Photo Credit: Scottsdale Progress
The price of housing has skyrocketed across most of the country since COVID, and Scottsdale has not been exempt; far from it. As we have stated many times, the best way to push down housing costs is to build more housing (as anyone who has taken Economic 101 will tell you), but with an active NIMBY activist community and a growth-hesitant City Council, that is much easier said than done. But a new development may demonstrate an achievable way to get this done.
Modus Companies is capitalizing on a larger American trend of “tiny homes” with a new proposed development in south Scottsdale. This development will consist of 94 rental homes, most with one bedroom but some with two, with numerous shared amenities like an apartment complex. Unlike pretty much elsewhere around the city, these new tiny homes would be considered “affordable housing” and could make for a good solution for the working class or new college grads.
This development would span 10 acres and while not the most dense from a housing perspective, perhaps that’s part of the point. After all, high density housing has become a flashpoint for activists and has become a campaign issue, more specifically the traffic it generates. Modus has provided projections that show that this will not be a serious issue.
Tiny homes have had varying degrees of success with varying use cases. Some municipalities use them as a solution for homelessness, with an aesthetic that is more appealing to the community than traditional shelter housing. However, if those homeless bring with them addiction issues, those tiny homes can sometimes turn into a single-serve home, with it being generally unusable after the first occupant and turning into an extremely expensive short-term shelter.
That said, they could very well serve the important purpose of affordable housing; essentially the space of a studio apartment but in discrete separate areas. Perhaps not the most efficient set-up when it comes to use of space, but more attractive than a normal apartment complex, and less space efficiency also means less traffic. However, there is a question of how affordable they will be, and if they will need any degree of government subsidies to be properly affordable, a sure non-starter in this city unless it’s at the federal government level.
While the devil will be in the details, tiny homes should at least be considered in our city’s development portfolio, as they are much less likely to face the ire of the city’s NIMBY activists and a growth-hesitant city council like a large apartment complex would. And in an environment where getting more housing built is usually a challenge, we shouldn’t let perfect be the enemy of good.