On Dec. 15, 2025, the Greenfield Unhoused Committee reported their recommendations to the city’s Community Relations Committee. The Unhoused Committee spent more than an hour going over a list of actionable items that Greenfield could adopt to address the issues of the homeless.
Unhoused Committee member Robyn Green, an EMT in Greenfield, presented the issue of “Moveable Tiny Houses,” small homes mounted on wheels. Green reviewed a “Village Campground” concept in which moveable tiny houses would be allowed, in compliance with a campground sanitary code. “The language used in Greenfield now is that mobile homes are not permitted for use as permanent residences,” Green explained. “We are explicitly recommending that we strike-through that ordinance.”
Green proposed tiny homes on wheels in campgrounds by special permits, regulating them like ADUs (Accessory Dwelling Units). “But because of the specific structuring of ADU language involving the use of a foundation,” Green noted, “it’s a little more complicated than that.” As for manufactured homes, Green said they are treated like mobile homes in Greenfield, and the Unhoused Committee recommends making manufactured housing and tiny housing “easier to build in Greenfield.”
Tiny homes are legal in Massachusetts, which has adopted Appendix Q from the International Residential Code. Tiny homes must be at least 120 square feet and no larger than 400 sf. M.G.L. Chapter 90, section 1, defines a trailer as “any vehicle or object on wheels and having no motive power of its own, but which is drawn by, or used in combination with, a motor vehicle.” A tiny home on wheels must be registered with the state’s Registry of Motor Vehicles. If a tiny home doesn’t have a set foundation, most municipalities do not allow them to be ADUs, or parked all year round. If your tiny home is on a permanent foundation on land you own, it’s considered real estate, and you must pay property taxes.
The Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities says an ADU can be a modular home, manufactured housing, or other prefabricate home but it “must be affixed to a foundation that meets the building code and is connected to external utilities at the site.” Greenfield’s zoning definition of a “mobile home” is “a dwelling unit build on a chassis, containing complete electrical, plumbing and sanitary facilities, and designed to be installed on a temporary or permanent foundation.” A mobile home on wheels is currently not allowed.
Two days after the Greenfield Community Relations Committee meeting, 45 miles away in Berkshire County, the Dalton Planning Board held a hearing also on tiny homes on wheels. Amy Turnbull, a senior citizen and member of the American Tiny House Association, suggested the planning board support tiny homes on wheels as a form of ADU.
“I know the wheels have been a problem for some people,” Turnbull acknowledged, “because there’s been some allusion to the fact that it’s a trailer — and I want to say it is kind of a trailer. It’s a tiny, well-built cottage that just happens to be on a chassis. The wheels can be covered so that you don’t even know that it’s a moveable unit — and quite honestly — they hardly ever move, because it’s really expensive to do that.”
Turnbull said tiny homes are convenient for seniors who want to downsize, adding: “Young people like them. They’re small. They’re cheap. And if they have to move because of a job, they can.” She acknowledged that many towns have not embraced tiny homes on wheels: “I get it. Change is hard, especially for people who already own homes. They’re terrified that people are going to come in and their property values are going to go down.”
The Dalton Planning Board raised many concerns: Would the water line from the tiny home freeze in the winter, backing up into the town’s line, “causing catastrophic problems?” How would the septic system be handled? Would tiny homes have their own electric meters? “With wheels on it, the state is getting the registration fees.” “How would you assess these?” Turnbull replied: assessment was “not a problem if we don’t pay any taxes to the town at all.”
One board member suggested these units should have “fully self-contained” water and sewage systems. “They probably will be very rare, an endangered species in this town.”
“There’s so many moving parts to this,” one board member concluded. “The mobile home needs to pay taxes and pay for their water usage.”
After nearly two hours of discussion, the board tabled the issue.
Al Norman’s Pushback column is published in the Recorder every first and third Wednesday of the month.