County planners will now allow tiny homes on wheels to qualify as standalone homes in unincorporated areas of San Diego.
Rebuilding Green executive director Genny Crane said you can call them tiny homes, mobile homes or chassis homes, but by all means do not call them trailers.
“There’s been this horrible stigma that’s tied to tiny homes because they’re on wheels,” she said. “People want to call them the dirty word, which is ‘trailers,’ and they’re not trailers.”
She said the most attractive thing about tiny homes is the price. Base prices fall between $60,000- $100,000.
“I say for the price of one home in San Diego, you can have a whole tiny home village,” she said.
County planners greenlit tiny homes to bring that threshold down.
As she walked around the first model home out of seven on the property, Crane listed all the features.
A tiny home is shown in Santa Ysabel, Oct. 2, 2025.
“This is 399 square feet,” she said. “It has everything that you need. It has a living room, a full kitchen, a full bathroom, and a full bedroom.”
When asked which San Diegans need tiny homes the most, Crane responded: “I would say our main clientele that has come to us, and the nine out of 10 people we haven’t been able to help are our elderly, our young adults and single-parent families. We just need more homes, and the only way that we can get more homes that people can afford is by going tiny.”
The county holds tiny homes to the same zoning density rules as those for single lots.