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rill] .12" III. LAND USE AND HOUSING Land use and housing cannot Be separated, for the worSlland use problems in energy impacted communi. lies come because of lack of housing. In this chapter the problems of land use planning, and the impacts of housing. afe presented - along with guidelines for action and ell.periences of impacted communities. A. PROBLEMS IN LAND USE PLANNING A number of general statements can be made about land us.e planning in communities impacted by boom growth: First. there is a general absence of plans for land use. The Den....er Federal Regional Council survey showed that only 42 (or 32 per cent! of the 131 communities sur'tleyed had comprehensive plans, with 13 of these developed priOf" 10 1970. Some plans afe not effective because they afe based on outdatetl information. Where plans exist, they seldom are backed by land use controls. The same Denver Federal Regional Council survey of 131 communities found: 45 (34%1 with sub-division regulations 52 (40%) with building codes 60 (46%1 with zoning ordinaoce5 Even those communities with land use controls may not have effective enforcement. Enforcement of land use controls is difficult even in stable circum. stances, but boom conditions place ex1teme de- mandson small staffs. Specifically, mobile home standards and standards tor mobile home parks are virtually unknown in the small communities most likely to be impacted. The regulator's task is made more difficult when it is not known if mobile home parks are to be for permanent or temporary use. In some instances, planning and land use controls are difficult to work out when the energy project is in one jurisdiction and the impact in another. For example, many of the employees of the Decker Mine in Montana live across the border in Sheridan, Wyoming. Planning may be more difficult when Federal land is involved. The regulations of such aqencie5 as the Bureau of Land Management may require unfamiliar actions on the part of prospective developeB. The new town required for the Kaiparowits project will have to go on BLM land. Acquiring the site and controlling activity in the vicinity are hindered by regulatiOns which are not geared to creating communities. Finally, perhaps the toughest problem related to the difficulty is building new single and multi. family housing. It takes time to get subdivision and zoning approvals. The prices of land, materials and labor are high. Financing is difficult as there is skepticism about the permanence of the boom. And in one community, a home builder could not come in be. cause there was no place to house his workers! B. HOUSING IMPACTS Housing problems are ohen the first negative im. pacts of rapid growth to surface in a community. With the start of construction, the workers are mostly alone. They live in motels, apartments (if available) and all the vacant houses in the area. As workers come in for longer stays, they bring their families. Some construc. tion workers own their mobile homes, moving from job to job. But for others, the mobile home is forced on them because there is no other alternative. In Sweetwater County in 1974, according 10 Denver Research Institute, 31 per cent of all households were in mobile homes. Mobile homes were only seven per cent of the housing in Rock Springs, but 81 per cent in the rural portion of the county. Of newcomer career construction workers, 77 per cent live in mobile homes {two-thirds of them own and one.third rend. In Campbell County, Wyoming, about 40 per cent of re5idents live in mobile homes, in 68 mobile home reservations. Most of these are in the county, beyond the controls of the City of Gillette. The mobile homes in squalid fringe settlements have been called "aluminum ghettos." Adverse impacu sel. dam involve the mobile homes themselves, but rather the scattered locations, the lack of laundry and recrea. tion facilities, the dirt paths and lack of trees, and the isolation for wives and children. , ,(<f~'; -1 \' 'il r "I I 1\ ' /f",...:-:, J' ..~ Ja ~;; ;---~ -----..c",,=,-V'" .",- ~"'-- i , ""IY;.") ':) The heavy and rapidly increasing demand, linked with a small and limited supply of housing, always results in an increase in prices for housing and lots and in rents. Within one year, the price of a lot in Valdez, Alaska went from $450 to $10,000. Generally, the prices of lots and houses double during the course 19