Reexamining The Small House For The East End

Nobody has to live in a barrel like Diogenes, but on the East End, as well as in other parts of the country, the small house is once again garnering attention as the antidote to conspicuous consumption and the resultant waste of energy and natural resources.

Numerous articles have appeared on the tiny house and the small house movements, along with books like “Nano House: Innovations for Small Dwellings” by Phyllis Richardson.

The rationale for the small house dovetails with buzz words all too familiar to most: sustainability, energy efficiency, conservation, good design, function and necessity.

The mindset of many in the forefront of this movement has as much to do with zealotry and a point to prove as it has to do with altruistic motivations. However, there is much to be said about simplifying one’s life without going to the point of absurdity.

A look back at the evolution and growth of the American home provides quite a reality check. For example, the typical Pilgrim houses of the 1620s were roughly 165 square feet, with post and beam frames, skinny walls with mud on sticks attached to studs for insulation and thatched roofs. The Pilgrim house was a one-room affair on the first floor with a second level sleeping loft and storage above.

Ironically, 380 years later, the tiny house movement has adapted this layout for many houses 200 square feet and under.

Not only has living area per family member increased threefold since the 1950s, but the actual size of the single-family home has also doubled. Additionally, data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development indicates that the size of the average household has diminished from 3.67 members in 1940 to 2.62 in 2002.

On the East End, early houses—based on Puritan designs and the regional vernacular—gave form to small houses by being responsive to climatic conditions and by using small windows, locally found materials, and shingle cladding to keep out the elements. Even mid-century modern vacation homes kept the scale to a minimum, with inexpensive materials and a pared-down aesthetic.

The first McMonsters started to appear in the 1980s for a variety of reasons. A large home signified a display of wealth and success, particularly in the Hamptons. The design of some of these homes, specifically for retired couples, had more to do with incentivizing adult children to come and visit with grandbabies rather than an actual need on the part of the couple for such a large building. Lastly, more is more not less, so, the trophy house—clearly a status symbol, from the Gilded Age onward—has always sold well.

The design precedent for the small house has existed on the East End for more than 350 years and remains an integral part of our heritage. However, there are legal and regulatory issues working against the small house paradigm, which may signal its demise altogether if the five East End townships don’t wake up and modify their zoning ordinances.

The irony is that current zoning with large minimum floor areas doesn’t really allow for tiny houses that could make a difference between what is affordable and unaffordable in terms of construction dollars and upkeep.

East Hampton does not allow houses to be built that are less than 600 square feet. Southampton’s limit is 800 square feet for one-story houses and 1,200 square feet on two-story properties 1 acre or less. Any larger zoning districts require 1,000 square feet on the first floor and 1,400 square feet total with a second floor.

In Southold Township, 850 square feet is the minimum-dwelling-unit size whether the house is located in a 1-acre or 10-acre residential zoning district. The minimum dwelling size on Shelter Island in District C is 780 square, with 600 square feet on the first floor.

The remaining districts require 1,200 square feet, of which a minimum of 850 square feet must be on the first floor, excluding porches, breezeways, basements and attached garages. There, 600 square feet in the restricted business district, with a special permit, rounds out the minimum-size dwelling on the island.

Riverhead has a minimum size requirement of 1,200 square feet in the smallest zoning districts and 1,500 in the larger districts, with no space allotments required in one- or two-story dwellings.

Some townships have strange rules regarding renovations of these small homes. In Southold, for example, if your pre-existing non-conforming house is less than 850 square feet (say 800 square feet), then you can’t obtain a Certificate of Occupancy when upgrading unless you apply for a variance to keep the home at the same size. Not because the house needs to be inspected for health and life safety issues but as a revenue generation ploy from the application fee.

If you add 50 square feet to the existing 800-square-foot house, then you’re okay; no variance required. Of course, the town receives a minimum of $200 for such a boilerplate building permit application.

While other parts of the country have similar restrictions on minimum house size, the trend to eliminate these limitations is strong because of lawsuits that have questioned their constitutionality.

Another perceptual problem that comes with small homes has to do with the issue of maintaining property values and tax generation for townships. Owners of large homes view small homes as a threat to resale value, while municipalities see potential loss of tax revenues due to smaller tax assessments on these dwellings.

A recently renovated 400-square-foot bungalow, for example, turned out to be a wonderful starter home for a young East End couple. This one-bedroom house with a full bathroom has an open plan containing a small kitchen and eating bar that opens to the living area. A sleeping/storage mezzanine with its own stairwell sits over the kitchen. The back of the living room opens onto a screened porch facing the backyard.

Since the house is so small, it makes its ½-acre lot seems positively capacious. Under current zoning ordinances, this home simply could not be built today even though it’s a little gem. It sits in a neighborhood of much larger houses (1,000 to 1,500 square feet) and is greatly admired.

While Southampton Town officials have talked up a storm for years about affordable housing, the chatter has always centered on projects. Placing these so-called homes together in a subdivision on crummy land, creating a stigma for those who live there, overburdening school districts and engaging in class warfare through social engineering is as cynical as it is reprehensible.

The placement considerations of “East of the Canal versus West of the Canal” is equally ludicrous. And it’s no wonder that Riverside/Flanders and Hampton Bays, already containing affordable housing stock, have had their fill of being marginalized.

These affordable housing projects do nothing to preserve our community character anywhere.

Even before the Community Preservation Fund was established, Southampton Town owned oddball vacant lots throughout the township. Why not take these lots and lease them to affordable-house candidates who could then build tiny houses with the caveat that they be required to remain in the affordable housing pool in perpetuity. By spreading these homes out all over the township, there will be no more burdens put on any one community.

By developing prototypes of cleverly designed small houses of varying sizes, perhaps with an architectural competition among local architects, these houses could be sensitively inserted into the existing fabric of a community. After all, the cost of land is the real deal breaker with regard to building affordably on the East End.

The small house is really a story connected to our heritage because of how well it’s worked here in the past. The pressure to keep property values high has created a teardown mentality with viable, small houses being thrown out like yesterday’s trash, despite the fact that the public has caught on to the notion that the big house isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

The application of a form-based zoning methodology for existing neighborhoods of small houses would go a long way toward eliminating teardowns and preventing the erection of community character-changing McMonsters. So we’re dealing with the confluence of outdated zoning, politics, and an energy crisis that’s causing people to rethink basic house typology.

These little houses speak to a kind of intelligent design that makes this place unique. It’s time to lower the minimum house size for real affordability and demonstrate an act of political will.

Maybe Diogenes was right. When his friends chided him about his abode, he answered, “My possessions allow me the greatest freedom. He who acquires physical wealth gives hostages to Fortune. The more you own, the less freedom you have.”