MonDak Area Sees Housing Shortage In 2011

Sidney's Top 10 for 2011

The current oil boom has brought many changes for the MonDak area in the past year. With the plethora of jobs available in the oil industry, our small communities have seen people from all over the U.S. coming to find work.

Oil companies boasting a multitude of job openings and national news coverage of our boomtowns has brought more people arriving in the area every week. The unemployment rate in the U.S. has people who have been out of work for a long time heading for western North Dakota and eastern Montana with hopes of finding a job in the oil patch.

In just days after a national media spotlight on job openings in the Bakken, there were what almost seemed to be caravans of recreational vehicles (RVs) pulling through towns like Sidney and Fairview on the major highways on to western North Dakota. Many were unprepared and uninformed of the challenges they would find in the promised land of opportunity.

From as far east as Minot, ND, and west to Miles City, MT, housing has become increasingly hard to find. Housing rentals are now nearly impossible to find and can run up to $3,000 for a three-bedroom apartment in Williston. Houses for sale have nearly double in price.

People flocking to the area have no other option at times than to live in cars and campers due to the rapid population growth associated with the oil boom that has created a housing and motel room crunch.

Motel rooms in the region are booked solid, sometimes for years. Rents have quadrupled, and building permits have increased sixfold. Many people are so pressed for a place to stay that they commute two or more hours each day from outlying towns.

Area officials have been working hard to help meet the region’s housing and infrastructure needs. Growing pains of housing development, water, sewer, roads, lack of local retail, school and medical workforce due to housing shortage have city officials looking to find solutions to the issues brought about by the oil boom.

Area Planning and Zoning offices have seen a great increase for permits for the development of housing, subdivisions, RV parks and motels but completion of these projects are slow.

The lack of housing has forced communities to address the issues, for families as well the oilfield workforce, in several ways. Construction of new single family homes is at an all time high. Subdivision housing projects are increasing in hub cities of the Bakken such as Sidney, Watford City and Williston. Motels are being built in almost every major community of the oil patch area.

Many abandoned mobile home parks from the area’s last oil boom have reopened to accommodate new mobile homes for sale or rent.

M & R Mobile Home Village Subdivision, Fairview, is one such place, opening this past summer with more than 100 lots.

Permits for RV Parks are on the rise in Richland County. RV Parks have sprung up across the county and the MonDak area as well as RVs parked on private property, building and rig sites.

Alternate housing has become necessary for oil workers. Man camps have popped up all over the Bakken, temporary housing compounds to support the overwhelmingly male work force flooding the region. They are typically made of low-slung, modular dormitory-style buildings. Many of these camps house up to 3,700 residents with lodging, a restaurant, lounging and laundry facilities.

The man camps are typically built by companies like Target Logistics, the largest operator of man camps. They erect the camps and rent directly to the drilling, hydraulic fracturing and trucking companies that employ most workers.

The need for housing will surely continue into 2012. The labor industries in area communities are hoping for housing to bring new employees to those not affiliated with the oil industry. Hospitals, restaurants and retail stores along with police, fire and emergency services need housing solutions in order to serve the communities.

 

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