HERMISTON — Housing developers will have to adjust to new rules and new prices after the Hermiston City Council adopted several housing-related changes during its Monday, June 14, meeting.

Under mandate from a new statewide housing law, the city had to change its zoning rules to allow duplexes in all residential zones, including those that previously only allowed single-family dwellings.

“For the record, the planning commission wanted to make sure that they got it into the record that they very much want to express dissatisfaction with the process taken by the state Legislature in mandating these changes,” City Planner Clint Spencer said.

As part of House Bill 2001, cities also must treat duplexes and single family dwellings the same. That pushed the city to make other changes, including allowing duplexes on smaller lot sizes, matching the 5,000 square feet previously reserved for individual houses.

In a separate action, the city council approved new fees for the building department, raising them 17-33%.

City Manager Byron Smith said the city is required to adopt building permit fees matching the state of Oregon’s established fee schedule so the city can use a free building permit program from the state. If the city doesn’t use that program, he said, purchase of a different system typically costs about $35,000.

Smith said some of the fees had not been updated for 20 years.

The city council on June 14 also added new appendices to its comprehensive plan, as required by House Bill 2003.

The city’s planning department worked with Angelo Planning to study housing needs in Hermiston. According to Spencer, the city has 5,047 acres of unconstrained residential land and 346 acres that have constraints that would make them unlikely to develop in the future. Of the city’s residential land supply, about half of it is developed or already committed for future development, leaving 2,562 acres available for future residential development.

Spencer said those acres could theoretically support 18,075 more housing units in Hermiston, but planners estimate Hermiston only needs 2,030 additional housing units by 2040, with about 38% of those being rentals.

Granite Construction will handle a revamp of Riverfront Park after the city council awarded the bid. The company was the low bidder of three bids at $154,140.

After the park was damaged significantly by flooding in 2019 and 2020, the city plans to move the parking lot and playground toward the south side of the park, out of the path of raging flood waters when the Umatilla River overflows its banks.

Smith said it was “really kind of scary” to see the power of the river last year, when it ripped the asphalt parking lot into large chunks and carried away those heavy pieces.

The parking lot since has been gravel, but Granite Construction will add a new parking lot to the south end of the park and grass will replace the the current parking area. The city also plans to build a new, larger playground to replace the one destroyed in 2020, and Granite Construction will do the site preparation for that. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is covering 75% of the project.

The council also approved the city’s 2021-22 budget during the June 14 meeting, adopting a document that includes millions in new capital projects.

The budget includes a 1% cost of living increase for staff in July 2021 and a 1.5% increase that will take effect in 2022 if revenues come in as expected. The budget includes a one-person increase in staff, from the equivalent of 121.47 full-time employees to 122.47 FTE, with the hiring of an extra water utility worker.