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<br />BACKGROUND 13 <br /> <br />municipalities, counties and school districts in energy impacted areas. <br />It was the opinion of the Committee that housing needs, although not gen- <br />erally considered a public responsibility, will be of such magnitude as to <br />require some government involvement and therefore were included. Large <br />scale energy development in Colorado will occur, for the most part, in re- <br />mote, sparsely populated rural areas with little or no private housing <br />capital markets. The risk to the developer is great. Therefore, special <br />stimuli or incentives to reduce the risk will be required to assure devel- <br />opment of needed housing. There will also be special impact problems as- <br />sociated with proviSion of temporary/construction worker housing. <br /> <br />The Economic Development Administration (EDA) grant excluded in-depth <br />analysis of the many environmental concerns and social or quality of life <br />factors which are extremely important in conducting a total assessment of <br />the likely impacts of rapid energy development on Colorado communities. <br />Although the study focused on fiscal impacts, environmental and socio- <br />economic concerns were given consideration in defining the issues and de- <br />veloping recommendations. <br /> <br />The Advisory Committee and staff also decided to utilize a field-based <br />method of researching the likely front-end financing and housing problems <br />associated with current and projected boom town development. The purpose <br />of these case studies, involving six Colorado communities, was to develop <br />estimates of likely impacts in specific situations rather than trying to <br />generalize based on experiences in Montana, Wyoming and other states. <br /> <br />Establishing Priorities of Public Facilities <br />In order to further limit the scope of the study to manageable proportions, <br />it was also agreed that public financing should be available to at least <br />maintain the present or pre-existent quality of life. To a certain ex- <br />tent, the quality of life in a community can be measured by the adequate <br />or inadequate provision of essential public facilities and services. This <br />was thought to be a reasonable limit to insure that the study did not at- <br />tempt to provide recommendations for financing any and all community needs <br /> <br />0438 <br />