No tiny houses here, yet

McCOOK, Neb. — Tiny houses may be all the rage on the DIY Network but don’t expect them in McCook anytime soon. At least not until after the city figures out how to deal with undersized lots stemming from circa 1940s alley houses.

During Monday’s meeting of the McCook City Council, City Manager Nate Schneider said the city has received numerous requests related to McCook’s alley houses in recent years. The smaller homes are typically located on lots adjacent to, or on the backside of, larger lots where the two combine to make a standard lot. He estimated the smaller lots had been in existence in McCook since prior to World War II.

One such property was acquired by a new owner recently, Roger Engler, who plans to demolish a nuisance alley home on it but is running into ordinance roadblocks with his plans to build a new garage.

“One of the concerns that we have is that if these lots, the alley houses, are allowed to go ahead and just decay through abandonment and whatever were to occur. They would just sit there. It’d become an issue for the city that we would have to deal with later on down the road,” said Schneider.

The city was working with the previous owner to get the property cleaned up when it was sold to Engler and he subsequently informed the city he planned to demolish the existing structure.

“Which is great, it’s a nuisance house and it needs to be demolished,” said Schneider, adding the problem arose when city ordinance wouldn’t allow the garage given the Residential Medium District zoning.

City staff juggled various solutions and ultimately became concerned with setting a precedent for future scenarios, prompting Monday’s City Council discussion item. Schneider said Engler was still willing to demolish the alley house but the property would have little value to him afterward because city code forbid constructing garages in Residential Medium Density Districts.

“You can’t have it in a Residential Medium Density District right now, because it’s not a permitted principal use at this point in time,” said Schneider.

“So it’s an ordinance thing then isn’t it,” replied City Councilwoman Janet Hepp. Schneider affirmed and said the city is concerned with similar situations where individuals don’t care for a lot and no one else wants to buy the lot because they couldn’t do anything with it.

City Building Inspector Barry Mooney indicated McCook had more alley-house homes than he had seen anywhere else previously. Schneider thought it could stem from McCook’s Army Airbase history and said it presented a unique situation which prompted recommendations to allow tiny houses on the alley lots, similar to those featured on the DIY Network and HGTV.

“I’m not sure how many people are wanting tiny houses in the McCook area,” said Schneider with a chuckle.

Schneider said the city had no plans to change rules regarding alley houses and individuals using them could continue to do so, “but these are the kinds of questions that pop-up when you have odd layouts in your zoning history.”

Engler said he lived across the street from the property and indicated he purchased it primarily to beautify the neighborhood but hoped to get some use out of it.

Councilman Jerry Calvin asked if a variance could be created to allow for a privately-owned non-commercial use garage in a Residential Medium Density District, to allow Engler to construct the garage.

“Roger is not who we’re concerned about, we’re worried about the next person after that,” replied Schneider. He said such a variance was a possibility he had discussed with Mooney but it would require policing.

Taking into consideration the big picture of getting rid of dumpy looking properties around town, policing of misuse of the variance could be handled by law enforcement bolstered by neighbor complaints, according to Councilman Calvin.

Mooney reiterated Engler’s property was not the concern but he was hoping to establish standard guidelines to help address future situations, “so that we can make some of these things happen, [especially] in that positive of a scenario.”

He also indicated “tiny houses” presented another batch of building code problems that would need to be addressed beforehand as well.

City staff indicated they would take the alley house topic to the McCook Planning Commission for further discussion.