REGION
Thursday, augusT 11, 2022
Fire erupts
in Pendleton
flour mill
East Oregonian
PENDLETON — Fire
erupted early Wednesday, Aug.
10, at Grain Craft flour mill in
Pendleton. By midmorning,
first responders were waiting
for the possible collapse of the
structure.
Pendleton Fire Department,
Umatilla Tribal Fire Depart-
ment and Umatilla County Fire
District No. 1 responded to the
scene at 501 S.E. Emigrant Ave.
Soon after, fire departments
from La Grande and Boardman
also were responding.
Pendleton Assistant Fire Chief
Tony Pierotti said this blaze
kicked off at about 4:30 a.m.,
and all signs point to the massive
structure as a total loss.
The silos also were at full
capacity of finished grain, he
said, so the fire fuel load was
extreme.
This fire may have burned
through the night.
Pendleton and other fire
departments on Aug. 9 at
2:55 p.m. responded to the mill
on a report of white smoke.
Pierotti said a “rubber boot” that
is part of the sifter may have
caught fire. Crews had to get a
hose up top to shoot water into
a silo to put out the fire. Crews
were at the mills for about six
hours.
Grain Craft, the third largest
flour miller in the United States,
owns the mill and employs 22
people there.
ThE OBsErVEr — A7
RENTALS
Continued from Page A1
give the planning commission
time to find what Boquist called
an “appropriate balance” between
the increasing number of applica-
tions for short-term rentals and the
city’s growing housing demands.
According to the needs anal-
ysis, approximately 51 homes
should have built built by 2022.
In actuality, 26 have been build,
while 18 units have been con-
verted to short-term rentals.
The planning commis-
sion has been taking note of the
increasing applications of short-
term rentals and began discussing
how to address issues around
these rentals through city code in
November 2021.
Influx of short-term rentals
Kathy aney/East Oregonian
Flame shoots from the Pendleton
Flour Mills on the morning of
Wednesday, August 10, 2022.
“All these other buildings
around are considered expo-
sures,” Pierotti said as fire-
fighters battled the blaze. “Then
we go defensive. It’s gonna
come down, the goal is to make
sure it doesn’t go anywhere
else.”
Pierotti also said chlorine
tanks at the site were far enough
away they were not an explosion
risk. Still, fire crews doused the
tanks with water as a precau-
tionary measure.
Buildings at the mill began
to collapse around 9:30 a.m.
Pierotti said there was a concern
about a full building collapse.
“After roof collapse, building
is burning down from the inte-
rior, which works for us,” he
said, “reduces threat to exposed
buildings.”
Before 2020, La Grande had
“hardly any” short-term rental
applications, Boquist said. In the
past two years, however, the plan-
ning commission has considered
28 applications for 30 dwelling
units. Of these dwellings, 24 were
single-family homes that were
taken off the market and used for
short-term rental. Six have been
retained and occupied by a full-
time tenant.
“It’s the ones where they’re con-
verting investment property into
a BnB that we’ve had interesting
conversations about,” Boquist said.
“How is that affecting our housing
and where is our priority as a
community?”
During the meeting, Mayor
Steve Clements noted that
although he and his family rely
on short-term rentals when they
travel, he’s conflicted about his
own city’s capacity for these
properties.
“I’m kind of torn, honestly,
between letting the market do what
it is supposed to do and losing res-
idential housing without any kind
of alternative to new housing,” he
said. “That really concerns me.”
Over the past few years of
dropping interest rates, increased
building material costs, supply
chain challenges and rising mort-
gage rates, housing construction
has taken a hit.
Toward the start of the
COVID-19 pandemic, Gov. Kate
Brown and Oregon lawmakers
passed legislation that placed a
moratorium on evicting tenants
who didn’t pay their rent. Boquist
said that several local property
owners applied with the planning
commission to convert their rental
dwellings once the tenants, who
they were unable to evict, moved
out on their own.
“They were so relieved to have
their house vacated,” he said. “Our
first wave of BnBs was folks that
were just getting out of the rental
market.”
Boquist noted that this trend
continued, and the commission has
received two to five applications
every month, which it approves
or denies based on neighbor-
hood compatibility and parking
allotment.
Questions and concerns
During the meeting, city council
members expressed a variety of
concerns, both about the prospect
of a moratorium, and the impact of
leaving the short-term rental market
as-is.
Councilor David Glabe said that
although housing is needed in La
Grande, a moratorium might not be
the optimal way to address an issue
that is relatively new.
“I worry that we may be over-
reacting to what is likely a very
short-term response to a problem
that was created by a policy that the
state enacted,” he said, referring to
the moratorium on evictions.
Some members questioned the
legality of the moratorium, and
whether the commission would
be allowed to prohibit property
owners from applying for short-
term rentals.
Anne Morrison, a member of
the planning commission, noted
that — with the assurance of a city
attorney — the issue would not
give rise to legal troubles.
“This has been an issue across
the state,” she said. “We’ve looked
at samples of what other municipal-
ities have done around the state in
terms of addressing this issue. It’s
been addressed in numerous towns
in Oregon.”
In November 2021, residents in
Lincoln County voted to phase out
vacation rentals in unincorporated
residential areas. Proponents of the
vote said short-term rentals made
the community less affordable for
residents.
Next steps
By the end of the Aug. 8
meeting, council members and
the planning commission agreed
to make the moratorium an action
item for the Sept. 7 city council
meeting. During this meeting, the
council will have a first reading
of the ordinance. At the Oct. 5
meeting, a second reading would
take place, and the council would
vote on whether to pass the ordi-
nance and enact the moratorium.
During both of these meetings,
the public would have the oppor-
tunity to make comments.
If passed, the proposed mor-
atorium for La Grande would
go into effect as early as Oct. 5,
2022. It would not affect cur-
rent Airbnb and short-term rental
properties, but it would place a
120-day halt on the city accepting
new applications. During this
time, the planning commission
would revisit its application pro-
cess and reconsider rules around
short-term rentals in La Grande
before deciding whether or not to
extend the moratorium further.
At the end of the 120-day
period, the planning commis-
sion would submit a report that
identifies their recommenda-
tion for further action — if any.
Another public hearing would be
held to determine if progress is
being made toward addressing
the situation. The council would
vote to either drop the morato-
rium or extend it to allow further
changes.
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