BATTLE MOUNTAIN - A housing opportunity meeting was held Sept. 13 from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. at the Bureau of Land Management office in Battle Mountain by the Lander County Sustainable Development Committee and the Lander Economic Development Authority (LEDA).
The meeting was part of the Future Industrial Needs Discovery (FIND) project, a business matching project, and members looked at housing needs in Lander County.
There were 14 people who attended the meeting. Members of LEDA and the Lander County Sustainable Development Committee were at the meeting, along with mining and construction professionals, a member of the Bureau of Land Management and Lander County officials.
Action was taken to form a committee of approximately 12 individuals to address local housing needs, said Don Vetter, of Vetter PR, Inc., who moderated the meeting. Vetter works with the Younger Agency, which works with LEDA.
"Well, you know the mines are planning an expansion and bringing more employees into the Battle Mountain area and one of the things we found is that we had a serious shortage of rentable housing," said Dee Helming, secretary for the Austin Chamber of Commerce, who attended the meeting. "There are houses for sale but hardly anything for rent and in Austin we have a serious shortage of housing period - to rent or for sale so the county is seriously needing to work on both ends for the county to get more housing."
Future housing opportunity meetings will be held and will address housing not just in Lander County but in the rural northern Nevada region, including Pershing, Eureka, Humboldt and Nye counties.
"The main reason we know it's so important is because we know there is such a shortage of the rental-type housing and with the impending growth with the mining industry projects, it's currently an issue and it is going to be a bigger issue in the near future," said Shar Peterson, senior external relations representative for Newmont Mining Corp., and a member of LEDA and the sustainable development committee. "That's the primary reason we are addressing it now. ... It's important not only on the employment side but also to the communities to have that housing ability."
Members of the meeting decided to plan on possibly holding a Gold Belt Coalition Housing Summit in early 2012, said Vetter. The appointed committee will help plan this event.
"One of the linchpin issues facing the Lander Economic Development Authority and the Lander County community as a whole is how to deal with the lack of adequate and marketable housing," read a meeting handout. "The University of Nevada report, an aspect of the FIND project, cites an 871- to 1,269-unit gap between the demand (based upon current and projected job growth) and the county's available housing supply. Exacerbating this issue are current plans of mining expansion through Nevada's Gold Country fueled by the continued record mineral commodity prices."
One of the aspects of the housing committee is to get current, cumulative data for predicted/projected hiring for area mines and renewable energy projects as well as the life of those projects and how long employees typically stay with the company. This can be translated into housing needs, preferred housing types, said Vetter.
This information will also address the question that many potential housing developers/financiers raise with rural, mining community housing: "How long will the boom last and will I get burned in a bust?"
Another aspect is to identify public policy and land use entitlement issues that may help/hinder the housing development process. These issues can range from infrastructure and zoning to the simple, two-part question: "How fast can I get a building permit and how much is it going to cost me?" explained Vetter.
The third element of the ad hoc group is that the meetings themselves will act as platforms for marketing outreach through networking and the dialogue created toward the housing summit.
The fourth element is the local business community - how do they fit in with the projected growth and the need for housing - essentially, what is in it for them? The fifth element is to formalize an action plan for the larger housing summit.
"Good connections were made between the people who can make it happen - sustainable housing in the Lander County region," said Vetter. "The meeting itself was an actionable item as it brought together some local developers, county officials, some smaller out of town developers, engineering firms and the key mining companies."
Vetter continued, "I believe the mining companies opened some eyes with their projected employment, illuminating the need for housing and the fact that there is a longevity to their operations that make a housing investment a good economic undertaking. This meeting spurred further discussion with these parties - probably amongst themselves - and I was directed through LEDA to create more of these network-building opportunities."
Vetter said the community has already made strides toward addressing the housing gap.
"It is the community's volunteer work and quantitative and qualitative research over the past 12-plus months that has really moved the community toward solutions to filling the housing gaps - and this isn't an issue in just Lander County," he said.
[[In-content Ad]]
