Dec. 31—ROCHESTER — Zac and Lauren Boutin understand people’s curiosity at their tiny home community near downtown Rochester.
The couple often wonders what’s being built around southeast Minnesota, who’s financing the project, who’s the contractor and researching to find the building project.
While creating their four tiny homes for rent on a lot where one house originally stood, people would drive by and ask questions.
“I’d bring them through for tours and stuff,” Zac said of the homes at 520 Fifth Ave. NW near Pop’s Art Theater in the Lowertown neighborhood .
After four years of proposing locations and development ideas, the Boutins opened Downtown Cottages in October. The tiny home community, or cottage development, is the first in Rochester. Cottage developments, as the city describes, include several individual dwellings with shared infrastructure in a “low-density residential community.” Most tiny homes are under 500 square feet with cottage court homes ranging from 500 to 800 square feet.
With 526 square feet to fit together like a puzzle piece snug in place, the Boutins doodled design elements on blueprint printouts. Their years of dreams became the pieces they hope welcome guests: a coffee bar, full kitchen, washer and dryer, steamer, a fridge water dispenser and oven with an air fryer option. There’s also a queen bed and sofa bed in the one-bedroom homes. Each home can have up to four guests.
“I always thought something that would be a little bit more affordable, and not that these are super-duper cheap … but it’s homey, it’s comfortable. It makes people feel at home,” Zac said. He is a general contractor and owner of Boutin Built. The Boutins are also Realtors with Dwell Realty Group.
They knew people might need a home away from home while supporting a loved one receiving care at Mayo Clinic. The homes might serve traveling health care workers, too. With patients and caregivers as their focus, the homes have individual HVAC systems, adjacent parking and no stairs to enter.
“The specific need that we’ve seen for these … for us really has been patients coming to town, their families. Somebody celebrated their son’s birthday, he’s in cancer treatment, so his mom came down and … they had a little celebration here,” Lauren said. “People that want to be able to cook, they’ve been very appreciative of that. And then we’ve had a lot of travel nurses utilizing it.”
The Downtown Cottages, which are available on Airbnb, have about a 70% to 80% occupancy rate.
“I just want people to feel like they have everything they (need), even more than they need,” Lauren said.
The cottages are a resource that Zac’s family would have snuggled into. At 17, he was spending his days being treated for osteosarcoma, a cancer that starts in a bone, at Mayo Clinic. His family made the move to Rochester from Mankato after hotel and food costs were no longer feasible.
After over a year of treatment, Zac worked as a traveling welder and found his home in communities across the United States, including his first tiny home experience with a fishing and hunting community in south Texas. The 40 to 50 homes became his goal to “emulate,” as Zac and Lauren described.
“They’d have fires every night and everybody would sit around and kind of talk about their day and what they caught, where they went and their experiences,” Zac said. “We’re talking 40 guys from all over the country there to do one thing, none of them know each other, you know they come with groups of two or three or four or five and they all just hang out. It was awesome.”
But could he bring the idea to Rochester? While you can find a rental cabin community in the woods, there are a small number of cottage developments in Minnesota, such as the cottage village in Duluth, Bending River Cove Resort near Lake City and the Sanctuary Minnesota tiny home village northeast of St. Cloud.
Zac said opening their tiny home community was “very hard.” They faced selling leaders on a location and how the idea would be different from a trailer park. Their first approach was a mixture of 250 tiny homes and starter homes, such as three-bedroom and two-bathroom homes for under $400,000, in southeast Rochester. The Boutins said the idea wasn’t approved by the city due to the location.
On about 40 acres in northeast Rochester, they again tried for a tiny home community of for-sale homes. Haverhill Township did not approve the idea. The Boutins recently sold their land there.
“A lot of our clients are in the boomer generation. They’re looking for single-floor living, downsizing, they don’t have their kiddos at home anymore, their mobility doesn’t allow as much and so that was the perfect size option for a lot of people,” Lauren said.
Another location in northeast Rochester, this time with the interest of another landowner, was withdrawn due to neighborhood rules. A location in northwest Rochester would go on be slated for luxury million-dollar homes.
Zac said he likes the smallness of tiny homes, how easy they are to clean and how it limits the amount of items in the home. He’s also interested in sharing his housing ideas through an elected position.
The Boutins landed on a quarter of an acre for four homes and designed them to within 6 inches of the regulations. The communal aspects, like a firepit and picnic tables, became additional landscaping when the lot was deemed to not have enough space. The UDC places cottage developments at a maximum of 2 acres.
Rochester Community Development Planning Supervisor Ed Caples said the process for cottage developments includes a pre-development meeting, neighborhood meeting, site development plan and permits. The Boutins had a second neighborhood meeting when they did not meet the 30-day deadline to submit a planning application after their first neighborhood meeting.
Following a change in the zoning ordinance, or unified development code, starting in January 2023, single-family dwellings such as duplexes, triplexes and cottage developments are approved by city staff rather than through public hearings with the city council or planning and zoning commission. Caples said the change removes “uncertainty” for developers, neighbors and the city.
“Cottage developments are approved by right under the unified development code so essentially if you meet the standards of the zoning ordinance there wouldn’t be any requirement for any quasi-judicial review … essentially it’s just approved internally by staff,” Caples said.
As the first tiny home community in Rochester, Caples said the Downtown Cottages are a “fascinating” idea and serve as a case study for future projects. The Boutins said the downtown location is a benefit to Mayo Clinic and people receiving care or temporarily working at Mayo.
“I think moving forward we will see more of these come forward (especially near the downtown core) as they’re easier to really hammer down what’s needed and what’s not needed to get the approval in place,” Caples said.
Zac said the planning and permitting process was nine to 10 months with an initial estimate of $30,000 in fees becoming $80,000. Lauren added part of these bumps come with building a new development. The long wait and permit costs have also been echoed by Rochester restaurant owners, including Sammi Loo in opening her most recent restaurants Bebap Korean Inspired Eatery and 1928 Cocktails and Bites.
“A lot of people talk about affordable housing and sometimes they don’t always know the true factors that go into building,” Lauren said. She added some of those factors are water and sewer availability charges, zoning and permitting. “We respect and appreciate the city for allowing us to do this project. At the same time, it does shed some light on some of those questions of what does affect housing and cost? It’s not always the builder, sometimes it’s the area you’re building in, too.”
The Boutins plan to build more tiny rental homes on the lot next to the Downtown Cottages. They own the lot with a current long-term rental home.
But the big desire for growing tiny home communities in Rochester is “well-organized” developments with an HOA, Zac said, to add housing options for senior residents and first-time homebuyers.
“To finally get one to go through after four years, I feel pretty good about it but it could have been a lot more affordably done to serve a lot more people,” Zac said. “I wanted to build like 250 of them. I think that would make a dent.”