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Home, sweet bus house

Former tour buses are being parked up and turned into houses as desperate families seek alternatives to high rents and soaring property prices. Amanda Cropp reports.

For less than $40,000, a bus that once carried cruise ship passengers and city commuters has been converted into a permanent home for a young Nelson family. Dominic Missen and Eleisha Fisk will park up the 11-metre bus on a rural property, rather than travelling the country in it, and they are far from alone in seeing ‘‘bus tiny homes’’ as an alternative to soaring costs of a newly built home, unaffordable rents and precarious tenancies.

As tour companies hard hit by the prolonged border closure sell off surplus buses, there are bargains to be had for savvy buyers with DIY skills.

Spurred on by the arrival of baby Felix, who has his own ‘‘nursery’’ over a wheel hub, the Nelson couple did much of the work themselves, with Fisk carefully recording spending on a spreadsheet.

‘‘It came to just under $40,000 for everything, every screw and the cost of the tools we bought.’’

The total includes the $8000 they paid for the 45-seater 1990 Mann bus bought from a Marlborough tour company forced to downsize.

Sounds Connection co-owner Maria Baxter says three of the four buses sold in the past year went to buyers converting them into stay put ‘‘bus houses’’.

‘‘A couple were solo dads setting up a home, so they could have their kids stay with them. It’s exciting, it’s good to see them repurposed.’’

Before the latest lockdown, the Bus and Coach Association had lost a third of its 167 tour bus members, and it is expecting to see more close their doors for good this summer.

Trade Me last week had 169 buses for sale, and while bus sales were down about 12 per cent for the first quarter of 2021, there were 15,500 site searches for buses in August, up slightly on July when the average asking price was $31,068.

George Oliver of Royale Coaches in Tauranga says secondhand bus prices have dropped up to 50 per cent, and 20-year-old models are typically going for between $20,000 and $50,000.

Over the past few months Oliver has been approached by five people considering buying a bus to turn into the equivalent of a bus tiny house, and he says fitting out a ‘‘stationary’’ vehicle offers big savings for those with the necessary skills.

‘‘Using household products is way cheaper than buying motor home products. A motorhome fridge will be a couple of thousand dollars, whereas a new household fridge might be $600 to $700.’’

Missen says the advantage of buying from a commercial bus operator is that their vehicles are usually well maintained, and their conversion is considerably cheaper than buying a custom-built tiny home which he has priced at $150,000.

A $7000 solar system will allow the family to live completely off-grid, and run a few luxuries such as a television and a coffee machine, when they shift the bus to a 45-hectare rural property they are buying.

Although they engaged tradespeople to install the wood burner and gas connections, the couple tackled most other jobs such as insulating and lining the bus, and they designed a larger lounge area and kitchen, with room for Felix to play on the floor.

‘‘We took the inspiration from tiny homes and one-bedroom flats, it’s a very similar layout,’’ says

Missen. ‘‘The amount you’re paying out in rent for a year would pay for a basic conversion. It’s security, you know you own your own home, no matter where it is.’’

Security was a big factor in Charlotte Fielding’s decision to invest $33,000 buying and upgrading a small house bus that is permanently parked on a Wellington property, providing secure accommodation for Fielding, her 11-year-old son, their dog and cat.

‘‘I had a wonderful house in a great neighbourhood with great landlords. Then they got divorced, and I had to move out so one of them could move in, and that really shook us a lot, the instability of having to leave because of other people’s circumstances.’’

Fielding has no intention of travelling anywhere in the cosy, 9-square-metre bus. ‘‘I can’t actually drive it, it’s a manual, I can only drive an automatic.’’

Just a few weeks into bus life, Fielding admits the lack of a shower is not ideal. She showers at work, and her son lives part of the time with his father, but the rent saving is worth the inconvenience.

‘‘I decided I didn’t want to be stuck in the renting trap any more, but I don’t have enough income or deposit to buy a house, especially in Wellington, so a bus felt like the only option.

‘‘It’s really freeing to have some independence and a little bit more control over our lives, and a little bit more money in the bank.’’

Based on her involvement in Facebook groups such as Bus and Caravan Conversion NZ and Offgridnz, Fielding says quite a few others are taking a similar route to solve their accommodation woes.

‘‘Since I’ve done it, I’ve had people say to me, ‘oh, I might have to do something like that soon

too’, because rents are becoming increasingly unaffordable.’’

Fielding worries about being forced to move on if someone complains about her living arrangement, and she will keep the bus warranted, so it can be shifted if necessary.

Having a home classed as a vehicle can be a game-changer when it comes to council regulations, as Charlotte Murray found in a long battle with the Selwyn District Council.

Murray and her two children spent more than four years living in a large bus in the Canterbury township of Leeston, and she saw off threats of eviction by arguing her bus was a vehicle, not a secondary dwelling.

The bus cost Murray about $3000 a year in maintenance and certificates of fitness, and she says that because it was not designed as a house, she regularly had problems with things like water pumps and diesel heaters.

‘‘Anything that went wrong took a minimum of $1000 to fix.’’

Having sold the bus, Murray is due to move into a custom-built tiny house on a lifestyle block on the outskirts of Christchurch where she will pay $130 a week ground rent.

The $80,000 structure is on a trailer that can be removed independently for certification, and she is looking forward to having much lower maintenance bills and more space as her children enter their teens.

Last year Alan Dall of Amberley won a court case upholding his claim that his moveable tiny home was a vehicle, not a building, but Murray says there is still much confusion around the rules, and concern about councils’ exorbitant consenting costs.

‘‘It’s still a grey area, so a lot of us try to stay away from councils, and try to do it under the radar.’’

Tiny homes are covered by the Building and the Resource Management Acts, and local authority district plans. But how they apply may depend on whether the accommodation is defined as a building or a vehicle.

Other factors come into play too, such as land zoning, other dwellings on the site, waste facilities and the potential impact on the environment.

For example, under Tasman District Council rules for tiny homes, composting toilets need building consent, whereas portable toilets emptied at dump stations don’t.

In Tasman, a tiny house lived in for more than two months a year is likely to be classed as a building requiring resource consent.

However, consent may not be necessary if a tiny house is the only building on a rural 2-zoned property, and it complies with all relevant conditions, a clause which Missen and Fisk believe clears the way for their bus house, which will remain registered and drivable.

Wellington City Council says someone living permanently in a bus in the urban area is likely to be OK if the vehicle is fully self-contained, or is on a property with access to toilets and water. But other issues, such as whether it is affecting the privacy of neighbours, are also taken into account.

Within the next few weeks the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) will publish guidelines to help councils, builders and tiny home owners navigate the building regulations, with the aim of getting a consistent approach to consenting across the country.

According to MBIE, living in vehicles is not banned under the Building Act or the Building Code.

The guidelines will help people determine if their tiny house is a building, a vehicle, or both, and what they may need to do to comply with relevant laws.

An MBIE spokeswoman says the ministry is not considering any legislation changes with regard to tiny houses.

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2021-09-19T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-09-19T07:00:00.0000000Z

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