Finding a great location for your Tiny House remains a challenge. Can you find a municipality willing to cooperate with your plans? Do you want to collaborate with other Tiny House residents on a joint plan, or are you going for your own space? Will you collaborate with a builder or developer? We asked several Tiny House builders about their experiences with developing locations. There are possibilities, but it’s not easy.
Dutch Wooden Houses
Jan van der Hoog, co-owner of Dutch Wooden Houses, talks about his project in Oud-Alblas: “We build compact, sustainable, custom-made homes. Although we don’t focus on project development, we have gained experience in this area in recent years.”
In 2020, the municipality of Molenlanden announced that they had to propose their own initiatives for a Tiny House location. Jan says: “The municipality was very positive about these initiatives. But it turned out to be more difficult than expected. We suggested several locations.” All but one of these were rejected.
Ultimately, they received a positive response for a project in Oud-Alblas: “After four years, this ultimately resulted in a permit for seven Tiny Houses and a storage unit. The permit for this was recently issued. This project will commence May 2026. Currently, 3 plots are still available.’
That took some doing: “Because of all the legislation, it is expensive and labor-intensive to develop a site. We question whether this is the role of a construction company. Ultimately, this would have been an instructive process with many new experiences. The point remains that spatial planning in the Netherlands is a major problem. Too many people and organizations want to have an opinion on an initiative. This causes developments to slow down or even stop.”
A particular challenge lies in the surrounding area: “It’s important to find a site where both the municipality and the surrounding area are positive.” Of course, as a company, you have to pick up on the signals from the surrounding area, but you can’t claim that a construction company is also a project developer.
But according to Jan, traditional project developers aren’t showing much activity in developing Tiny House locations: “We don’t see many regular project developers taking this on ourselves. Minitopia is, a great example. This company is also actively looking for locations in the Netherlands.”
Jan also sees an important role for initiative groups: “Local initiative groups are certainly good. Often, the saying goes: perseverance wins. Of course, it has to be realistic upfront.”
The enthusiastic builder expects little growth in location development for Tiny Houses: “I expect stability, little growth. We do expect growth in the second home on a family property. A bill has also been submitted for this. This development would be fantastic, because there would be less resistance from the surrounding area. In terms of spatial planning, this would be a very desirable development.”
Photocredits: Dutch Wooden Houses
Hugahome
Builder Hugahome is also happy to share its experiences. Designer Marc Mosmans explains what it was like to find locations for Tiny Houses in the early days:
“It was very difficult. Ultimately, it was often limited to vacation homes. And it’s still not easy. Finding space for homes (tiny or large) remains a challenge. And I can certainly understand that. Land has a certain value, and that’s more profitable with a larger house or apartments. And when municipalities allocate locations, it’s often in a kind of neighborhood (Almere and now Oldenzaal), which actually counteracts the romance of living in a Tiny House if you want to live in nature.”
Hugahome sees its own role in location development as limited: “As much as we want to help, it is and remains a difficult and time-consuming task. We are currently developing our first real ‘home’ in Oldenzaal. But it was striking that there wasn’t a huge rush when the municipality offered the locations.”
Marc is pleased with the enthusiastic Tiny House residents and initiative groups: “Enthusiasm and good examples are always good, of course!” The designer doesn’t expect significant growth opportunities for Tiny House locations. “I think it will be directly related to the housing shortage. And that means it will probably remain difficult to find many locations in the Netherlands in the future.”
Photocredits: Hugahome
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