The Pierce County Joint Planning Advisory Board discussed, but took no action on proposed recreational vehicle (RV) and tiny home ordinances.
The board is in the process of updating the county’s RV and tiny home ordinances, especially those governing RV parks and tiny home “villages”.
The planning board held their regular monthly meeting January 12 to review three matters, the RV and tiny home ordinance plus a permit request for the construction of a new cell phone tower. The board approved the cell phone tower. The RV and tiny home ordinances will take a little more work.
Board members Timothy Griffis, Adam Hart and Daniel Washington reviewed the ordinances under consideration with the help of County Code Inspector Chris Bond, who drafted many of the updates to both ordinances.
Bond said the main goal was to “clean up the preexisting ordinances” and bring them in line with those in surrounding communities.
By way of example, Bond pointed out a change to the RV park ordinance, which was last updated in 2002, to increase the minimum size of any RV park in Pierce from 1 acre to 5 usable acres, emphasizing the distinction was important in case someone tried to crowd the entire park into one or two acres on a lot that was partially wetlands or otherwise unusable.
There were several such seemingly minor but important distinctions. Older ordinances called for 70-foot cul-de-sacs. Bond bumped those up to 90 feet to more easily accommodate the turn radius of emergency vehicles, trash trucks and buses. Bond also proposed raising the height of electrical power poles in RV parks from 14 feet to 18 in order to accommodate the 15-foot average roof height of an RV.
“I don’t think you should give them the option” was suggestion from one audience member, County Commission Chairman Neal Bennett.
Instead, he suggested requiring all electrical service be underground, and that prompted the board to request a change in the ordinance to reflect this new requirement. This was just one of several changes the board requested before unanimously approving a motion to table the vote on recommending the updated ordinance to the county commission until the planning board’s next meeting.
The updating of ordinances governing tiny homes, residential structures of 400 square feet or less, and tiny home “villages”, clusters of such structures, proceeded in much the same fashion. Bond enumerated the proposed updates, fielded questions from the board and the few members of the audience and agreed to clean up or modify sections that required more clarity.
Among many other details, tiny home villages would be a minimum of 5,000 square feet per village, roughly equivalent to 6 tiny homes per acre. A separation of 10 feet per home is in line with standard fire codes. No tiny home can be erected without prior approval and a conditional use development permit, even if it was the sole structure on a 100 acre spread. Bond says this provides an opportunity to ensure the structures conform to building codes. Septic tank ordinances are governed by the Department of Health, but one tank per unit would be required in villages, even if the tank could accommodate multiple tiny homes. Front and back porches would be required for tiny homes as well.
The vote to recommend the updated tiny home ordinances was also tabled until the planning board’s next meeting.
The planning board’s next meeting will be 10:30 a.m. Monday, February 9 in the courthouse annex on Nichols Street.
