Tiny Home Neighborhood - Septic System Advice

[Zachary Hickman]

I'm working on developing a 15 acre plot of land in "rural" Florida and could use some advice. 

It's currently zoned agriculture and we intend to keep it that way for the time being. Zoning allows us to build tiny homes on the land, up to 6 in total. We have already purchased the land and have enough equity to build the units and some infrastructure. The reason to not rezone is the need to build a lift station, which would make this cost prohibitive. 

Instead we're going to use well water and a shared septic system for the 6 units. City and Civil says this works and we're good to move forward. 

All 6 units will be rentals. Additional phases will be built in the future after phase 1 is stabilized and has positive cash flow.

Question to this forum is, what sort of potential future issues will the septic system cause for future phases? The current thinking is that these units will eventually be connected to the city sewer/water system. I'm picturing that the leach field will either be built on in the future or used as open space. 

Any advice and thoughts would be greatly appreciated!

[Chris Seveney]

@Zachary Hickman

Shouldn’t be any issues as long as they will always be rentals

If you tried to condo them or sell individually it may be difficult to finance unless you had a shred use / hoa agreement in place to make sure their are adequate costs / reserves

Also realize renters and septic systems don’t go well together with all the stuff they throw into the system.

Make sure to pump it very frequently

[Paul H.]

I wish I could be of more help but I'll share what I have seen British Columbia.

Similar land layout, 

12 acres.

4 Pads.

They used a leaching bed for the grey water.

They require the tiny homes to use composting toilets.

This effectively removed the septic installation cost, maintenance cost and allowed them to reduce the price per pad for the tiny homes.  They had no issues renting the pads and could be selective of the tenants.

My questions to you is can you sever the AG land into the two 7.5 acre parcels and get more tiny homes?

[Zachary Hickman]

Quote from @Chris Seveney:

@Zachary Hickman

Shouldn’t be any issues as long as they will always be rentals

If you tried to condo them or sell individually it may be difficult to finance unless you had a shred use / hoa agreement in place to make sure their are adequate costs / reserves

Also realize renters and septic systems don’t go well together with all the stuff they throw into the system.

Make sure to pump it very frequently

 I hadn't thought about the potential issues with renters and the system, will be something to consider, thanks!

Do you have any insights on removing a field in the future?

[Zachary Hickman]

Quote from @Paul H.:

My questions to you is can you sever the AG land into the two 7.5 acre parcels and get more tiny homes?

It's three separate 5 acre parcels, each one is basically a square and they're all arranged in a rectangular shape with only one touching the main road. Additionally, zoning specifically states for tiny homes in Ag land, it's 3/5 acres, with a max of 6 per 10. We'll be building on the back 10 acres first. The front 5 has a preexisting duplex that we'd like to keep for the time being. It'll eventually be torn down and replaced by commercial/mixed-use development (that's the plan right now).

All that said, even if we were legally able to build more tiny homes, we don't have the funds available right now to do so. Eventually, we'll rezone into a "planned development" category and build more, but right now we want to start small-er.

[Chris Seveney]

@Zachary Hickman

Never had to remove a field - if you did the field is just corrugated piping and stone

The tank itself will be large or may have several but removing them has never been an issue.

If you go to build on them later you will have to have a location or connections made to those properties that used the field active of course prior to removing it