County plans for temp housing
By Michael Johnson, Editor
A developer near Ryder has plans of a 120-unit temporary housing facility with a convenience store and all the options for people looking for housing as they come from afar for a job in the oil fields. That was brought up as McLean County commissioners consider ordinances for temporary housing facilities. Some might call the Ryder development a man camp, but Jim Hickman of the First District Health Unit(FDHU) shies away from calling it such. A place like this would likely be secure, more of a gated community. Similar establishments like this are going up around Dunn County, Killdeer and Dickinson. The thought that developers are stepping into McLean County for a place to keep workers has commissioners and county staff looking to be prepared. County states attorney Ladd Erickson saw that the need to act was now and to be on a similar page as other counties would help streamline the growing industry. Hickman was working with the other counties in the FDHU to put regulations in place that they would have and compare that to what the county would regulate. Erickson said he wanted to set up a meeting with all of the county states attorneys to set up a standard that all the counties could agree upon and then FDHU could have one uniform set of regulations that they handle.
