Living in a Tiny House on a farm, it is a dream of many. To be able to place your own Tiny House there and live in a community of like-minded people, and also actively participate in the creation and management of a food forest. It’s really going to happen at Goeree Overflakkee. Cornelis and Carolien Mosselman are organic arable farmers in Ooltgensplaat and have received a permit for ten Tiny Houses for a period of ten years. They have now started building the food forest and the first Tiny House is already in place.
Farming towards the future
What is now an organic regenerative arable farm was, just under 20 years ago, a mixed farm with arable farming and dairy cows. In 2006, Cornelis and Carolien took over the company from Cornelis’ parents. But they didn’t really care all that much about cows. The dairy branch of the company was divested and, as with so many other farms, a process of scaling up was initiated. This meant that increasingly larger machines, more fertilizer and crop protection products had to be used. This results in soil compaction, loss of biodiversity, reduced plant resistance and a monotonous landscape. Cornelis became increasingly convinced that things needed to change, that he could no longer support this way of farming.
In 2018 they took the big step to switch to organic regenerative management in the form of arable farming with a diversity of vegetable crops. It was not easy; the soil in Ooltgensplaat is not the most fertile in the Netherlands. By applying a unique combination of techniques that place minimal strain on the soil, such as strip cultivation and the use of special light machines, the quality of the soil was slowly but surely improved. With their company Bi-Jovira, Cornelis and Carolien unintentionally became pioneers who farm from the heart, as evidenced by their website with the appropriate name vooruitboeren.com which translates to forward farming.
Photo: Cornelis and Carolien with their five children. They homeschool and like to follow a slightly different path in everything. Pioneering suits them well, which fits in nicely with the Tiny House movement.
Food forest and Tiny Houses
It actually all started with the idea of creating a food forest, says Cornelis. When the old no longer fits, you investigate what suits you as a person and your company. He was advised to read books about permaculture. Finding time for this was quite a challenge when you have a family with five children and long working days, but Cornelis still immersed himself in the principles. By bringing back more biodiversity you get a more robust system and that appealed to him. This is where the idea for strip cultivation arose. But the original idea to create a food forest did not let him go, as a dream that was not yet realistic enough to implement. To receive a subsidy for the construction, the food forest would have to be at least 5 hectares in size, but that was not possible.
After gaining experience with strip cultivation for about five years, Cornelis became convinced that perennial crops were needed on the farm. He really wanted to have room to experiment: not simply plant trees, but observe nature and see what works and what doesn’t. Unfortunately, there was still a lack of concrete support, which meant that the food forest plan still did not get off the ground. Until one day, a cousin of Carolien and Cornelis came to them and asked if she could place her newly built Tiny House on a corner of their land. This is how the idea arose to place several Tiny Houses on one hectare of the farm’s land area, to use part of the proceeds from renting the land to plant the food forest.
Photo: on the right you see the farm, in the middle the Tiny House location (the cables have just been pulled) and on the left is the food forest.
The process to obtain the necessary permits and additional financing took about four years, much longer than the Mosselman family initially hoped. However, during this time the land on which the Tiny Houses will be built was out of use and the proceeds from the rental of the plots will only start this year. Fortunately, the ‘Rotterdam de farmer’ initiative came to the rescue, with financing from Greenchoice for the design and plant material of the food forest. There will be no less than 2.3 hectares of food forest, the first three thousand trees of which were planted last December. There are sixty different species in the forest. Cornelis says that most food forests are planted in rows, but that they want it differently at Bi-Jovira: ‘We want a bit of a ‘romantic’ food forest, with rows and compartments, and in the middle a place where everything is mixed up. .’ The income from the Tiny Houses relieves the pressure to harvest as much as possible within ten years. The couple now really has the time to see what happens, to let the food forest grow and develop in a natural way.
A municipality with spirit
Adding homes, and therefore also Tiny Houses, on land with an agricultural destination is not easy: it has been policy for years that the rural area is intended for agricultural companies and nature. Homes must be ‘integrated’ into the existing built-up area as much as possible. A new wind has now started to blow and functional combinations such as housing and sustainable food cultivation are gaining in popularity. It is still pioneering: between idea and implementation there is always a number of years of much consultation, regulatory-technical research and lobbying. It helps enormously if you find a municipality with courage and a ‘can do’ mentality.
Cornelis talks about this process: ‘It was a tough process. Tiny Houses are a special case, they are not ordinary housing and the municipality found it quite complicated. Together we discovered what it took to realize this plan. You need many different disciplines within the municipality, but also, for example, the water board for sewerage and the safety region for fire extinguishing facilities. Nothing is by the book. But this is a pilot, we are experimenting with this new form of housing and fortunately the municipality dared to stick its neck out. The Municipal Executive has granted permission via a temporary permit. We are given a lot of space and responsibility by the municipality, which gives us extra motivation to make the project a success.’
Living between farmer and wilderness
Ten Tiny Houses will be located on 1.2 hectares of land between the farm and the food forest. The houses can be lived in for ten years and the intention is to form a close-knit community, of which Carolien and Cornelis are also a part. Cornelis: ‘We want to create something very beautiful here, so beautiful that the municipality no longer wants to dismantle it. It is our hope that it may eventually become permanent. Our company is at the center of the food and agriculture issue and in my view the core problem is that the connection between farmers and citizens has been broken. It is therefore our mission with this project to contribute to a sustainable farm as a magnet for the larger community.
The Tiny Houses are basically off-grid. The sewerage was a separate point of discussion. The municipality regards sewerage as a temporary facility, but there was a lot of arguing about this. Ultimately, sewerage and a fire extinguishing facility were made mandatory. Gray water is drained to the sewer with pumps and the houses all have compost toilets.
A real community
In the near future, the residents will still be busy building their Tiny Houses, but once they are settled they will contribute a few hours a month to the farm. Their talents and what they like to do are taken into account very carefully. Every community has its own identity and Carolien and Cornelis have thought long and hard about how this should be shaped in their project. It will be a Christian residential community and it is important to them that all residents share the same basis, have the same values and beliefs and are approachable.
The group is full except for three places. There is a core group and working groups have been formed, now progress is really being made. There is a working group on the construction of facilities, a working group on landscape design and a working group on PR and contact with the municipality. The first residents who completed the environmental permit process have now made plans for emigration and will not live there. Because it was the first permit, the process was somewhat difficult, but they paved the way for others. Cornelis and Carolien’s niece has also found another place for her Tiny House as the process took too long for her.
The group of residents is very diverse, both in ages (between 20+ and 60+) and in talents. Take, for example, Jan Willem de Vos, experienced vlogger who started a vlog last fall about the construction of his Tiny House. There is also a lot of musical talent in the group and of course a number of people with very green fingers. There is already a lot of talking and sharing with each other. A website about the residential community is in the making: tinyalteklein.nl.
Now that the first Tiny House has been built, the residential community is becoming really concrete and that is nice to see, says Cornelis. The entire project is largely about connecting with each other. That starts with helping each other with the construction of the houses.
Photo: the installation of the first Tiny House
The tenth house
In addition to nine occupied Tiny Houses, one more house will eventually be added that will serve as a kind of guesthouse for people who need to get back on track. One of the Tiny House residents is training in care and the idea is that with the Tiny House community you can create a place where you can receive people well. For example, think of a family that needs to catch their breath. The tenth house can also be used for temporary rental to missionaries.
Advice to other farmers
What would you like to say to other farmers who are also playing with this idea?
‘Make sure you have a good relationship with the municipality and province. And then: persevere. Someone recently called who has the same idea, but the situation in the municipality is exactly the opposite: the councilor went straight against it. In Goeree Overflakkee the municipality is cooperating very well. The councilor and the policy officer are both very positive. If you have a dream, persevere. Show that you want to create something beautiful, that you take it seriously. The fact that we were already pioneering sustainably with the company also helps, showing not only words but also actions. In other words: ‘walk the talk’, which creates confidence in the municipality. If that is the case, you can work together.’
What great pioneers you are, Carolien and Cornelis and of course the core team and all future residents! You pave the way for more of these much-needed pioneering projects, which explore the functional combination of housing and future farming. We wish you lots of fun and success and will follow your residential community with great interest!
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