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news Housing Duluth looks to'tiny homes' to help ease housing crunch Dan Kraker Duluth December 6, 2022 4:00 AM A tiny home under construction in Duluth's East Hillside neighborhood is seen on Thursday. Duluth has recently changed its rules to encourage the construction of tiny homes. Ben Hovland I MPR News On a busy street in Duluth's Central Hillside neighborhood back in October, developer Sean Dixon stood in front of the pilot "tiny home" he's building and described its interior. It didn't take long. "So, we have 175 square feet, with a sleeping loft, single bathroom and then a kitchen and living room area," he said. The home is built on piers, a few feet off the ground on a very narrow, sloped lot in between two older homes. Dixon hopes to rent it to traveling nurses who come to work at one of the city's two hospitals located a few blocks down the hill. He knows it's not for everyone. But he believes there's a market for his bare -bones, eco-friendly vision. Show Your Support by Making A Gift Now Public media is independent, community -supported media for the public good. Donate Today Mely a minimalist. Someone who's only going to be here for a short amount of time, who just needs good living quarters that are safe and functional. Or somebody who really enjoys the outdoors and doesn't want to spend a lot of time indoors." city offered assistance to developers who agreed to pilot innovative housing projects on hard -to -build -on lots, like this one. "Duluth really relaxed its standards and codes, and the new policies that the city set up allows for an easier route for adoption for tiny homes," Dixon said. Sean Dixon, owner of Denver -based Simply Tiny Development, stands outside of the 175-square foot "tiny home" he's building in Duluth's Central Hillside neighborhood. He hopes to rent it to travel nurses who work at nearby hospitals. Dan Kraker I MPR News This home is one of a few new projects in Duluth — ranging from a development of 18 workforce housing units to a pair of small units geared toward veterans experiencing homelessness — featuring very small, compact homes. They're not all, technically, "tiny homes," which are less than 400 square feet in size. But they're part of a broader trend of building more affordable, more ii£ent, and much smaller homes to help ease the housing supply crunch that's hitting communities like Duluth and beyond. That trend is much more advanced in states like California, said Jamie Stolpestad, who co -owns a company called YardHomes MN, which built the two small homes to house veterans in Duluth. But Minnesota is now beginning to follow in their footsteps. "I would say at the moment, the aspiration for this sort of smaller, more fifent home is greater than the actual implementation," Stolpestad. "But the implementation is catching up." Dixon runs a company called Simply Tiny Development. He's from Denver. But he was lured to Duluth more than three years ago when the