Housing Crunch is Only Just Beginning

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Fort Drum?s growth spurt felt, soldiers and civilians may need to travel farther for housing

Fort Drum?s growth spurt felt, soldiers and civilians may need to travel farther for housing

RISMEDIA, December 13, 2006?When Danielle C. Carter and her husband, Spc. Adam L. Morris, began apartment hunting in October, they found the pickings slim. In Ms. Carter’s estimation, everything available was either substandard or too far from Fort Drum.

“We weren’t looking for The Ritz, but a nice, clean place would be OK,” said the 27-year-old, who moved here with her young son when Spc. Morris returned from Iraq in late September.

After spending 10 days at the Fort Drum Inn, the newlyweds settled on an apartment on Franklin Street and soon learned the cost of doing business in a sellers’ market: first and last month’s rent, a large security deposit and a deposit each for the couple’s two cats.

“We’ve had to jump through hoops,” Carter said. “I don’t know if they see a soldier and see dollar signs or what.”

And the housing crunch hasn’t even begun.

“Short term, no doubt, the market is going to get very tight,” said Development Authority of the North Country project director Kevin J. Jordan, who coordinates housing efforts for the agency. “We’ll likely see the vacancy rate shrink to record lows.”

The 55 soldiers who returned to Fort Drum on Saturday from Afghanistan figure to make a tiny splash compared with the crush of more than 7,000 soldiers set to return from overseas during the next three months.

Fort Drum Director of Public Works James W. Corriveau, whose dominion includes the post’s family housing initiatives, predicted the resulting housing crunch will surpass the one the north country experienced when Fort Drum began its most recent expansion.

“I think it’s going to be tougher than the market we experienced a year, year-and-a-half ago,” he said. “I think the coming year is going to be even more serious because the numbers are greater. We didn’t have 7,500 soldiers coming all at once then.”

Thanks to the Pentagon’s realignment of its forces as part of its Army transformation plan, Fort Drum began in 2003 a growth spurt that has bulked its ranks by about 6,000 troops. But thanks to the 10th Mountain Division’s rigorous deployment schedule, the growth so far has been mostly on paper.

When the division’s headquarters apparatus and 3rd Brigade Combat Team return from their yearlong deployments to Afghanistan over the coming months, the force of the post’s growth will be felt more acutely than ever, Corriveau said.

“The soldier population on post will probably top 12,000 by springtime,” he said, noting the total will surpass that experienced here 12 to 18 months ago. “It’s going to be dramatic in town, not to mention on post. You’ll feel it in the traffic on the streets, the traffic at the mall.”

Renters and home buyers also will feel it when they scan the classified ads.

According to Jordan, a recent informal study pegged the region’s vacancy rate at 4%?already below the five to seven% generally understood to indicate a healthy housing market. As vacancies become more rare, both soldiers and civilians will be forced to travel farther afield to find shelter.

“No doubt the market radius will widen during the short term,” Jordan said. “We’ll likely see families in the short term living in outlying communities like Syracuse for awhile before more units are brought into production.”

The region’s long-term housing outlook, Jordan pointed out, is comparatively rosy. An October study commissioned by the Fort Drum Regional Liaison Organization found that ongoing and approved housing projects have cut the housing shortage?on paper, at least?to just 900 units from more than 2,000 units.

“There are a number of production-oriented activities happening out there,” Jordan said. “Folks are rehabbing existing units that prior to this were not being used. We’re now seeing single-family homes brought onto the market, as well as brand new rental units being brought on. Some are larger and some are smaller, but this will happen gradually over time.”

Copyright ? 2006, Watertown Daily Times, N.Y.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

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