At some point, Doris Kremser stopped answering emails and calls. More than a hundred interested parties contacted her after the trained hotel manager announced last spring that she wanted to create space for eight tiny houses on her farm in Bernried. The 45-year-old is considered a pioneer in the Fünfseenland when it comes to miniature living. There are still none of the small houses in the region, although the demand is high. As simple and minimalist as the form of living may be, the legal requirements seem complicated. Kremser’s project is still in the official queue. “The meadow is still green,” she says. Hardly anything has changed in the past year and a half. The question remains: why is it taking so long?
Doris Kremser wants to build eight tiny houses on this meadow near her farm.
(Photo: Arlet Ulfers)
Kremser is a CSU municipal councilor in Bernried. The 45-year-old knows how things work with construction projects that first have to go through the committee and then to the municipal council before a building management procedure can be opened. Because even if the construction trailer-like houses are significantly smaller than single-family houses or semi-detached houses: there is no difference in terms of building law. Even a tiny house must be approved via a development plan. Only garden sheds or sheds do not require a permit. Ordinary Tiny Houses are larger and fully developed. “It needs electricity, water and sewage, a registration address,” explains Kremser. A parking space statute would sometimes be required by the building authority. And people want the internet. Because just because the demand for the reduced form of living is increasing radically, very few want to do without the advantages of industrialized society and supply themselves self-sufficiently with rainwater treatment, solar modules and dry toilets.
“It has to be solid,” says Kremser after the first visit to the town hall. “And that takes time.” She hopes that the decision for a development plan will be made this year – then the first tiny houses could be in Bernried in 2024. Three years would then have passed. “Actually, we have a very fast building authority,” says Bernried’s mayor Georg Malterer (ÜFW). He explains the long lead time with the extent of the measures on the farm, the tiny houses are only one component.
A clerk calls the situation “unsatisfactory”
Alexandra Beier from Wessling is also waiting. The 45-year-old presented her concept to the municipal council in the spring, according to which she wants to make six tiny houses possible on a property on the outskirts of Hochstadt. The development plan there currently only allows for a semi-detached house, which is why a building law procedure is also necessary. “I assumed that this would happen by the end of the year,” says Beier resignedly. She now knows that the waiting period can be two years or more. According to the municipal building authority, 30 procedures are currently open. All applications are generally processed in the order in which they were submitted. In front of Beier, there are still two applications in the queue, “one has been waiting for two years,” says the clerk from the building authority. She also calls the situation “unsatisfactory” – for everyone involved. She would like to complete the procedures faster, currently 30 are open in Wessling. But things are no longer going as quickly as they used to, “the land use plans have become more extensive, every opinion has to be weighed up”. The fact that there are no employees on top of that doesn’t make things any easier. Only the municipal council can speed up the process by prioritizing the project. But apparently they lack the courage to do so.
In the Hochstadt district of Wessling, Alexandra Beier is fighting for the right to build six tiny houses on a plot of land.
(Photo: Jana Islinger)
In Unterammergau, this tiny house settlement with six houses was occupied this spring – a model for the Starnberg initiative.
(Photo: Arlet Ulfers)
Christiane Haas assumes that there could be a little fear of the new in the town halls. Her assumption: “Municipalities fear setting a precedent” and being overwhelmed with applications as a result. On the other hand, there is the concern: Which people do you attract with such living and living communities? Do you end up attracting sects? Haas is the founder of a tiny house initiative in the Fünfseenland – and she is also waiting, albeit not for building rights. The 57-year-old founded the non-profit association in August “New Living Five Lakes” founded, but has not yet received confirmation from the registry office in Munich. “So we are not yet able to act,” she says.
There are currently 15 active people who want to work for common, sustainable and fair forms of housing. Haas watched with interest how a settlement with six tiny houses was moved into in Unterammergau in the spring – something like that would be her dream for Starnberg as well. “We’re already rattling through all the properties to see what’s possible,” she says of the most recent tours of the district town.
Around 30 people from Starnberg have already expressed an interest in building a tiny house themselves or in wanting to move in, “all with a strong connection to Starnberg,” as she emphasizes. These are people “from the middle of society” who want to downsize, are looking for community or are no longer willing to pay exorbitant monthly rents for two-room apartments. She herself would also like to live in a tiny house. “I won’t be able to afford an apartment when I get old,” she says. Due to a chronic illness, the former manager in the publishing industry receives a disability pension.
Christiane Haas from Starnberg is a co-founder of the association “Neues Wohnen Fünfseenland”.
(Photo: Arlet Ulfers)
One of her favorite tiny models is the Own Home.
(Photo: Arlet Ulfers)
Alexandra Beier and Doris Kremser, on the other hand, do not want to use the tiny houses themselves. Beier plans to lease the individual parcels for ten years each, with the option of recurring five-year extensions. In addition to the mini houses, a community house with small compartments for storage and space for washing machines is planned on the property. Doris Kremser also wants to lease six property units in the immediate vicinity of her farm in the Hapberg district of Bernried – primarily to local citizens. “The demand is there,” she says. She wants to build two tiny houses herself and offer them as holiday apartments. Since her father signed over the farm to her, she has been considering running the business herself.
The farm is still leased until 2025, when she wants to get started with a fattening farm or suckler cow husbandry – and a holiday offer on the farm. She basically likes the idea of minimalist living. She herself will stay with her four children in the 120 square meter farmhouse.