After years of frustration: Tiny house activist gives up - "The dream is over"

Housing shortage, real estate prices, public participation: Thorsten Thane wanted to improve something with Tiny Houses.

After five frustrating years, he gives up on his dream.

Wolfratshausen - Thorsten Thane has often spoken of his dream over the past five years.

Now it has burst.

The Wolfratshauser is passionately committed to alternative forms of living, so-called tiny houses.

And he worked on his own little house: Thane lovingly converted an old circus wagon into a functional mini-apartment.

Wolfratshausen: Hopeless despite real estate prices - Tiny house activist gives up

Only a few more cosmetic interventions would be necessary, then it would be habitable.

"You still need one more day of work, then everything will fit," says Thane.

But he won't invest this time anymore.

“The dream is over.” The 49-year-old wants to sell his car.

It's a decision Thane made through years of setbacks and a lot of frustration.

Because despite all the work that he put into his heart project: After five years, the topic of tiny houses in the district is about the same as it was at the beginning.

"Our ideas were torpedoed from the start," Thane said in an interview with our newspaper.

The citizen's application - the Waldramer collected 230 signatures for legal relief in the creation of alternative forms of living - was dealt with and approved by the city council.

"Our citizens' application was reformulated in such a way that in the end only a lazy compromise came about."

Video: The do-it-yourself "Tiny House"

Man sells tiny house - and is deeply disappointed with "stubbornness" and slander

Thane is deeply disappointed. “What no one expected was the stubbornness of the local authorities and politics.” Because while there was constant discussion about the lack of affordable housing and citizen participation, “a storm of prejudice struck us”. The members of the association that Wolfratshauser founded were discredited as “smoking hippies”. A “littered wagon castle” and “trailer parks” would have conjured up the tiny house opponents.

Thane recorded what he actually wanted to achieve in a concept paper, in which even some city councilors were involved.

It doesn't sound like a trailer park: He wanted to implement a “participatory citizens' project” in the garden of the small property on Bahnhofstrasse.

He called the project the “garden of encounters” - a circus wagon should have been set up as a point of contact for various activities.

Thane would have liked to set up and host a shared orchard, an open-air cinema, art projects, handicraft meetings, reading hours and activities for all age groups.

The circus wagon was not intended as living space, he emphasizes.

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Walk in: the car still belongs to the tiny house activist.

The 49-year-old wants to sell it - out of frustration at the standstill.

© Sabine Hermsdorf-Hiss

Wolfratshausen: Citizens wanted Tiny Houses - Thane sees "lazy compromise"

"Before our concept even made it into one of the city's committees, it was torpedoed by the majority of the city council members with concerns and speculations," Thane notes in retrospect.

"Not only tiny houses are not wanted here, citizen participation also only seems to work if it is initiated by the dearly paid city marketing department."

The 49-year-old is frustrated, worn out.

Now he has pulled the emergency brake: his circus car is for sale.

“I've run out of ideas on how I can still implement a joint tiny house project here in our district,” says Thane.

Wolfratshauser Verein around Thorsten Thane remains - the fight for tiny houses continues

He would like to remain on the board of the 70-member association “Simply Live Together”.

He wants to continue to stand up for his dream - and that of others.

“But I don't think I'll ever live in a tiny house here in the county,” he says.

Maybe one day he will move - and live in a different place in a circus wagon.

That was already advised to him - by project opponents.

At the regulars' table of a party he was “recommended” to simply emigrate with his tiny house and his ideas.

“It's frustrating,” says Thane.

He no longer speaks of his dream, only of frustration.

You can read more news from the Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen region here.

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