Updated at 6:11 p.m.
Stephanie Sena, arguably one of the city’s most animated housing advocates, has spent years trying to build tiny houses in Philadelphia.
Now, at the end of an otherwise grim 2020, the Villanova poverty and policy professor appears to have gotten the city backing she needs to see one of her visions realized.
Sena and her organization, Student-Run Emergency Housing Unit of Philadelphia, is one of the would-be developers who responded to a city request for proposals to build a village of tiny houses in the Mill Creek section of West Philadelphia. The RFP came out in November after city officials agreed to build the homes in negotiation with activists protesting homelessness through encampments on Benjamin Franklin Parkway and Ridge Avenue. At its peak, over 200 people lived in the encampments before activists and the city brokered the deal that included the tiny homes and 50 vacant homes that will be fixed up for habitation.
All proposals are due next month and city officials expect the project to be completed by the summer. Those proposals will be reviewed by a scoring committee and then presented to the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority Board for consideration. The committee is made up of representatives of different city agencies.
In the meantime, Sena is setting her sights on trying to make it easier for tiny houses to come elsewhere in Philly and across the state through adopting a new regulation that would make it easier to build homes 400 square feet or less.
“If legislation is passed, it streamlines the process and it makes it easier for more people to build more affordably,” Sena said. “When it comes to building codes, it’s better to be less exclusionary because it opens us to more diverse and affordable building options.”
Appendix Q allows for lower ceilings, lofts
The regulation, known as Appendix Q, passed in 2018 into the international residential building code that guides the construction codes imposed by local governments. In the years since, several states including Massachusetts and California have adopted it into the state building code that municipalities use.
In Philadelphia and elsewhere in the state, tiny houses can be burdensome to build because residences of such diminutive stature aren’t covered by the construction code.
Under the current building codes, homes that are 400 square feet and under can get a building permit with no fuss as long as rooms meet proper dimensions and the ceiling heights meet the minimum requirements. However, if a plan calls for a lower ceiling height, which is typical of tiny houses, and the use of loft space, the builder must secure a variance — a costly and time-consuming process that doesn’t always end with a green light to build. Appendix Q would change that by adding sleeping lofts and ceilings as low as six feet into the standard building code so no extra approvals would be needed.
“If we were to get Appendix Q, it would allow more flexibility and better use of the area and volume within a tiny house,” said Dave Perri, the former commissioner of the city’s Department of Licenses and Inspection. Perri, who retired in October, had argued for changes to the city code that would enable more legal options for non-traditional housing.
Dan Fitzpatrick presides over the Tiny Home Industry Association, the industry group that crafted the building code amendment. He said changing the code creates an opening for developers to build more dwellings for less money.
“They’re perfect for affordable and sustainable housing,” Fitzpatrick said of the tiny homes enabled by Appendix Q.
State Sen. Tim Kearney, who represents parts of Chester and Delaware counties is an architecture professor at Drexel University. He supports the bill but said it will take some convincing for his colleagues outside of the city to get on board. Kearney, who has built two tiny houses himself, is up for the challenge.
“Things like the homeless situation exist everywhere across the Commonwealth but it’s just more hidden in places that are not so dense,” Kearney said.
He and others in Harrisburg will be watching the tiny houses planned for Philadelphia, he said. The success of those projects could sway public opinion in support of the change of code.