City Tells Tiny Home Builders To Cease And Desist

The Elicker administration has sent a cease-and-desist letter to two activist homeowners in the Hill — telling them to take down the handful of tiny homes they’ve already constructed in their backyard, and to not build any more until they get the proper city approvals. 

The property owners, meanwhile, are refusing to remove the newly built shelters, arguing that the privately owned land belongs to those finding refuge on it.

That letter from the City Plan Department arrived in the mail at 203 Rosette St. Friday afternoon — nearly one week after six tiny homes were assembled behind the Amistad Catholic Worker House. That’s the Hill home where between five and 20 people without housing have been sleeping in tents for the past year in the face of an affordable housing crisis and following city- and state-led sweeps of local homeless encampments.

The letter sent by the City Plan Department to Mark Colville, who own 203 Rosette St. with his wife and activist partner Luz Catarineau, demands that they remove the structures after failing to comply with local zoning and building regulations.

“We have learned that the Pallet Shelters were recently installed this weekend without the same review for compliance with both the Building Code and the City’s Zoning Ordinance as other property owners must follow when building and adding new structures on their land,” reads the letter, which was written by City Plan Executive Director Laura Brown. ​“Considering this, we need your cooperation by removing what has already been built, and to cease and desist any further building of shelters until you have a variance from the Board of Zoning Appeals, and any needed relief from State Building regulations.”

Colville opened that certified mail Friday afternoon, just days after his backyard neighbors had moved their belongings out of tents and into the 100-square-feet-and-under homes. Read more about the actual structures themselves here.

The tiny homes were sourced from Pallet, a for-profit company that has successfully sold the concept of homelessness-mitigating prefab ​“shelter villages” to over 100 communities across the country since 2017, and which helped assemble all the Rosette Street structures over the course of this past Saturday morning. Catarineau estimated that roughly 100 volunteers helped over the past few months to complete construction efforts leading up to the erection of those six homes, by leveling the ground and establishing foundations for the structures.

“We can’t cease, because we have a commitment to people. And we will certainly never desist,” Colville stated Friday after reading through the city’s written warning, which was dated Oct. 24.

“My intention and Amistad’s intention is that we are going to stay here, and if you throw out people who are taking refuge here you are throwing us out. We are going to demand a foothold here.”

Colville and his crew have already had multiple meetings with the city in an effort to get local approvals for their latest housing project. However, they have yet to formally apply for variances from the Board of Zoning Appeals, which Brown cited as the first step necessary for the project to come into compliance with zoning regulations. Colville and company have said that they’re willing to work with the city to try to get needed permits and approvals to legalize the project, but that if that doesn’t work out, they won’t let it stop them from offering shelter to those living in the backyard.

“In the letter we outlined that we are willing to work with the Catholic workers to facilitate them applying for zoning relief. That doesn’t mean it will be granted,” Mayor Justin Elicker said in a Friday afternoon phone interview.

“My understanding is that they have reached out to our City Plan Department, so I’m optimistic they’ll go through the process,” the mayor continued. ​“If they don’t, we’ll send another letter and give them a timeline by which they need to come into compliance and remove the structures. If they don’t do that, then we’ll pursue litigation.”

Elicker said ​“the most important things here are, number one, safety, and number two, fairness. We expect every property owner in the city to follow the zoning laws and follow the building code. Every property owner in the city does this or if they don’t the city will send a cease-and-desist letter to require them to stop what they’re doing and either come into compliance or remove the structure.”

In the meantime, Elicker said his administration would not interfere with the housing project unless outstanding health and safety issues became apparent. 

Colville noted that two fire marshals from the city had visited the property just a few days prior in order to inspect reports they had received regarding apparent public safety issues in the backyard.

“You’ll have to get permission from the people who live here, because the land is no longer mine,” Colville recalled telling them.

The marshalls spoke to Todd Godek, a backyard resident who lives in one of the tiny homes with his wife, Suki, about a heating lamp that they said could not be kept in a three-walled hut that the community members built outside as a common seating and dining area. 

“I said we could move it out, and they even helped me,” Godek said. Elicker confirmed that no other violations were found at the property when the city visited.

“I think it’s a good thing they did this for people who don’t have anywhere to go,” one next-door neighbor of Rosette Street named Barbara told this reporter on Friday afternoon, upon hearing the news that a cease-and-desist order has been issued. ​“These people are homeless. They need somewhere to stay. The whole neighborhood is on board.”

Colville said that while the city has presented opposition to the project, those living on Rosette Street, as well as the many community members from near and far who have fundraised for and helped build the project, are standing by the housing experiment.

“The support around this project has given us a seat at the table with all these wealthy developers,” he said. ​“There’s a neighborhood at the table now. So we’ll keep doing what we’re doing.”

See below for more recent Independent articles about homelessness, activism, and attempts to find shelter.

• 6 Tiny Houses Built In Hill Backyard
• $3.5M Hotel-To-Homeless Shelter Contract OK’d
• Hotel-To-Homeless Shelter Contract Advances
• Hotel-To-Homeless Shelter Plan OK’d
• Memorial Uplifts Activist’s Fighting Spirit
• Tents Pop Up In 2 Candidate Debates
• Three Tents Pop Up On The Green
• Unhoused Activists Mourn One Of Their Own
• Homeless Activist Found Dead Outside Soup Kitchen
• Opinion: Don’t Sweep People Away
• Union Station Clears Out
• 50 New Homeless Shelter Beds Open In The Hill
• Tuesday In The State St. Triangle With David
• DESK Preps For Temp Relocation, Major Renovations
• Parking Chief: Homelessness At Union Station Is A Housing Problem
• Closing Time At Union Station
• City Housing Plight Brought To The​‘Burbs
• Tent City Exiles Re-Camp On Rosette
• Debate Q: The Lesson Of Tent City Was …
• Homeless Youth Housing Plan Revived
• 6 Crisis Beds OK’d For Winthrop Ave
• Non-Cop Crew Cruises To Crisis Calls
• Don’t Like Encampments? Fund Solutions
• Brennan Slams Elicker For​“Cruel” Tent City Sweep
• Why & How We Took Action At The Encampment
• DuBois-Walton: Tent City Reflects Broader Housing Crisis
• Tent City Bulldozed
• Tent City Campers Start To Clear Out
• ​“Tent City” Hit With New Move-Out Order
• ​“Tent City” Survives City Cleanup Order
• Competing Visions Emerge For Homelessness $
• Surprise Drop-Off Turns Bottle Man East
• State Lands $18M Homelessness Lifeline
• Tent Citizen By Choice Builds Community