SUMNER COUNTY, Tenn. (WKRN) — Sumner County is looking into a new style of home building: shipping containers. 

The county's Planning Commission will hold a special-called work study on Wednesday, Oct. 29, to look at zoning rules for shipping containers in unincorporated areas of the county. 

Right now, Sumner County doesn't have any real regulations when it comes to shipping containers. 

With it becoming a more popular, cost-effective way to build houses, the idea is to create some guidelines for how county residents can use them. 

“People are talking about wanting to use them for houses. They’re stout structures. The question is how to deal with them,” said commissioner David Klein, the Chair of the planning commission. 

Klein said shipping containers being left on unincorporated land has become an issue. 

In fact, he said this entire conversation was set in motion because another planning commissioner, Ron Strahle, was starting to notice the containers more and more around the county. 

“Everybody agreed, yeah, we probably should do something about this because we don’t want to be held liable for anything and not addressing a situation that’s becoming more common all the time,” explained Klein. 

Klein added the planning commission is working through prospective codes for shipping containers, including lot size, location, and design. 

“If you’re gonna have one put on your property and it’s going to be a permanent structure, it needs to at least be on piers like a mobile home would be,” said Klein. “It has to have a crawl space underneath. You can’t put it in a flood zone, of course, because the thing would float away.” 

While clarifying that engineers would need to approve how these structures would look, Klein sees the benefits in repurposing the county's old shipping containers. 

“I think it’s as good as anything else out there, especially if you want to put them partially underground or underground as a safe place to be during a storm,” Klein said. “As long as they’re not unsightly, and that’s primarily what we’re trying to do here. I think they’ll be a great way to have a low-cost home or workshop or, in some cases, a small barn.” 

“(You) got to do something with them, and this is a great solution,” added Klein. 

News Source : https://www.wkrn.com/news/local-news/sumner-county-considers-new-zoning-rules-for-shipping-containers/