WINNER OF THE 2020 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 5, 2022
HermistonHerald.com
EasternOregonMarketplace.com
Eastern Oregon starts off year cold, wet and windy
By ANTONIO SIERRA
Hermiston Herald
If the early parts of the cold
weather season were relatively
mild, winter came back with a ven-
geance at the end of 2021 and into
the early days of 2022.
Signifi cant snowfall was fol-
lowed by subzero temperatures
and gusts as high as 50 mph that
created hazardous conditions in
some parts of Umatilla County.
Hermiston on Dec. 31 had a
low of 19 and a high of 34, but
temperatures in the largest town in
Eastern Oregon fell Jan. 1 to a high
of 24 and a low of minus 8.
Pendleton on Thursday, Dec. 30,
had a low of 10 degrees, according
to data from the National Weather
Service in Pendleton. But on Dec.
31, the low dropped to minus 7, the
coldest temperature of the month
and 3 degrees shy of the coldest
temperature on that date set back
in 1978.
Jan. 1 reached a low minus 5 in
Pendleton, but that was 7 degrees
warmer than the 1979 record of
minus 12. Temperatures warmed
on Jan. 3, with the low of 7 and a
high of 41.
In a Jan. 3, interview, Uma-
tilla County Sheriff ’s Offi ce Sgt.
Dwight Johnson, the manager of
the offi ce’s search and rescue team,
said he was fatigued after respond-
ing to calls all night in the Mil-
ton-Freewater area.
Originally from Montana, John-
son said the conditions the night of
Jan. 2 were amongst the worst he’s
seen in his career. Snowplows and
heavy equipment from the Ore-
gon Department of Transportation
and Umatilla County Public Works
aided the county team, but mem-
bers still occasionally got stuck as
rescue crews attempted to reach
county residents.
Out of all the calls, Johnson said
they only needed to transport one
resident: a woman who got stuck
in the snow during a grocery run.
Umatilla County Emergency
Manager Tom Roberts said that
while the county had responded
to snow drifts, mostly on the
east side of the county, he hadn’t
heard reports of major property
Ben Lonergan/Hermiston Herald
See Weather, Page A7
Steam rises off the surface of the Umatilla River on Saturday, Jan 1, 2022, as
it passes through Riverfront Park in Hermiston.
Fireworks light
the Hermiston sky
Ben Lonergan/Hermiston Herald
Revelers watch from their cars as fi reworks explode in the early hours of Saturday, Jan. 1, 2022, to celebrate the new year at the Eastern Oregon Trade and Event Center, Hermiston.
Supply and demand go up in Hermiston’s housing market
Housing permits went up in
value and number in 2021
By ERICK PETERSON
Hermiston Herald
The
Hermiston
Building
Department approved 139 new
housing unit permits in 2021, 14
more than an 2020.
The city touted the numbers in
a press release Dec. 28. The total
job value for housing and other
development permits in 2021
was $105.6 million. The hous-
ing permits for 2021 included 48
income-restricted apartments and
30 manufactured homes.
Hermiston Assistant City Man-
ager Mark Morgan there were 129
site-built homes and 10 manufac-
tured homes. He said the rise in the
number of new home construction
is evidence of “strong, consistent,
sustainable growth” in Hermiston.
That consistency matters, he
said. A one-year surge, for exam-
ple, he said, might indicate “one
builder is going hard, but when
they fi nish, we see a drop in
activity.”
The development also is spread
geographically around the city, he
said, and across diff erent builders
and developers.
“If one builder goes bankrupt,
INSIDE
Ben Lonergan/Hermiston Herald
A pair of new construction homes near completion Tuesday, Jan. 4, 2022, in
a housing development off of East Theater Lane in Hermiston.
or one project runs in to a major
unforeseen cost, the community
is able to keep adding housing,”
Morgan said.
He credited historically low
interest rates in response to the
coronavirus
pandemic
fuel-
ing growth, which helped people
aff ord homes.
“Dropping the interest rate on
a 30-year mortgage on a $250,000
loan just 1% from 4% to 3% ends
up saving the borrower nearly
$50,000 in fi nancing costs over the
30-year repayment period,” Mor-
gan said. “For context on what that
A2  ‘Hermiston History’ looks into
the past
means as far as the city’s tools that
we have available to assist in hous-
ing aff ordability, one of the com-
mon requests that we get is to off er
$5,000 incentive for home buy-
ers. If you take that same $250,000
home, and give the borrower
$5,000 to go toward a down pay-
ment without touching the interest
rate, it ends up only saving the bor-
rower a total of about $8,000 over
30 years, compared to the previous
example where they save almost
$50,000.”
The previous example, Morgan
said, contrasts the power of city
A3  Omicron brings new con-
cerns
and national government.
“Simply put, in terms of incen-
tivizing housing and helping with
aff ordability, the city has a pea-
shooter compared to the Federal
Reserve’s bazooka,” Morgan said.
Still, he added, there are actions
a city can take, and Hermiston has.
The city county approved reducing
minimum lot sizes in development.
He said that allowed builders “to fi t
more homes in to a development,
and helps tip the scales on a lot of
projects.”
Morgan also said the city
council “increased the maxi-
mum lot-coverage allowed, which
allows builders to fi t larger foot-
print homes on to lots.” This, he
said, made a lot of projects more
profi table.
In addition, the council rezoned
about 40 acres near Diagonal Bou-
levard from industrial to a mix of
residential and commercial.
“Those properties had sat stuck
in an undeveloped state for nearly
50 years as industrial land,” Mor-
gan said, “and now, almost imme-
diately, there is a 200-unit man-
ufactured home park actively
developing in it, and there con-
tinues to be signifi cant interest in
developing the remainder of that
land.”
The city also built a 1 mil-
lion-gallon water tower and nearly
A4  We consider 2022 in light of
2021
2 miles of new water lines in north-
east Hermiston through a part-
nership with Umatilla County to
reinvest enterprise zone funding,
Morgan said.
“There are active subdivisions
under construction right now off
of Punkin Center (Road), and off
of Theater Lane that are a direct
result of that investment,” he said.
“So far, those developments have
started construction on nearly 100
new homes since 2019.”
Mike Boylan, principal broker
and owner of Boylan Realty, said
Hermiston needs more housing.
“We have a shortage, for sure,”
he said. “It’s been short for quite a
while now.”
He added there has been some
improvement lately, as a trickle of
houses have entered the market.
Still, when they are listed, they sell
quickly. For example, he said he
recently put a house on the market
and within three weeks there was a
cash off er for it.
Boylan said the speed at which
houses sell shows the demand for
homes and the need for new con-
struction. Morgan agreed with the
need, and he said there also is a
need to maintain aff ordability,
which has been the city council’s
policy since 2017.
See Housing, Page A7
A6  Resolution Run in photos