Meadowview condominiums continue to develop
By Bay Stephens EBS Staff Writer
BIG SKY – As of Oct. 3, Laura Seyfang will serve as program director of the Human Resource and Development’s Big Sky Community Housing Trust, and work and live in Big Sky.
Tasked with ensuring that strategic plans are implemented for the benefit of area locals faced with housing challenges, Seyfang brings years of for-profit and nonprofit leadership experience to the position.
An engineer by training, she ran automobile factories in the Midwest at General Motors, working as an executive for 17 of her 32 years with the company. After leaving the industry in 2009, she served as the executive director of Dayton, Ohio’s American Red Cross, managing two of the area’s largest homeless shelters where she’d volunteered for years.
Seyfang bought property in Big Sky in 1997 after her first ski trip to the area. She finally retired to the ski town last year and was enjoying retirement when the position with HRDC as Big Sky’s housing program director became available.
“It seems like what life led me to, and I love Big Sky,” Seyfang said. “I want it to be successful. I’ve seen its growth over time. What I also see are the challenges that lack of housing for people who work here have created.”
At the Oct. 18 housing trust meeting, she brought Big Sky Community Housing Trust advisory council members up to speed on the progress of their first subsidized housing project since its inception: the Meadowview property under construction northwest of the Big Sky Community Park.
As development plans solidify, so have more details about the project, including that a total of 52 units of two-bedroom and studio apartments will be available at completion. Although there had been local interest in three-bedroom units, it wasn’t possible to keep them affordable for the project’s target income level.
“It’s a start,” said Hans Williamson, a housing trust advisory council member and general manager of the Yellowstone Club. In time, the council hopes to meet a broader spectrum of housing needs.
As of Oct. 24, concrete was poured for nine units and three were ready for prefabricated walls to be installed. Construction for phase one of the project—which includes 12 duplex units in six buildings, three two-bedroom walkouts and three studios—is on schedule with an estimated completion date of April 2019.
Email Laura Seyfang at lseyfang@thehrdc.org for any information.
