January 8, 2020

Survey: Housing, childcare top issues for Watford

Survey: Housing, childcare top issues for Watford

By Neal A. Shipman
Farmer Editor

The biggest challenges that Watford City faces when it comes to growth and development in the future are housing and childcare according to a recent survey of people living in and around the community.
“What the community said were the biggest challenges facing Watford City in the future were not really a surprise,” states Vawnita Best, Watford City Community Development director. “We knew that affordable housing and childcare were going to be the top concerns.”
Best says that as part of developing a Community Sustainability Plan  for 2020 through 2024, the city and the McKenzie County Job Development Authority engaged Strengthen ND to conduct an electronic survey on area residents.
By an overwhelming majority, 61.5 percent of the 553 people who responded to the survey, said that providing a suitable range of housing was the top challenge facing Watford City, while providing adequate levels of childcare came in a distant second with 14.8 percent of the respondents saying it was a concern. The other three obstacles identified in the survey were recruiting an adequate work force (8.9 percent), while providing adequate amenities, such as parks and protecting the city’s small-town character each were noted by 7.4 percent of the respondents.

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