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Show Housing shortage poses hitch growih in Jensen ink0' "V-Prt series of articles 3, """ects of housing problems in 5 sPrrtd by growth l! .. R KathyGordy -1 '!P?alExpress Reporter n m,rlg the banks of the Green vS one man's fr but . nome is a car, tent or pickup ,;rw the residents are planning of over three years, it's no "s a reality. S af these new residents near -'heR emPlo,ed in connection M ,n,n.an2a Pwer Plant and have wo boom areas before. Wantabardluck story, this is S 'toc1rwPlant worker living in his X ' &rsaid-"Some unions w ill v!cvl i i?ubsistence per dav, but it lu317 Tne motels charge f r.s iv least A lot of "s are W , t0 make "P for other n. e ve lived in." V,,1' this as long'as there's ::rtfrsrr man said. The majority area hlng 11115 way don,t live in esandS! exPla'ned, but have J '.Z elsewhere that they y ! ;!Uv ou, I , "My Prime objective monevT w"6 enughtomake ioorVMukeep my wife from yJk. ors, he added, i S"mgd money and nt KJ eottti ternatlves." a rker Sltemave that exists in Jensen is the Bedrock Campground, managed by Red Schurz and owned by Clark Construction. The RV park, consisting of 35 spaces for overnight camping, was expanded when Deseret Generation and Transmission Cooperative was looking for housing alternatives for its employees at. the power plant. The company guarantees 75 percent occupancy oc-cupancy and all residents are plant employees, Schurz explained. "Since August we've gone from 35 to 105 or more RV units here and we'll have room for 200 by spring," he said. Residents of the campground are charged $150 per month per two-person unit. Families pay an extra $30 per child per month up to $200. Occupants beyond the' two per unit are charged $1.50 per day or about $45 per month beyond the $150. "We want to make this as nice a place as possible," Schurz said. "I was raised near Rangely and my wife in Lapoint, so I understand people's fears around here. I hate to see them disturbed by the growth they're good people. So I'd rather see them worried about me, someone who wants to help, than somebody who moved in here just for the bucks." Some of his plans to make the park a "home away from home" include a game room and a playground for the children living there. A new shower house will also be built. The RVs in the temporary section of the park (in front of his house along Highway 40) will be moved to the new spaces now under construction. A mobile home park is also planned for the 11 acres behind the existing campground to be completed later this year and to hold 63 units. "It will surprise me if we don't have a million people in this valley from Vernal to Rangely in the years to come," Schurz said. "I hope Jensen can grow with the best of it." The rate of the growth in Jensen is causing problems other than housing, according to Jensen's postmaster, Jim Dikes. "It's a mess, and we really don't know what to anticipate," he said. In three months the post office has had a 25 percent increase in the number of box holders. A new box section was added to the existing four sections, and a waiting list for another complete section is full. "We'll end up remodeling the post office to possibly double or triple what we have now. That will help for about a year, Dikes said, "but I've been told that only seven percent of the power plant population has arrived." "I sympathize with these people," he said. "Some of them who are living in tents tell me they've wintered in tents before in Oklahoma. The longer they wait to find something else, the more people move in. And they just may have to spend the winter in tents." |