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<br />42 <br /> <br />Providing Temporary Housing <br />Most energy-impacted communities will have an immediate need to provide <br />sizable amounts of temporary housing for construction workers. This was <br />found to be true in the case study areas. The construction work force <br />for a 50,000 barrel per day oil shale processing plant may exceed 2,000 <br />workers, and the work force required to build a 500 megawatt power plant <br />can exceed 1,000. Hence, it will be necessary to provide substantial <br />quantities of temporary housing during construction periods. The case <br />study areas likely to be impacted by the largest number of construction <br />workers are Craig, Rangely, Battlement Mesa and DeBeque. Grand Junction <br />may become the residential base for construction workers, but since these <br />workers are expected to come from a variety of energy progects, a higher <br />proportion can probably be housed in permanent housing. Paonia will be <br />impacted by construction workers in connection with opening and expanding <br />several underground coal mines,but the number of construction workers need- <br />ing housing appears to be manageable. <br /> <br />Some major problems associated with housing construction workers have to <br />do with financing and building an adequate number of pads for mobile homes. <br />Under normal financing arrangements, a mobile home park should pay for it- <br />self within a five to seven year period. However, in some energy-impacted <br />communities, the duration of the construction period is expected to be <br />less than the normal five to seven year payout period. Hence, developers <br />of mobile home parks must charge high rates to realize a satisfactory re- <br />turn on investment, or such parks might have to be subsidized by energy <br />firms or their major contractors. Therefore, it is doubtful that normal <br />market mechanisms for constructing and providing mobile home pads will <br />function adequately in energy-impacted communities. <br /> <br />A closely related problem here is who should be responsible for providing <br />mobile home pads for construction workers. If mobile home parks do not <br />represent an attractive investment opportunity, who should provide the <br />necessary financing to insure that such parks are available when needed? <br />(This problem is analyzed in more detail in Section IV.) Further, there <br />