Wednesday, July 12, 2023–7:30 a.m.
-David Crowder, WRGA News-
The City of Rome may revisit the issue of tiny homes in the not-too-distant future.
Rome City Commissioner Craig McDaniel brought up tiny homes during Monday’s city commission caucus and during the regular meeting, Commissioner Bill Collins asked if Planning Director Brice Wood and planning staff could look at a possible ordinance.
“We’ve spent a lot of time in the last few years talking about tiny homes,” said Rome City Manager Sammy Rich. “We’ve got a local tiny home developer that has gone into adjacent communities. So, there has been a long-time interest. My recommendation is with the new Unified Land Development Code and Brice and I have had this conversation, we have got to figure out a way to incorporate more things like tiny homes so we can have more options for affordable housing and more types of housing for basically everybody.”
Commissioner McDaniel noted that the City has a minimum front requirement for lots of 60 feet while other communities are looking at 40 to 50 feet.
“That’s really the Achilles heel of trying to do something with our existing code,” Rich said. “This is a new trend. In a lot of ways, it’s an old trend that is coming back. I think we stand a really good chance in the new code of figuring out a way to be creative.”
McDaniel said he believes allowing for smaller minimum front requirements will give developers more of an opportunity to build on some of the infill lots in the city. An infill lot is a vacant or under-utilized parcel of land located within a built-up area of existing communities.
Being an older community, Rome has a number of lots of record that are too narrow for development, based on current code.
Rome City Commissioner Randy Quick said the planning commission hasn’t directly addressed tiny homes, but there is a developer that is looking to do some duplexes on some infill property on Ross Street where there was a structure destroyed by fire.
The planning commission is recommending approval of a special use permit for 9 and 15 Ross Street and putting one duplex on each parcel.
The city commission will vote on the special use permit during their July 24 meeting.