Affordable housing option for Housing option for truckers and oil field workers in Williston (Hunter: how much, home)
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But when those hundreds and thousands of people arrive, is there already enough housing available? Why do I keep hearing about a shortage? Is this shortage not for the oil workers, but for everyone else?
No, you are absolutely correct, but the oil boom is kind of a double whammy this time. They boomed a few years ago and the residents kind of jumped the gun on developement, and then it busted. Then it boomed again. But this boom is over 4 years old now, it's not a new item anymore. 4 years ago, thousands of people were living in cars, WalMart parking lot was jambed full and nobody was shopping, etc... They started developing man-camps just as fast as they could throw them in place and finally, the Towns and the Countys put their foot down and passed ordinances stopping the growth, unless it was better thought out. Man camps had to be planned, permits had to be obtained, adiquate parking, security, roads, etc... Williston even passed an ordinance making it illegal to live in an RV, unless the RV is in and authorized, licensed and insured, RV park. No more RV's in everybody's driveway, or back yard. They held off that ordinance until the RV park, some 800 units, was completed and then give everybody time to get their RV's moved into the parks. Several apartment houses have been built. Also, due to apartment shortages, they allowed construction workers to park their rv's, on the job site. It didn't make sense to want people to build apartments and not have a place for them to stay while building.
Early on, one place up in WIlliston took a 55+ community and raised their rent from $700, to $900, to $1500, to $2100 in about 9 months. Drove the seniors out, put them on the street. They did that so they could move oilfield workers into the apartments.
All of that has settled down a lot. There are actually places for rent now. There are still waiting lists on places, but the waiting lists are a lot shorter. Rent is actually coming down, although not very fast.
Is this shortage not for the oil workers, but for everyone else?
Most of the companies and their jobs come from companies without the resources to buy up huge quantities of land and housing for their premium workers.
Our company works with local landlords and lets them worry about putting up buildings while we do what we are in business to do.
It's up to most people to figure out what they are going to do about housing on their own.
People who can't be flexible about their living arrangements are going to be the ones to post whiney videos on youtube about it.
I saw an ad for a basement apartment that was 800 sq ft for $1,800 a couple of blocks away from the movie theatres downtown under a beautiful historic house. Some folks may or may not think such a place would be nice to live in, but it would require having a job(s) that pays about $60k just to "only" have about half of your after-tax dollars go toward rent.
Actually Williston is being rather incompetent about how it's handling this current boom. Its sewage system is overloaded and it's having to borrow money from the state of North Dakota simply to keep it running and upgrade it to support the influx of people. It has no homeless shelter for the many who have come to the area and who are living in their vehicles. And its county jail is often full to capacity or even over capacity.
Whether the city was burned in the early 1980s by the other boom is largely irrelevant to today's situation. People will continue to flood into the area whether they build adequate housing for them or not as the word is out about the availability of work. Not building houses and a support systems simply invites human misery and that breeds crime and civil unrest.
What will likely happen is this: If the oil boom lasts, Williston's civil government will be forced to ease its housing restrictions or face mounting social problems and eventually lawsuits from builders and contractors seeking to remove those restrictions. If the boom doesn't, Williston will still be stuck with far more infrastructure than it will ever need.
Actually Williston is being rather incompetent about how it's handling this current boom. Its sewage system is overloaded and it's having to borrow money from the state of North Dakota simply to keep it running and upgrade it to support the influx of people. It has no homeless shelter for the many who have come to the area and who are living in their vehicles. And its county jail is often full to capacity or even over capacity.
Whether the city was burned in the early 1980s by the other boom is largely irrelevant to today's situation. People will continue to flood into the area whether they build adequate housing for them or not as the word is out about the availability of work. Not building houses and a support systems simply invites human misery and that breeds crime and civil unrest.
What will likely happen is this: If the oil boom lasts, Williston's civil government will be forced to ease its housing restrictions or face mounting social problems and eventually lawsuits from builders and contractors seeking to remove those restrictions. If the boom doesn't, Williston will still be stuck with far more infrastructure than it will ever need.
You have said this repeatedly, but I am curious. What did Williston do with all the new apartment houses they built? And, what housing restrictions are you refering to? They stopped people living in their cars and RV's, ON THE STREET, but also built an RV park for several hundred RV's. But I don't know of any housing restrictions in place.
You have said this repeatedly, but I am curious. What did Williston do with all the new apartment houses they built? And, what housing restrictions are you refering to? They stopped people living in their cars and RV's, ON THE STREET, but also built an RV park for several hundred RV's. But I don't know of any housing restrictions in place.
Community leaders want in-fill growth rather than annexing additional land.
Given that much of the land inside the city is already spoken for this demonstrates that they have a very limited grasp of how to manage growth.
Here's an article where the council denied permits for a needed new landfill:
The article highlights the fact that the city has denied permitting for and is closing man-camps in the area which were among the most affordable means of housing around there.
There are a grand total of 23 properties listed, about half of which are lots with the cheapest being $60k. Hardly a sign that affordable housing is a priority.
You yourself have answered most of your questions, and you haven't realized it.
You want them to annex more land into the city. What good would that do? You have said that the city hasn't caught up with growth and yet you want them to grow more.
The county stopped man camps because when the boom started, companys started buying up land and throwing up man camps, kind of willy nilly, wherever they wanted. There was no proper sewer, no proper water, the power companies didn't have lines run out there, but they were being thrown up like weeds and the companies were demanding the utilities be added, right now. Williston was having a hard time catching up with what was going on in town, yet alone 3-4 miles outside of town. The County wanted to be able to catch up, to give these folks proper ammenities for their building.
There is a reason that permits are required. The county has to run it through their planning board so that they can analyze size of water mains, figure out what is the intended use based on the building permit and occupancy ratings, kitchen sizes, etc... Then they have to either plan on expending their mains or adding additional mains. But no, the companies just wanted to throw up buildings and then demand ammenities. The county was having a hard time keeping employee's due to the oil boom offering city and county workers, a double in pay. Suddenly the county doesn't have anybody to make these expansions.
The City didn't want to annex more land, for the exact same reasons. The have current land available, inside city limits, that already has water main, sewer main, power, phone, etc... available at the lot. They can build there and the city doesn't have to add infrastructure, it's already there.
They are having a difficult time maintaining what they have and yet people want to just add land, that's the answer. They don't think about the real problem. Adding land doesn't make things cheaper, it makes things a lot more expensive. You mentioned all of the infrastructure that would be costly after the bust because the city couldn't maintain it. They can maintain what they have, but if they needlessly add more property, more sewer, more water, more roads, etc... You are correct, they won't be able to maintain it. So why annex it? They have land, currently available, that has power, water, sewer, why not use it?
You want the city and the county to completely throw all planning, out the window. Let's put that maintenance shop right next to the new homes being built, or would it be better to put it in an industrial area???? The city, as well as the county, can put in extra large water lines and sewer lines, into an area and then channel industrial growth to that area. If they don't plan, they'll have to upgrade the sewer and water, on every street in town. There goes planned work, they'll require hundreds of new workers just to work on things that were needlessly thrown into the mix.
Remember, when you throw all of these articles on the forum, those articles were written by somebody that has an agenda, they may even have a bone to pick with the city. Start looking for the flip side of these stories. Take a look at the minutes from the City Council, or the County Supervisors and ask yourself, "Why are they stemming the growth that the farmer on the edge of town is pushing for?"
Building permits have a deadline on them. You have X number of days to reach milestones. When Williston gained 9,000 workers in 6 months, there was absolutely no way the city could build enough houses or apartments. The city issued building permits to companys ready to build. They did not issue building permits to everybody that wanted one. They didn't have enough home inspectors, or building inspectors. They advertised for more, but until they got them and got them trained, building permits would have expired. So now, you can purchase another permit. More money. To keep that from happening, they withheld building permits for a short period of time. It also gave them time to add water line, sleeve old sewer line, add streets that could handle the new traffic. For a while, if you built a new home, you couldn't get an electrician to wire it for over 6 months. There weren't enough electricians to go around.
You are complaining that everything didn't happen instantly. It should have been like flipping on a switch and all problems were taken care of. The real world doesn't work that way, it takes time, and Williston has done a wonderful job of making it happen. If they did what you and some others wanted, they would be in complete cauouse for years, but by planning and holding the reigns on that run-a-way team, they've been about to expand with the intent of being able to maintain the monster that they create.
The important part is that the residents of Williston are happy with the growth. They are seeing a new city develope that will always be there and be something they can be proud of. It's a city that they will be able to maintain, and not some shanty town that is going to cost millions through the years, and look like crap.
But when those hundreds and thousands of people arrive, is there already enough housing available? Why do I keep hearing about a shortage? Is this shortage not for the oil workers, but for everyone else?
It's not a shortage if you can afford $2k to $3k a month in rent.
Please don't go up there without carefully researching what's available and having thousands in reserve money.
It's not a shortage if you can afford $2k to $3k a month in rent.
Please don't go up there without carefully researching what's available and having thousands in reserve money.
If I am to go up there, I will first take a short vacation to the area and scout out first. Then go and home and make a final decision. But I am really interested in seeing the development. Williston must be a hot topic on college campuses amongst the urban adminstration, and planning faculty and majors.
Plus why do they need public sewage drains? Why not just go with private septic tanks? As for power how about wind and solar on every structure, or just diesel generators? You obviously have plenty of oil around.
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