![\"JSDC\"](\"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/JSDC-300x202.png\")
(CSi)\u00a0 Jamestown\/Stutsman Development Corporation CEO, Connie Ova, and Valley City Barnes County Development Corporation Director, Jennifer Feist have issued a statement, concerning the updated Housing Study from the North Dakota Housing Finance Agency.<\/p>\n
They point out that the study singled out Region 6 including\u00a0 Jamestown and Valley City as the only area in the state that will not grow in the next 13 years.<\/p>\n
The study shows losses when the rest of the state is growing by 21% during the study period of 2016-2029.\u00a0 ND Housing Finance officials cited a lack of employment opportunities in those areas, as well as baby boomers moving to urban areas to access services.\u00a0 As economic development professionals, we take exception to this.<\/p>\n
HIGER PAYING JOBS:\u00a0 In Stutsman County, economic development projects at SEPA (Spiritwood) include biomass, value added agricultural processing and barley processing; total employment is expected to be 100 permanent, full-time positions with approximately 200 construction jobs.<\/p>\n
In Barnes County, the PSC received an application for a 300 megawatt farm, Glacier Ridge Wind Farm, consisting of about 90+ turbines located on over 34,000 acres of land northeast of Valley City.\u00a0 This is the largest wind farm request in North Dakota\u2019s history.\u00a0 Construction could start as early as November.\u00a0 The project would bring construction and permanent, full-time higher paying jobs and benefits.<\/p>\n
Healthy Food Ingredients, LLC reached an agreement to purchase Heartland Flax based in Valley City.\u00a0 Brad Hennrich, President, said the Valley City location will become the company\u2019s flagship manufacturing plant.\u00a0 More projects are in the pipeline in both communities.\u00a0 Primary sector growth is driving investments in service and retail business development, housing, childcare, lodging and more.\u00a0 The results are visible. Our focus is creating higher paying jobs.<\/p>\n
BUILDING PERMITS:\u00a0 Valley City issued $31 Million in building permits in 2016 and are on track to exceed 2015, which totaled $35 Million ($50 Million throughout Barnes County).\u00a0 Jamestown\u2019s building permits totaled $46 Million for 2016; and $28 Million in 2015 ($30 Million throughout Stutsman County).<\/p>\n
DEMAND FOR HOUSING UNITS:\u00a0 The study shows a projected increase in the number of housing units of approximately 2,900 by 2029 and all nine counties in Region 6 are expected to show growth.\u00a0 The study uses two models to predict future housing needs.\u00a0 Model 1 is based on historical data.\u00a0 Model 2 is based on shifts in population and housing demand.\u00a0 One model shows every county is expected to show some growth while the other model shows a loss.<\/p>\n
If weakened housing demand is specific to low- and very low-income households, perhaps it\u2019s because Jamestown and Valley City have made strides toward solving the overall housing problem.\u00a0 The statewide problem is single family housing with challenges being two-fold; 1) cost of infrastructure and construction, and 2) student loan payments that compete with housing.\u00a0 Again, we need higher paying jobs.<\/p>\n
REGIONAL MAKE-UP\/WEIGHTED NUMBERS:\u00a0 The population of Region 6 (56,363) including Valley City and Jamestown is larger than Region 3 (40,672), which the study showed will see moderate growth.\u00a0 Region 3 includes Devils Lake and Spirit Lake Indian Reservation; it consists of 6 counties.\u00a0\u00a0 Two key factors skew the statistics.\u00a0 Region 6 consists of 9 counties but does not include a major population center or oil.\u00a0 It does include the largest number of rural counties in the state in relationship to our size.\u00a0 Population increased from 2010 to 2014 in its two major counties, Barnes and Stutsman.\u00a0 Because Region 6 includes a greater number of rural counties in relationship to our size, the overall numbers become heavily weighted.\u00a0 We have more rural counties than any of the other regions and they are seeing decreases.<\/p>\n
GAINING GROUND:\u00a0 Historically, Barnes and Stutsman Counties have shown population losses in 1990, 2000 and 2010; and population gains to 2014 and projected gains through 2019.\u00a0 The relentless work of economic development professionals and organizations has stopped the losses; we have turned the corner and heading in the right direction.<\/p>\n
Currently preliminary planning continues with negotiations between the city of Jamestown, the Jamestown Regional Airport Authority and the JSDC, for a new industrial park in Jamestown. The Jamestown\/Stutsman Development Corp. Board of Directors had no opposition.<\/p>\n
Further discussion involving moving toward a joint powers agreement outlining \u00a0how the project would proceed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(CSi)\u00a0 Jamestown\/Stutsman Development Corporation CEO, Connie Ova, and Valley City Barnes County Development Corporation Director, Jennifer Feist have issued a statement, concerning the updated Housing Study from the North Dakota Housing Finance Agency. They point out that the study singled out Region 6 including\u00a0 Jamestown and Valley City as the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":96596,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-107610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=107610"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107610\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":107623,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107610\/revisions\/107623"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/96596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=107610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=107610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=107610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}