Council member suggests starting from scratch on Denton’s tiny home village plan, despite proposals and offers to lead the charge

A few days ago, Piper-Lunt helped an unsheltered woman who lost a few toes during the winter freeze earlier this year.

For nearly seven years now, Piper-Lunt has been advocating for a tiny house village. At first her plans weren’t much more than a lean-to shelter on city property near Ruddell Street. Then the city, she said, paid more than $600,000 to put a fence around the property instead of leasing it.

Since then she found a board member, Douglas Gustafson, who has experience building two tiny house villages and successfully operating them in Bellingham, Washington.

The first village was paid for by the city of Bellingham during the COVID-19 pandemic and set up in two weeks to help the city’s growing unsheltered population, some of whom struggle with anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health issues that keep them away from the shelters. Police there say crime has gone down since the villages opened.

When Denton city staff requested more information about tiny house villages in January 2022, Piper-Lunt helped put together what some council members called a solid plan compared to some of the others they had received. It was also the cheapest plan out of the five submitted, as the Denton Record-Chronicle reported in October.

“All we want is an ordinance for council to agree to rent us a piece of property,” Piper-Lunt said in a Thursday interview with the Record-Chronicle.

That part of Piper-Lunt’s dream was briefly crushed at the Feb. 21 City Council work session when Dani Shaw from Denton community services announced that there wasn’t “adequate” or “appropriate” city land available for a tiny house village during a transitional housing presentation to council members.

It was just one of several issues raised about a proposed tiny house village, causing council member and former Mayor Chris Watts to question the approach to the village. He said it was “fragmented” and “is never going to be successful,” calling for it to be scrapped.

“It took seven years for us to have a plan, to really do it right, to make it where it has the best opportunity to succeed,” Watts said. “It’s not just throwing money at it. I think we really need to start over. I think we really need to begin to have a strategic approach on what we are actually trying to accomplish.”

Shaw told council members they would continue to research this issue, pointing out that it was something the city could help facilitate but wouldn’t have to fund 100%, much like what they do with other nonprofits that they help support by creating more affordable housing units.

“There are ways in which we can facilitate that, make that possible for a nonprofit partner to do it,” Shaw said.

The Feb. 21 presentation focused on two vendors who submitted bid proposals to the city. They were the only two vendors who had responded to the city’s additional request for more information in late 2022. They were identified as “Vendor No. 1” and “Vendor No. 2.”

DBSC wasn’t one of those vendors, despite the encouragement of council member Vicki Byrd, who Piper-Lunt said had initially encouraged them to submit information to the city. The original property Piper-Lunt wanted to use for the village near Ruddell is located in Byrd’s district.

In the Feb. 21 presentation, a brief background of the requests for information (RFI) was offered from its earliest beginnings in January 2022 to an early August work session when city staff requested direction from council to make edits to the requests for proposal (RFP) to add any commitment of city resources to be included.

There were none offered, Piper-Lunt said.

At the Feb. 21 work session, the two vendors who submitted bids requested millions in taxpayer dollars to make their villages a reality for the growing unsheltered population in Denton and Denton County, according to data provided by United Way of Denton County.

According to the Feb. 21 presentation, Vendor 1 didn’t request land from the city but did request $7.3 million from the city to help construct a tiny house village. They planned to build 10 house/duplex-type structures and one community house to accommodate 19 people. They estimated the annual maintenance and operation cost at $387,629.

Vendor 2 did request land for the shipping containers they planned to use as tiny houses. They were requesting $4 million from the city, with an annual maintenance and operation cost at $599,000.

All of the council members agreed with staff’s recommendation that these two vendors’ proposals weren’t viable options for the city. Council member Jesse Davis said that their denial doesn’t mean that Denton doesn’t need a tiny house village.

“That doesn’t mean I can’t support somebody else doing this in a more cost-effective way, but I think it’s a good reminder, too, that the city is not the solution to every facet to this problem,” Davis said.

DBSC proposed in 2022 two possible tiny house villages. One would cost the city about $400,000 and the other only $196,350. Piper-Lunt projected it would cost about $16,000 annually to operate the proposed 30 tiny homes if the organization didn’t receive any help with the utilities from the city.

Piper-Lunt doesn’t plan to give up. She said the city needs an alternative to the new shelter run by Our Daily Bread, Together with Monsignor King Outreach Center, which she claimed has been turning people away since the inclement weather has passed through.

DBSC could also move forward with finding land through other means, Piper-Lunt said, but would rather work with the city to make the organization’s tiny home dream a reality. She said she doesn’t think the council’s response has anything to do with the money, despite what Davis and Watts claimed at the Feb. 21 work session.

“If they can spend $676,000 on a fence to put around that property we requested and $5 million on a traffic circle at Bonnie Brae … the money is out there,” Piper-Lunt said. “They are not using it right.”

City spokesperson Stuart Birdseye said that Phase 4 of the Bonnie Brae project Piper-Lunt references, which included a traffic circle at Bonnie Brae and Scripture Street, actually cost $6.6 million.

In January 2022, the City Council approved the fencing contract, around the land Piper-Lunt hoped to lease, not to exceed $677,856, according to information provided by Birdseye.

Piper-Lunt said they plan to approach the council again after the May election and would welcome council oversight, especially if it’s a staffer who has empathy for the people experiencing homelessness.

“Hitting rock bottom is not how you solve homelessness,” Piper-Lunt said. “It is love. Love is what helps change that, and if you don’t have a loving attitude, an understanding attitude and know how to deal with people, you are going to fail. There is plenty of training out there on this.”