City will speed up some housing projects

    The city council pledged to speed up approval of uncontroversial housing developments Wednesday morning at the same time it OK’d one development. 

 

    A final plat for RC Ranch Subdivision – a multiuse subdivision on Enzi Drive expected to provide Gillette with more than 300 apartments – was approved at the council’s Wednesday breakfast meeting.  It was the second of three readings for the development – a reading that normally would have taken place Sept. 5.

 

    Before the vote at the council’s breakfast meeting, Councilman Tom Murphy Jr. asked the council if by approving RC Ranch, it was making a statement that it would be willing to speed up the reading on all project for 12 months.  Those projects must have an Addendum A – the stamp of approval from the city engineer and project engineer needed before the final plat goes to the council.

           

    “Yes,” said Mayor Duane Evenson.  “We need to be open to doing this.”  The council has balked at saying it would expedite plats in the past, citing worries about consistencies with developers and quality of the projects.  "Consistency is everything,” Murphy said. He agreed to the advanced reading only with the understanding that the same would be done for future projects, he said.

           

    Evenson said the action was not a blanket statement that all projects will be put on the fast track because he doesn’t want to lower city standers.  But he does want to get more housing available as quickly as possible.  Putting a reading on a breakfast meeting agenda can cut the six-week process in half, Evenson said.

 

    Ron Stoughton, manager of S&S Builders, which is developing the RC Ranch project, said the extra weeks will be significant in getting apartments built.  "The council recognizes that housing is an issue and that multi-family units need to be built,” he said.  If the project stays on track, apartments should be ready by late spring, Stoughton said.

 

    How fast subdivisions are approved now rests on the developers’ shoulders.  It will be their job to make sure all the paperwork is in order – in a fair qualification, Stoughton said.  RC Ranch passed with a 6-0 vote.  Councilman Mike McInerney was absent.  Its third reading will be at the Sept. 5 meeting. 

 

    A quicker process is only part of solving the housing puzzle, Murphy said.  It will make more lots, but there is still a labor shortage.  Evenson doesn’t think the crunch will ease for at least three years, he said.  The only thing that will solve Gillette’s housing problem is an excess of homes.

 

    “I think we’re a long way from solving the problem,” he said.

 

--- Gillette Newsrecord, August 30, 2006, Kelsey Dayton