Williams County Extends Housing Limit - KXNet - Bismarck/Minot/Williston/Dickinson

Williams County Extends Housing Limit

Williams County commissioners have voted to continue a moratorium on temporary housing, including man camps, in the county.

But the ban includes language that says larger camps will be allowed to petition for permission to add on to their facilities.

The commission enacted the ban one year ago.

Today's vote extends the moratorium for six months.

But the vote was not unanimous.

Two of the five commissioners voted against the ban.

One of the two, Wayne Aberle, says he thinks all man camp operations - not just the larger ones - should be allowed to apply for adding on.

Commissioner Dan Kalilvoted to extend the moratorium, saying the area still needs time to catch up with the crunch of the oil industry's growth.

(Dan Kalil, Williams County Commissioner) "All of the factors that led to this a year ago - very few of them have changed. We're still short of power, we're still short of water, we're still long on sewer, we're still extremely long on traffic although the temporary bypass has helped, it's still very difficult to get from point A to point B anywhere in the county. We're still under an incredible amount of pressure."

Kalil says there are allowances for construction sites where a limited number of temporary homes can be used to house workers on a specific job.

But he says the ban keeps from allowing people to park several RVs on their land and make their own man camps.