a need. … I’d hate to see us not pursue it.”

The county has a shortage of inexpensive housing, Clark said, and a shipping container can be fitted with a bathroom, bedrooms and living area. The containers’ exteriors can also be enhanced with creative roofs, porches and other amenities to “take away that industrial shipping container look.”

“We’ll have our NIMBYs,” he said, referring to residents who don’t want these developments in their backyards. “That’s why we want to control it.”

But regulating shipping container houses can be complicated.

County planners said they researched shipping container ordinances from communities across the country and found most of those policies prohibited using the spaces as living quarters.

Staff also cautioned that the county doesn’t have a community appearance board like the City of Myrtle Beach does, meaning the containers’ aesthetics wouldn’t be a county concern.

“It’s a building material,” said senior planner John Danford. “We don’t really regulate vinyl siding versus wood siding versus concrete blocks.”

Although they didn’t find helpful shipping container policies, Danford noted that he had reviewed ordinances for tiny house communities from Los Angeles and Rockledge, Fla.

Some board members like the Florida city’s policy, which provides guidelines for lot sizes, front porches and sidewalks.

“You can still have your porch in it,” said committee member Brantley Green, a builder with Fine and Small Homes. “You can still have your parking.”

Like Florida, Green said, Myrtle Beach attracts buyers looking for coastal homes and tiny house developments would open the market to those with less money. It would also allow developers to place more homes on a smaller piece of property.

“A lot of stuff in Florida is very similar to what we have in Horry County and Myrtle Beach,” Green said. “We have people that say, ‘I want a beach house, but I can’t afford $220,000.’ And the developers have gotten smart.”

Residents are taking notice, too.

Tiffany Krause’s brother Chris said one of the downsides of living among the cheery cottages is that admirers frequently pass through.

“This whole colorful thing makes it like a zoo for people,” he said. “People have a tendency to want to come and invade everybody’s private life and take a look around.”

This story was originally published December 4, 2015 at 2:08 PM with the headline "Horry County crafting standards for tiny houses, shipping container homes."