The Garfield Tiny House continues to increase in popularity and has officially participated in its television debut! Our tiny house is all grown up. Investigative reporter Andy Sheehan of KDKA-TV aired a story about Garfield, and Pittsburgh’s first Tiny House. You can watch Andy and Eve here as they talk about the process to date, some of the roadblocks, and what this Tiny House is going to mean for Garfield. And even Mayor Peduto joins in. Thanks for watching, and stay tuned for more Tiny House.
LOCATION HAS CHANGED!
The community meeting tonight has been moved to the St. Maria Goretti Activities Center, located at Broad St. and N. Atlantic Ave. The meeting will be held on the lower level, with entry right off the parking lot on N. Atlantic Ave.
Tiny Meeting
As you may (or may not) know, the zoning hearing for our Tiny House in Garfield is fast approaching. Before the hearing we wanted to get the neighbors up to speed on what’s happening. We will be holding a community meeting at the Bloomfield-Garfield Corporation Youth Development Center to discuss the project. This is an opportunity to learn about the project or follow up on the progress and give some input. Come and let us know what you think! More details regarding date, time and RSVP information are on the flier.
Why the wheels came off
You might remember that the original plans for Minim show it built on a trailer. This is a very common way to construct a tiny house, but it is important to understand the laws where you intend to live. Your municipality might not let you have a tiny house on wheels and here in Pittsburgh, ours does not.
The City of Pittsburgh follows the International Residential (building) Code which states that “buildings and structures … shall be constructed to safely support all loads … The construction of buildings … shall result in a system that provides a complete load path…to the foundation.” If you really want to geek out, you can read more about this here.
Basically, this means that in Pittsburgh’s residential neighborhoods, like our small plot in Garfield, buildings are required to have a solid attachment to the ground to be considered structurally stable. Neither the International Residential Code nor the City of Pittsburgh considers a trailer with wheels to be a solid attachment to the ground.
So, what does this mean? This means that in the City of Pittsburgh the wheels are off.
Big news for tiny house
Tiny House, Big Living, a new HGTV series, is looking for people about to begin their own tiny house adventure. You can be an architect, a designer, a builder, or just a regular person. All they ask is for passion, energy and a willingness to share your adventure with HGTV. Production begins soon!
You can find out more information here or contact chuling@orionentertainment.com.
What’s next?
Now that our new direction is set, it’s full speed ahead. Chad promises that construction drawings will be complete in ten days. We’ll put the house out to bid again and hope to have our first round of numbers back within a few weeks. Once we have finished bidding and value engineering, we’ll apply for a building permit and should have the process well underway by the time we have our zoning hearing in March. With zoning approval and permit in hand we’ll be ready to start.
At the same time, once the bidding is complete and the budget is finalized, we can begin the task of finding financing for the Garfield Tiny House.
Come spring, when the ground thaws, we want to put shovel to ground.