Are mobile tiny homes in Bellingen backyards the answer to the accommodation crisis?

Taking the lead from a proposal in the Illawarra, Bellingen’s council will explore whether mobile tiny homes can help deliver much-needed affordable housing supply to counter rising prices and growing unaffordability. 

A proposed two-year pilot program would allow property owners in the Shellharbour LGA to install one mobile tiny home as rental accommodation on a property with an existing residential dwelling - without the need for a development application (DA). 

Mobile tiny homes are small, moveable dwellings built on trailers that can be registered as a vehicle. 

Growing problem: Bellingen mayor Steve Allan said significant housing pressures are being experienced across the shire, exacerbated by an influx of arrivals from major metropolitan areas, rising prices and stagnant local wage growth.

• “We've been in an environment where local wages have been not keeping up, so that gap between local wages and rental costs or mortgage costs is ever widening,” he told the Mid North Coaster.

According to a 2025 local housing needs assessment by the Housing Matters Action Group, median housing prices increased by 36.5 percent over five years in Bellingen, 41.3 percent in Urunga and 57.7 percent in Dorrigo. 

Rents in Bellingen increased by more than 45 percent during the same period. 

Sixty percent of surveyed renters reported financial stress, while 27 percent of home owners reported mortgage stress. 

Can we copy Illawarra action?: At the council meeting last week, Mayor Allan requested a report outlining how something similar to the Shellharbour proposal - which is set for full approval by the end of 2026 - could work in the Bellingen Shire and the next steps for progressing it.

• “In effect, Shellharbour is testing whether existing residential properties can accommodate a small secondary rental dwelling …  without compromising planning standards or neighbourhood amenity,” he said.
  
  “The purpose of the trial is to determine whether mobile tiny homes can provide a relatively low-cost, quickly deliverable source of additional rental housing for people who are currently struggling to access the housing market.”

Councillor Dominic King said councils need to start “thinking outside the box” on affordable housing provision, calling for Bellingen Shire to “piggyback” off the work already being done in the Illawarra. 

Affordability action: At last week’s meeting, councillors voted to sell a council-owned block of land at Ferry Street, Urunga for an affordable housing scheme.

The land, valued at $750,000, is set to be sold to the not-for-profit Waterfall Way Community Land Trust (WWCLT) for $1, for the construction of up to seven new affordable homes. 

Under the Community Land Trust model, WWCLT would retain ownership of the land, while local residents would purchase the homes for set prices well below market value.

As disposal of council land below market value constitutes financial assistance, the proposal to sell it will be placed on public exhibition. 

Image courtesy of Shellharbour City Council.