Tiny home village / RV Park

[Jen Carlile]

I live in Truckee, CA (~10 mi from Lake Tahoe), and we have a severe housing shortage here. Lots of long time locals (service industry folks, ski instructors, teachers, outdoor enthusiasts, etc) are being pushed out because long-time rentals are being sold & many people are moving up from wealthier areas like San Francisco and buying up properties that seem like a “deal” when compared to the Bay Area — deal in quotes because the median house price has increased by ~70% over the past year here.

I have started thinking about the idea of building a tiny home village where the homes are tiny houses on wheels / chassis, and providing them at a reasonable rent.  It looks like the best paths for this are to establish an RV park or campground, or a mobile home park where some of the units would be on permanent foundations and others could remain on wheels.

I was wondering if anyone has gone through this process and has any tips / pointers.  On one hand, if the goal is eventually creating passive income it seems like I could do something much simpler like buy a multi family rental property in nearby Reno (much more affordable), but I do like the idea of doing something personally to alleviate the housing crunch here.

By far the most complex part to start seems like understanding zoning code & finding property.  There are a couple routes one could go here — 1) find a Highway Commercial zoned property, which definitely allows for the development of RV parks, or 2) find something like a rural, recreation, or forest zoned property which allows for the development of campgrounds or potentially mobile home parks. The few HC zones around here are (obviously) convenient to the highway, but perhaps lack the charm and outdoor access of a more rural property; there are more rural zones (that are less $$/acre by far), but are often along dirt roads that are perhaps more dicey in winter (we get a good amount of snow here).

Anyhow, this is very early in the idea stage for me and I realize this would be a long, long road ahead.  I have a successful software consulting business that I also run (related to commercial building design) that generates my primary income, so this would be more of a passion project that would both do something positive for the community but also hopefully eventually create passive income.  

Feedback, advice, anecdotes, etc. are all appreciated!

[Dustin Allen]

@Jen Carlile

Doing an RV park and selling the units sounds like an opportunity. You would need to put in all the utilities and infrastructure and buy the units to start. I like the idea of them remaining on a chassis. If people decide they want to leave, they can tow it away and you can get another one to sell the next tenant. Keep a minimum design standard so that it doesn’t end up looking like the transient RV parks often do. I think you will have to settle on the location a little. Access to main roads would be number one in our climate, I’d stay far away from dirt roads.