Man Camp Moratorium Set in Place

At the Nov. 19 meeting, City Council voted to approve a moratorium dealing primarily with applications for RV parks and temporary housing presented by the city’s Planning Commission.

Said moratorium was recommended by the Planning Commission at their Nov. 17 meeting, along with the revival of the Temporary Housing Committee.

The moratorium was requested by Councilman Fleming, who stated at Tuesday’s meeting: “One of the things I wanted to point out to everyone [is that] the growth we saw 6 months ago has slowed.”

He explained that just three months earlier a house was nearly impossible to find for rent, whereas now more and more are becoming available.

“This hasn’t taken off the way we thought it would,” said Fleming, suggesting the City utilize this opportunity to slow down and recalculate the temporary housing issue.

Councilman Wardlaw agreed, “House building has slowed, the apartment industry is soft now, that will give us some time. All of this is a result of the oil business behaving like it is,” Wardlaw said, adding, “The cline shale is not working out. The oil boom is moving west.”

General consensus was that the moratorium was the best direction to be taken in order to get the temporary housing ordinance in the works.

“I think this [temporary housing ordinance] was long overdue anyway,” said councilman Vardemann. “[It] probably should have been done a long time ago.”

“I think we can get this done faster than 90 days,” stated Fleming.

The motion was made to pass the moratorium as is, with the Temporary Housing Committee re-instated.

The motion passed unanimously.