Family Housing Comes to Fracking Region

WATFORD CITY, ND—Thousands of oil and gas workers have moved into this once desolate region, but the resulting housing shortage has left many living in temporary “man-camps," with no way to bring their families with them.

But MondayOne, a California-based developer, has just started a joint venture to build 100 duplex-style town homes here in the Hunter's Run Master Planned Community. They will lease the new homes to area oil companies to use as housing for workers and their families. This is MondayOne's second development in Watford City, the heart of the state's new energy business. MondayOne recently unveiled plans for the 105-unit Pheasant Ridge town home community. Those will have three-bedroom units, while their Hunter's Run homes will have four.

Geologists tout this region, known as the Bakken, as the next Saudi Arabia. The United States Geological Survey estimated on April 30 that the region had 7.4 billion barrels of oil recoverable through hydraulic fracturing of the underground shale formations, a 27-year supply at the current rate of production, and about double what the agency estimated in 2008. Four thousand wells have already been drilled and as the hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” technology improves, the amount of recoverable oil will increase even more.

"The workers in the oil industry and related services are saying that they want Watford City to be their permanent home,” says Kenny Dewan, founder and CEO of MondayOne. “The schools are excellent, and it's a great place to raise a family."

MondayOne Principal Gary Pomeroy has designed two duplex models. Model One, which features a daylight walk-out basement, is 2,550-square-feet, with four bedrooms and four baths. Model Two features a "Cape-look" and will be 1,640-square-feet, with four bedrooms and four-and-a half baths. Both will have an attached two-car garage, front porch, and good-sized backyard.