DOUGLAS -- Relief may be a year or two away for a tight housing market that’s troubling real estate agents, lenders and builders in this busy city.

But the good news is, relief is coming.

Rental housing and ownership opportunities have dwindled to nearly nothing in the past six months as energy industries enter a boom, bringing dozens of new folks to town.

Several developers recently announced plans to create new homes and duplexes. Most development on the table now doesn’t qualify as "affordable," but as participants in recent city forums pointed out, there’s a need now for all kinds of housing.

The new developments, now in planning phases, will take a while to complete. Current proposals wipe out almost half of available sites within the city limits where new construction is an option, city community development director Mike Roy noted.

Those plans include:

* StoneCrest Development of Cheyenne is proposing paired homes, or duplexes, on 72 lots paralleling commercial development along West Richards and bordered by Lone Tree mobile home park and West Riverbend.

President Rob Geringer said the company has large building projects in the works in Casper and Rock Springs as well. Purchase prices in Douglas will depend on the cost of developing infrastructure, supplies and subcontractors, he said. Figures should be comparable to homes StoneCrest is building in Casper, which are running $15,000 to $20,000 less than those in Rock Springs.

The company is under contract with the owner of most of the empty space between the river and West Richards, with plans to build single-family homes in phases, Geringer said. Multi-family housing and commercial lots are also possibilities.

“We’re testing the market with what we’re doing right now,” Geringer said. “We all hear about the need for housing and we see some of the effects, but the huge volume hasn’t quite been there yet.”

StoneCrest also owns developable residential land in the Clearfield subdivision on the east side of Douglas and expects to craft plans for that area in the future, Geringer said.

* Russell, Pollock and Russell, a Douglas company, is developing eight commercial lots at the long-empty corner of Riverbend and the Interstate 25 interchange. Glenn Russell, a managing partner in RPR, said the lots range from one to two acres. “At this point we don’t know who will buy them or what will be there,” he said. 

* Around 250 sites between Keith Rider Park and the North Platte River will be prepped for new homes by Meadowlark Trails, a Douglas company, which will install infrastructure, including streets, in the Meadowlark Trails subdivision. Developable sites could be sold to contractors, filled with spec homes or be sold to individuals with plans to build.

Russell, also managing partner in Meadowlark Trails, said he expects the lots to be building-ready this fall.

Some of the sites will likely draw a high price as premium locations with river access and views. And, the availability of raw lots could open doors for smaller contractors, who have suffered from a lack of potential building sites in Douglas in recent years.

* Mike Wilson, who brought a Holiday Inn Express to West Yellowstone, has plans for another motel next door. In addition, he’s received city approval to develop 28 residential lots in the open space between the motels and existing homes in the Riverbend subdivision.

Roy said the projects on the drawing board could net a build-out of 500 home sites within the next several years, a significant portion of the estimated 1,200 to 1,500 lots available within city limits. Complicating matters, some of those sites are considered challenging by builders because of their location in flood plains or concerns over water and sewer capacity.

Com-See Horizon Realty broker Parker Moore said his office fields calls regularly from developers looking for ready-to-build lots. But few remain interested when they realize they’ll have to lay the costly infrastructure and deal with unknown city water and sewer capacities in some areas, Moore said.

Roy isn’t sure whether the development pace will continue. Most limiting, he said, is a lack of available contractors in the area and high costs of extending water, sewer and roads to new places -- something developers, not the city, is responsible for.