Personal Choice and Responsibility
Choice of cheap housing for very few homeless that are healthy and able to climb loft stairs. Not a viable option for seniors. Perhaps a viable option for college students.
Fiscal Responsibility
There is a Safety issue, which could put Oregon at Tort risk. There is not scientific evidence that it is safe to lower the standards, which may subject the state to a violation of Article 1 of the Oregon Constitution. To the contrary, evidence shows a greater risk of death from fires in loft sleeping areas.
Limited Government
Disregards fire safety concerns for inhabitants without thorough vetting at the State or National level putting inhabitants at risk. Bill puts micro-home building codes into statute specifying height and width of structure to be not less than 80″ high and 35 sq feet minimum of 5 feet with specific loft requirements. The building codes adopted in Oregon are based on national standards directed by Oregon’s seven statutory boards made up of stakeholders who are in the best position to determine the effectiveness of code provisions. Oregon’s unique building code system has been around since 1974, and it is one of the most successful systems in the nation. Writing codes at the legislative level undermines the system that has placed Oregon as a leader undermining the professional and technical expertise of Oregon’s statutory boards and the experts who serve on those boards. Micro houses have difficulty meeting the existing residential building code developed for conventional houses for good reason.
Free Markets
The demand for micro houses is driven by factors contrary to future viability, including cost of materials, energy and natural resource conservation, housing density goals, and homelessness.
I think we forgot who we are on this one; we became advocates for big govt nosing in on whether we want to live small or huge. Come on, folks! What offends the future ‘viability’ by frugal material buying, resource conservation, crowding of housing, or curing homelessness? How is limited government achieved by allowing state and federal codification of the liberty of people to build as they choose? Oregon’s building code restricts the people from building their own dream houses and makes lawbreakers of those who pursue their interests regardless. A tiny home need not have a loft for sleeping; there are many ways to address the issue of sleeping without wasting loft space, but even at that, sleeping in a loft is not the cause of fires there! Good night! What are we thinking? Small houses are a choice, not solely of homeless; actually, few truly homeless will be able to afford the building materials; with this logic, they can go on living under bridges. Seniors can creatively design tiny houses without steep stairs, if they wish to cut back on living expenses and leaving tons of worthless keepsakes for their progeny to have to deal with at their demise. It is the view of this senior that most houses are overbuilt to suit building codes that are developed more for big govt and taxation. Oregon Citizens Lobby should be interested in freeing the people for their own creative endeavors. After limiting houses, we’ll be for limiting guns!