CONTAINER LIVING
Container living with all required & comfortable amenities,
yet needing no external services.
The step to container living on a rural property is via the agricultural tenancy.
1. Why are we going via an agricultural tenancy?
First I want to explain what councils allow.
- Councils are mostly concerned with urban areas and their task is to have an orderly development plan.
- In general councils do not like caravans, tents, tiny houses, containers on small properties and particularly not in the urban areas.
- The rules as far as living in any of the four above, is that you cannot stay in there for more than 30 or 60 days, unless you get extension when you are building.
- Councils do not like concerning themselves about remote villages (with populations up to 1000 people), because services are costly to provide and they always get insufficient funds from the state government for that.
- Also councils do not concern themselves too much with rural RU1 properties.
- However the State government looks after rural matters and the agricultural tenancy is handled by the department of fair trading. Their publication states:
- An agricultural tenancy is any arrangement that allows a person, who is not the owner, to use a farm for agricultural purposes. In some instances they may also live on the farm.
- There is a sub clause: “where the predominant use of a property is for the purpose of agriculture.” So, we are looking at properties zoned RU1.
- It further states that the tenancy laws only apply on farms – 1 ha or larger, used for agriculture, occupied or used by the tenant, or intending to do so.
- It then states what agricultural activities can be used, and that is quite extensive. I picked some out below.
- grazing, dairy, poultry, wine, orchard, bees, horticulture, vegetables or other crops. And you are allowed to do them all.
- I do have an adjusted copy (for our purpose) of a tenancy agreement for us to use. I am also trying to collect a list of interested farmers.
2. Exploring the agricultural tenancy.
There are a few notes regarding the tenancy agreement.
- The act stipulates a minimum area of 1ha per tenancy. If a farmer has 300 acres, which is the nominal RU1 minimum size. That is equal to 121 ha. That means that you are renting less than 1 percent of the owners total area. That is not much, even if the farmer or landlord rents 5 such areas, you will never see each other.
- The tenancy should be taken for a renewable 2 year period. If you take 3 years than the tenancy needs to be registered.
- In the fair trading regulations it states that the tenant should carry on agricultural activities, or intending to do so. That means if you are taking actions to say build a chicken coup, then you obviously have the intention to run chickens, or say construct a hot house or prepare a vegetable patch, you have work in progress.
- Some farming properties have certain water rights or have production quotas. The agreement takes a lot of care to protect that farmers entitlement. Your operation is only small scale and we ought not get involved with those aspects.
- There are also a lot of rules handling the protection of the productive land and property of either party.
- The whole objective of living on someone else’s land is to live and let live. So, try not to get in each others way and each stay on your own plot.
- You can download an extract (9 from 29 pages of the agricultural tenancy agreement, to get some familiarity with the rules.
- I think this is a fair agreement, because both parties rights, obligations, enjoyment and risks have been considered.
3. What can you and us as a team, achieve with the containers.
It is our intention to provide a container home, which is:
- Portable. In other words removable — no attachment to the land.
- The residents do not need any services from any outside organisations, the council or the landowner (except for access). We want to make sure we can live on the land, that we have all the amenities and do not need any services. For example no power, no water, no garbage, no sewer or septic. The only exception is mobile phone service and possibly satellite nbn or foxtel, but none of these have any impact on the land.
- Any water tanks will be plastic (easy to transport and place), and not buried into the ground. There is no need for a $15,000 septic system.
- It is vital to accept our incinerating toilet, because any septic issues could lead you into a lot of expensive trouble for the resident and the landowner. We need to avoid that, because you can have the councils inspectors and the EPA (environmental protection agency) on your back.
- We also should avoid any kind of on site waste disposal, other than rain water and clean water.
- As part of the agricultural aspect of the tenancy, you need to have at least one of these activities. I could say keep a few chickens, or have a bee hive or cultivate a vegetable patch. Of course you can do more and I encourage you to do so.
- We try not to attach anything to the property. However managing a grazing plot or a vegetable patch (that often means stirring up the soil), or putting in a temporary fence, are all part of agriculture.
- Not to do any lasting damage or attachment to the property, when the residents and containers depart.
- I think $100 +GST per week is a reasonable rent, probably paid monthly or quarterly.
- The idea is to try and live quite independent on that 1 ha, and allow the same to the land-owner, if he lives on the property.
- By the way, if you look for a spot on the property, it would be prudent to find one that is not visible from the neighbours or public roads.
This Tiny home has 17.3sqm floor space + about 7 sqm for the upstairs bedroom, making a total of 24.5sqm with a starting price of $102,000.
4. Comparison between Tiny home and Container Home.
NOTE: I would like to make some more comparisons between tiny homes and container homes. I am not degrading tiny home, but it is a matter of choice and priorities.
My son who is doing some building work, and started using the tiny home steel frames in his place and he tries to convince me to switch to tiny homes. But I cannot see the benefit, it is not my choice, for the following reasons.
- A container is a very strong structure, tying together roof, walls and floor. It has the capacity to carry inside 30 ton and can handle a load on top of 180 ton. (try that on any home!)
- There is no work to be done on the outside, start decking out immediately.
- I would not like the be in a tiny house in a rural area on top of a hill. If it is not seriously anchored down, (and tying down means a development application), it will move, and maybe get destroyed.
- OK, the tiny homes do look classier, but they will always be small. The standard says maximum 35 sqm, whereas I am having 52 sqm under one roof and support areas around me. I have currently 245 sqm under roof.
- And I know we can give you a home at a substantially lower cost. For the price of cramped 24sqm you can get 78sqm of containers plus some change.
So what is your choice?
I would like to visit your container city for half a day. For this we should make contact to work out a suitable day and time. To start please make a booking, the charge for this is $330 incl GST and I even shout you a cup of coffee. Partners or advisors are welcome. (If we can’t make a date I will refund the total booking fee.)
I would like to have to opportunity and talk or ask several questions, either by phone or by Email. I would like to book 1 hour of your time at $77 incl GST. (If I can’t help you or we fixed things in 15 minutes or so, I will refund you the total fee.)
Please also note, I am not just a guy working in a factory trying to sell you one or more containers. I have lived the life myself and continue to do so. I am tickle pink happy to live the way I am. I have lived in the containers for more than 5 years and I built it all myself. (Except some occasional help to speed things up.) And in that time I have also carried out 2 substantial expansions, which required moving several containers to new spots (by contracting a crane with operators, cost $2000).
And as I said before come and visit me, or register my interest.
Would you like to look at some internal layouts and play with them yourself?
{By the way I will charge for my time if things take more than 1/2 hour. And please rest assured I am not a solicitor at 100th of dollars per hour and a time clock in hands reach. My charges are much more reasonable because I have fun doing my part.} I look at this stage of my life to payback to society and share some of my accumulated knowledge.
You can go back to the following containers pages: —- introduction —- why did I change —- the costs. —– costs page2—– the steps to take —- containers layouts
