Maggie and John Randolph kept losing employees priced out of the New Hampshire coast, so they got to support local workers by building a pocket neighborhood of tiny homes, helping them avoid long commutes or housing issues. The lot was originally zoned for 9 luxury homes, but they took advantage of a special zoning program that allowed them to build 44 homes on less than 4 acres.

“As a developer we could have built $700,00 to $800,000-dollar homes versus building these”, explains John, a contractor, but instead he and his wife Maggie, an architect, used their skills to design affordable housing. To keep the footprint within the legal size of a tiny home, each 384-square-foot bungalow has a 160-square-foot loft that can be used as a bedroom.

The rents here are about half that of market one-bedrooms for Dover (NH), but each unit is a stand-alone home built around a common green. “I love the idea of pocket neighborhoods,” explains Maggie, “and how do we create communities, creating opportunities to interact with each other”.

Every house at their Cottages at Back River Road has a ground-floor bedroom, a loft that could serve as a second bedroom, a kitchen, a living room, a bathroom with a stand-up shower, washer and dryer hookups, and a mini-split system for heating and cooling.