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Sara Bryanton's avatar

Fantastic article. My sister from Ontario is trying to live somewhat off grid in Little Pond PEI. A tiny 8x12 shed as the main cottage with dining area, kitchen and plumbing for a kitchen sink. An off grid modern outhouse with a modern Sunmar composting toilet. Bunkies (sheds) for sleeping. She has been running into numerous legal problems with the province over the the permits for such things. They keep giving her permission then revoking it. She was forced to put in a septic system for her bathroom. Composting toilet was allowed at first then they changed their mind. Forced to connect the bathroom to the “cottage. “ So major structural changes were needed. Is no longer allowed sleep in the bunkies (sheds) but tents are not an issue. So she sleeps in a sometimes leaky tent from Canadian Tire. It’s terrible.

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Roberta Laurie's avatar

When we went to buy raw land, we ran into the same problem. I'm still impressed that we pulled off, but it took a nightmarish 3 months to make it happen. It was one barrier after another. Bylaws and permitting are also not friendly to those of us who want to live life a bit differently. One example, in the district we'll be living in, they have a minimum dwelling square footage, which no one can account for. It was enacted in the 70s, and since then it's been kept because *shoulder shug ... They also require foundations (nothing moveable). My hope is things will change in the near-ish future. We live on a changing planet, and many of the old paradigms no longer make sense. If you're not going to be able to get fire insurance, doesn't it make sense to build a less permanent dwelling? Say a yurt? At least it should be a consideration. If we're seasonally affected by floods or wildfire, doesn't it make sense to allow dwellings that can be moved out of harm's way? Say a tiny house on wheels? Again, I say it warrants consideration. As we work towards moving to our forever home, my partner and I live off-grid in a small off-grid house. I won't get into the details, but we're not yet off fossil fuels. (We're working toward that goal for our forever home.) Even so, our consumption is far lower than it has ever been. We run a 1000 Watt generator, which is adequate for our needs 99.9% of the time. It only runs during the day when we need it. There is no ghost use, and we have very few appliances. That's not to say it's a perfect situation, but we're trying, and in these times, we need to start thinking about new (and sometimes it's old) ways of doing things, and our governments and banking systems need to catch up.

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