SALEM, Ore. — Parked outside the Oregon Capitol building last week, Cameron Scott’s cedar-shingled tiny home made for a stark contrast against the austere granite walls of the state government seat.
Scott, who runs a Prineville company manufacturing the units, says a 2017 rule change cut his business off from customers in the state, making it difficult for him to capitalize locally on a bohemian trend that has hit the mainstream.
“I was actively looking to hire more people,” said Scott. “When the rules changed, not only did I not get to hire people, I had to lay three people off.”
Scott, an affiliate of the Oregon chapter of the National Tiny House Association, was at the Capitol as part of an effort by the group to get the state to reverse the change. Others gave similar accounts of businesses stunted after the Oregon Department of Consumer and Business Services added language excluding tiny homes from the agency’s definition of a “recreational vehicle.”
Mark Long, head of building codes at the agency, said the effect was accidental, and that his agency and the Department of Motor Vehicles are working on a fix to be released as soon as this week.
But regulatory uncertainty remains, and a state investigation has also raised questions about the safety of units classed as travel trailers — essentially temporary habitations — being advertised and sold as permanent dwellings.
Two lines added to state code in July 2017 target the style that has come to typify “tiny houses” — excluding from the definition of “recreational vehicle” the wood siding, pitched roofs, and bay windows that contribute to the trend’s distinctive life-in-miniature aesthetic.
The Department of Motor Vehicles uses that official definition, and stopped issuing titles to owners of tiny homes.
Long said the change was only meant to clarify that requirements for using licensed tradesmen didn’t apply to traditional RV’s: The agency hadn’t realized that the state motor vehicles department would interpret the change as excluding tiny houses. In response, Long said officials are working on a way to give titles to tiny homes, and expect to unveil a solution sometime this week.
The effect on the state’s nascent tiny home industry has been significant, say Scott and other business owners. Without titles, customers have struggled to arrange financing or insurance for tiny homes, which often cost upward of $50,000.
