I’ve been following B.A. Norrgard’s tiny house adventures on her blog, and while it is at times funny and fascinating at others, her process of “lifestyle repackaging” has been thought-provoking for the most part.
Norrgard, once a paralegal at a Dallas firm, was disaffected with her highly consumer-oriented life and wanted to live in a way that was more fulfilling. So she divested herself from her possessions and her home and began work on her tiny house, a 112-square-foot design from Four Lights Houses. She’s now rent free, mortgage free, and property tax free, she says.
It’s been a long road for Norgarrd, but as her tiny home is close to completion (just adding air conditioning) our attention is turning toward what it would take to for Dallas to accept a development like the tiny house community that Norgarrd proposes.
Austin is already at work developing a project like this, and it has a double-duty purpose as providing transitional housing to homeless individuals as they get back on their feet. Mobile Loaves and Fishes calls this project Community First! Village, and it is a revolutionary way to create oversight and access to resources for the chronically homeless.
But what Norgarrd wants to do will involve wrangling Dallas city code, purchasing a tract of land, and changing the zoning. Ideally she’d prefer to buy an existing mobile home park and flip it. But where is a good spot for it? Near Greenville Avenue maybe? Or White Rock Lake? I know something similar was attempted on West Dallas off of Fort Worth Avenue, but now Wood Partners is building a luxury apartment building in its place. Perhaps Oak Cliff would be a good spot? Or maybe somewhere near budding Trinity Groves?
Where do you think Dallas should build its first tiny home community?
