Claire Teasdale and Bennett Frazier were feeling really good about life in their hometown of Portland. Cozy in a low-cost home, they considered themselves lucky.

Like many people in this city rattled by rising housing costs, the couple work more than full time but found it impossible to pay rent and save to buy a home of their own.

Until they came up with a plan.

Taking cues from the local government's encouragement to build smaller, second homes on city lots, the couple, both 28, decided to design and construct a tiny house.

They took a workshop through Portland Alternative Dwellings (PAD Tiny Houses) and sunk their savings into building a 200-square-foot dwelling. Between time on their day jobs -- she co-owns a coffee house and he works for a design, construction and fabrication firm -- they measured, hammered and erected walls, documenting their progress on Instagram.

They finished in October.

To keep costs down, they located their new home behind a duplex on land owned by Teasdale's parents near Mount Tabor Park. The 15-foot-wide strip, tucked between an unused garage and a hedge, was covered in brambles and castoffs from previous duplex tenants.

"It wasn't a place anyone wanted to hang out in," said Teasdale, referring to the site before they spent weeks cleaning it up. "It was so junky and now it's so pleasant to look at."

They moved inside the teeny dwelling with their 80-pound sheepadoodle named Trek. Since their front door was close to the alley, they met neighbors and felt they were part of "a cute little community," she said.

Then a neighbor's complaint triggered an inspection from the city's Bureau of Development Services. Officials see tiny houses on wheels as mobile homes and in violation of Portland's single family zoning code when used as a permanent residence.

Teasdale and Frazier were forced to give up their tiny house life. They had to move out, and now are trying to find a place to park their DIY tiny house.

"We have until the beginning of September to move our house," said Teasdale on Friday. "This happened so fast, we haven't made any plans. We're treading water when we need to be making headway."

For now, they are bouncing among friends' homes, staying temporarily in whatever place can accommodate two humans and a sheepadoodle. "It's the not the easiest, but it has to be OK," said Teasdale.

She called Mayor Charlie Hales' office, and found encouragement at incoming Mayor Ted Wheeler's office. She's hoping to get the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability to amend the zoning code.

Until then, she isn't sure what they will do.

"I think if we can find a temporary solution we could move the tiny house in January and work with the city within the code so we could live in it," she said. "We don't want to be pushed out of the city we grew up in. We both work full time and we're motivated but it's hard to spend half your income on rent and save to buy a home."

Tiny house advocates see this happen all the time.

Joan Grimm of PAD Tiny Houses says Hales and other city staff have been interested in exploring how tiny houses on wheels might play a role down the road in easing the housing shortage.

Until then, the city is obligated to enforce the existing rules. "Though I don't think tiny houses on wheels will solve the housing crisis, I do think that in certain situations they provide an option for folks that should be legally available to them," Grimm said. "Changing the rules to make them legal to live in full time is complicated and will take time, but as you know we are working on it and I am happy to hear it is on Ted Wheeler's radar."

Kol Peterson and Deb Delman own Caravan-Tiny House Hotel in Northeast Portland's Alberta Arts District, where people can check into one of six hand-built, tiny houses on wheels.

Peterson, who has a background in environmental planning, has been a long-time advocate of accessory dwelling units (ADUs), which are second, smaller homes sharing a city lot with an existing house.

"It's ironic that a highly sustainable, unsubsidized, discrete form of infill housing is not allowed in the middle of an affordable housing crisis," he said, referring to tiny houses on wheels.

He accepts that the city is legally required to enforce the existing regulations, which also exclude in residential zones living in a yurt, dome, RV, tent or other structures that don't adhere to standard building codes.

But that eliminates a lot of affordable housing.

Peterson calculates that the foundation alone on a small house can cost $15,000, making it "impossible to develop a small home to code that is nearly as affordable as a tiny house on wheels, which commonly cost $30,000 to $50,000."

The city is not backing tiny houses on wheels, but it is supportive of accessory dwellings. It extended its popular waiver of system development charges, which cuts the cost of building permits for an ADU up to $20,000, through July 2018.

The city is also partnering with Peterson on his city-wide ADU tour on Sunday, Sept. 18, in which people can go inside 10 small houses sharing a city lot, from standalone units to those attached to an existing house or built above the garage. There is even an apartment made from a garage conversion.

"It would be good if the city would start to embrace a reasonable pathway forward for tiny houses on wheels in residential zones," said Peterson. "Advocates have offered a few good options for the city to consider over the years, but admittedly, tiny homes on wheels is a relatively new phenomenon and that novelty can intimidate bureaucracies, forcing them to entirely rethink parts of the code that some staff and citizens may hold to be gospel."

He continued: "The reality is that there is a huge mismatch between housing supply and demand causing a housing crisis in Portland and many other cities, and I believe that many cities need to creatively rethink how to help bridge this gap."

Teasdale and Frazier knew they were on the edge of the law living in a tiny house on wheels, but Teasdale hoped there would be room for negotiation. She says she feels stuck since her home on a travel trailer isn't "a duck or a beaver," meaning an entity the city understands, but "a platypus."

Still, "we are not the only ones living in a tiny house. It's not like they haven't heard about them before," she said.

The couple could comply with zoning laws by moving their house that was built on a travel traveler to an RV park. They could also take the wheels off and hope to be approved as a house on a foundation.

All the electrical and plumbing were done to code by professionals, she said.

But it's more likely they will lose their battle with the city.

Posted on the couple's Instagram was this statement: "Dan Saltzman, commissioner of housing and development in the Portland City Council 'championed' a new bill to fund a homeless encampment in industrial NW Portland. He vows to 'end homelessness.' That same week his office evicted a loving couple and their dog from their tiny house. Creating three new homeless bodies in Portland."

The couple want to live legally, Teasdale said.

"We knew it's an alegal structure; they covered that in the workshop," she said. "But we didn't expect this because Portland is progressive and has a housing crisis, so we thought we could work with the city and they would not be so rigid.

"I thought," she says quietly, sounding a bit defeated about being able to live in a house smaller than a parking spot, "we would have space for compromise."



- Janet Eastman



jeastman@oregonian.com

503-799-8739

@janeteastman



