The Denver City Council voted on Monday to make it easier to build tiny-home communities in most of Denver.

“This is about creating spaces for villages as quickly as we can, so we can get to scale and serve more people,” said Councilwoman At-large Robin Kniech, the bill’s sponsor.

Before they celebrated the new rules, though, some members pointed out a policy paradox. The city is embracing tiny homes as a way to quickly build portable affordable housing — but Denver strictly limits mobile homes.

“It feels like a disconnect in our code,” said Council President Jolon Clark at an earlier meeting. “… Why are we still treating these things differently? Why are we promoting one and not even allowing the other?”

The new city law allows tiny home villages to be built across industrial, commercial and mixed-use sites, along with certain sites in residential neighborhoods. Villages could appear on future development sites, spare city land, or even church properties.

“We have the chance to … make space for a group of people in our city who are currently being excluded,” said village organizer Cole Chandler.

On the other hand, the city’s laws have banned the creation of new mobile home parks since 1956, staff said. Mobile homes sometimes are called “naturally occurring” affordable housing, but only a few properties are left in Denver — a result of both market forces and government restrictions.

“It’s a pretty important source of housing for immigrant families,” said Andrea Chiriboga-Flor, state co-director for the workers’ advocacy group 9to5 Colorado.

Kniech said that she’s interested in re-examining city laws on mobile homes and recreational vehicles. And Councilwoman Candi CdeBaca said in an interview that the parks and villages should be treated “under the same umbrella.”

Tiny home details

The new tiny-home law is meant to clear away legal roadblocks for the villages.

Denver’s first sanctioned village, Beloved Community Village, opened its gates in 2016. It has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars, but its expansion plans have been stymied at least twice, and it’s been forced to relocate twice due to city limits.

It also drew objections from some neighbors of its current site in Globeville, driven in part by fears about homelessness and addiction.

The new law establishes strong new rights for village organizers. The facilities will be allowed by default in industrial, commercial and mixed-use areas, assuming they can find a willing property owner. So far, the Beloved village has found homes on future development sites and city land.

They also could be built in church parking lots and other institutional sites, even in residential areas. The homes must be at least 70 square feet each. Villages in residential areas can only host 30 homes, while others can host more, depending on the size of the lot.

Under the new law, a typical quarter-acre lot could fit about 24 of those homes, a bathroom and a communal space, according to city calculations.

Former councilwoman Susan Barnes-Gelt critiqued the law in a Facebook post that drew hundreds of comments, complaining about homeless men near her home and saying that Kniech should “resign, buy land and open a Tiny Home Village of her own.” At Monday’s public hearing, though, the support was unanimous.

Kniech said the law was meant to encourage good relationships. Villages will have to commit to plans for how they’ll minimize light, sound and litter and provide security, and they can lose their permits if they don’t deliver. Permits can be renewed yearly for up to four years, after which they’ll have to move.

“It creates this back and forth, where you really are not just sharing input from the community. You’re documenting it and you have to write down how you’re going to respond,” Kniech said.

The council unanimously approved the law; council members Kendra Black and Chris Herndon were absent.

What’s next?

Beloved Community Village has raised about a third of the $600,000 it needs to open a second village of 25 homes, but it doesn’t have the land yet, according to organizer Cole Chandler.

Councilman Clark said the city must manage the potential new villages carefully. Though supportive, he worried about public opinion against tiny homes — just like what happened to mobile homes.

There could be a “sea change, where people say … ‘We don’t want these in our community ever again,'” he said at a committee meeting.

Monday’s vote is only one part of the government’s reassessment of its housing laws, including “missing middle” housing, accessory dwellings — and perhaps mobile homes.

But it would be difficult to keep mobile-home parks in Denver, even if the law was friendlier, CdeBaca said. Mobile homes are larger and require more spacing than tiny homes — and the landowners often can make more money selling their property for new development.

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly described the limit on the number of units. The 30-unit limit only applies in residential zones.