Thank you to each and every one of you for signing this petition; for sharing it; and helping us to build momentum for local governments and the province to take the issue of RVs and tiny homes on wheels as compassionate housing in the housing emergency seriously. It's amazing that we've reached over 870 signatories in just under three months!
Some quick updates from the Oceanside Region of Vancouver Island -- on July 23rd, the Regional District of Nanaimo passed a motion (without opposition!) to advocate to the province to adopt a tiny house specific building code. Dr. Zoe Todd presented at this meeting advocating for the RDN to look into how the International Residential Code Appendix AQ tiny house building code -- which applies to homes on foundation and on a chassis (wheels) -- has recently been adapted into the Nova Scotia Building Code, giving British Columbia an excellent Canadian precedent for incorporating this US-based framework into its own governance mechanisms in order to remove one of the last remaining hurdles to legalizing long-term movable tiny home living in the province. Dr. Todd also advocated for legislators to acknowledge that tiny homes built on site (ie: owner-builds) are also a very important part of the picture, and to ensure that any provincial movable tiny home code that is developed has provisions to recognize these structures as housing, too. The debate of this motion is available on the Regional District of Nanaimo website (the discussion starts at 2 hours, 36 minutes into the meeting: https://rdn-pub.escribemeetings.com/Players/ISIStandAlonePlayer.aspx?Id=60d249d7-70d9-4529-a81c-bda35048c2ee
Nanaimo News Now and CHEK News did great follow up pieces on this story.
The motion will be taken forward to the Union of BC Municipalities (UBCM) at their annual convention in Vancouver this September. Feel free to reach out to your local councillors, directors, mayors, and representatives to advocate for British Columbia to take a common sense and compassionate approach to this issue by finally implementing a building code for tiny homes on wheels (and to recognize the role that RVs play as affordable housing). The UBCM lists contact info for all of its member governments here: https://www.ubcm.ca/about-ubcm/member-directory/local-government-member-directory. BC Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon can be contacted at: HOUS.minister@gov.bc.ca.
Finally, Midcoast Morning host Joe Pugh interviewed Dr. Todd about affordable housing, local zoning, and tiny homes for their July 24 broadcast. Feel free to check it out and share it with anyone passionate about finding better solutions to the housing emergency in BC! Link here: https://www.chly.ca/midcoastmorning/rvs
We will keep you posted on our ongoing advocacy throughout the fall.
Housing for all!