A Future for Floating Homes
Dutch officials are updating zoning laws to allow homes that are fixed to the shore but rise and fall with the water.
(Photo: Schoonschip, Amsterdam; Isabel Nabuurs)
Somewhere between the conventional home and the houseboat, there are entire neighborhoods of floating domiciles that are fixed to the shore but rise and fall with the water. "In the Netherlands," Yale Environment 360 reports, "they are often prefabricated, square-shaped, three-story townhouses built offsite with conventional materials." These innovations are now being mimicked elsewhere, from Norway to the Maldives, as coastal communities adapt to rising sea levels. Dutch officials, meanwhile, are currently "working to update zoning laws to make the construction of floating homes easier."
