Document Type
Article
Publication Date
11-2019
Journal Title
Minnesota Law Review
ISSN
0026-5535
Abstract
The evolving role of community in property law remains undertheorized. While legal scholars have analyzed the commons, common interest communities, and aspects of the sharing economy, the recent rise of intentional co-housing communities re-mains relatively understudied. This Article analyzes tiny homes villages for unhoused people in the United States, as examples of co-housing communities that create a new housing tenure—stewardship—and demonstrate the growing importance of community, co-management, sustainability, and flexibility in con-temporary property law. These villages’ property relationships challenge the predominance of individualized, exclusionary, long-term, fee simple ownership in contemporary property law and exemplify property theories such as progressive property theory, property as personhood theory, access versus ownership theories, and urban commons theories. These villages mitigate homelessness but also illustrate how communal relationships can provide more stability than traditional ownership during times of uncertainty. Due to increasing natural disasters and other increasingly unpredictable phenomena, municipalities may find these property forms adaptable and useful in minimizing housing insecurity and instability. This Article posits how localities can legalize stewardship and tiny homes villages for unhoused people. These insights reveal a new role for steward-ship and community building in American property law and theory.
First Page
385
Last Page
463
Num Pages
79
Volume Number
104
Issue Number
1
Short Title
Community in Property
Publisher
University of Minnesota Law School
Recommended Citation
Lisa T. Alexander,
Community in Property: Lessons from Tiny Homes Villages,
104
Minn. L. Rev.
385
(2019).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.tamu.edu/facscholar/1346