as possible. Around that time, he says, trailer parks began to allow tiny homes in order to expand their trailer communities. “People who were designing new trailer parks realized [they] can actually make a section of it for tiny homes or [create] a tiny house community.” Ludwig says that planning became the challenge because of the misconception that people interested in tiny houses would be nomads. “The problem was that the local planning [officials] weren't quick at making the transition from short-term temporary RV-based to [viewing tiny homes] as a long-term retirement-based community where people are going to move in and stay as they age.” Then the state of California made “a very wise set of decisions,” Ludwig says. “First of all, they said every single-family property in the state of California can have an accessory dwelling unit. This was 10 years or more ago, and it was the precursor to dealing with the housing shortage. “If you take all the single-family properties and you allow a second unit, you can double the housing stock,” Ludwig points out. Advocates for the tiny house movement began pushing
Sonoma County architect David Ludwig has designed tiny homes and tiny home villages. These days he lives and explores in his travel trailer.
their properties following a disaster, but people haven’t yet adopted that mind set. He believes creating a tax incentive for ADUs is a solution. “If you give people a major tax incentive on their property tax for an accessory dwelling unit, people would be snapping that up as an option, and then we'd see the housing stock grow very quickly,” Ludwig says. While a champion of ADUs and tiny homes, Ludwig is at heart a proponent of the nomadic living provided by his travel trailer. “Here I am, 80 years old, and I'm living full time in my Airstream, and we travel about seven or eight months of the year,” Ludwig says. “We live on the road, and then in the summer when all the campgrounds are full, we stay in Santa Rosa.” “That's a lifestyle we set up that is responsive to fires, smoke, climate change and whatever,” Ludwig says. “This particular lifestyle with a mobile- living-situation is better adapted to the pressures that are on our culture and our communities.” g
in Marin won't allow more than one tiny house per property. “Even in those cases, the applicant has to basically go and argue the validity of their claim,” he says. “That's what we're faced with,” Ludwig says. “We have disenfranchised groups who have less money being invited to join a community, but being blocked by the complexity and the time involved
in getting approvals.” With the many
wildfires hitting the state, tiny homes are becoming an important
resource. “People can move on to a burned property in a tiny house, rebuild the property and then rent out the tiny house,” Ludwig says. “This is just kind of beginning to come forward out of the ashes.” Ludwig says tiny homes are a natural solution to getting people back onto
for the inclusion of mobile tiny houses with wheels as part of the accessory dwelling unit (ADU) legislation and, slowly, counties began allowing tiny homes on wheels as well. Ludwig says that the majority of areas
March 2025
NorthBaybiz 33
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