PENDLETON — The Pendleton City Council is considering an ordinance that would prohibit people from using bus stops to rest or store personal belongings.

The council will meet for its regular session at 7 p.m. Tuesday, May 20, at Pendleton City Hall to hold a public hearing on and discuss Ordinance 4032. The Pendleton Police Department requested the ordinance to address ongoing concerns about public safety and accessibility.

“Just as we do not allow persons to sleep on sidewalks, sleep in the library, sit on the stairs in public buildings,” the staff report to the council states. “Persons who occupy the benches of bus shelters and fill the space with their personal property are preventing the use of city assets by other citizens who want to make use of the shelters for their intended purpose.”

The city already enacted a local resting law, which designates specific city-owned areas for overnight rest and limits personal property storage on city property to no more than one hour. The amendment would extend similar restrictions to bus shelters.

The city staff report recommends amending the Noncriminal Offenses Ordinance 3409 to ban the storage of personal property and extended resting in bus shelters, which has prevented bus riders from accessing the shelters while waiting for buses.

Updates aim to improve water billing system

The council also will continue the public hearing with a discussion on proposed updates to Ordinance 4033, which would amend Ordinance 3236 — the city’s Water Service Ordinance — to clarify definitions for commercial and residential accounts and improve transparency in how the city calculates water rates.

Under the current ordinance, state-licensed care facilities and retirement apartment complexes lack specific definitions, leading to inconsistent billing across the system. Similarly, recreational vehicles and mobile homes in parks served by a master meter are charged the same base rate as single-family homes with individual meters.

If approved, the revised ordinance would reduce the base rate for RV and mobile home residents in parks from $39.25 to $22.60 under in-city rates. Volumetric charges would remain unchanged.

According to the staff report, the changes would lower individual bills for affected customers while still allowing the city water fund to collect enough revenue to maintain the system. The updated ordinance also would ensure consistent and fair calculation of all fees across all account types.

Council set to act on housing report

Under the new business, the council will review Ordinance 4035, which seeks to adopt the city’s housing needs analysis and buildable lands reports. This action will complete a periodic review on housing that has been pending since 2019.

The Pendleton Planning Commission has recommended approval of the ordinance, which addresses housing requirements set by the state. The housing needs analysis process began in 2019, and the city planning commission reviewed it in 2022.

Public feedback emphasized the need to reflect market conditions, particularly post-COVID-19 construction costs. Staff updated the report to include 2022 market pricing. However, the state rejected the report due to the inclusion of “pent-up demand”— a term not allowed under state guidelines — and the unapproved market pricing changes.

As a result, the state provided funding for a new consultant, Winterbrook, to revise the report for adoption.

Winterbrook representatives Maddy Poehlein and Jesse Winterowd presented the revised analysis to the planning commission. The analysis, based on U.S. Census data and projections from the Portland State University Population Research Center, outlines Pendleton’s expected growth over the next 20 years. It shows the city needs 516 new housing units to meet that growth, broken down by housing type based on income.

According to the staff report, Winterbrook noted Pendleton’s 14% vacancy rate, which is higher than normal. The report uses a “safe harbor” vacancy rate of 5% for calculations, as the higher rate could be influenced by factors such as vacation homes and inhabitable rentals.

The Winterbrook report reveals Pendleton needs these two types of housing more than other types of housing: single-family housing for upper income buyers and extremely low-income housing, also known as government subsidized housing.

However, the report shows Pendleton needs housing in all categories of income. But it does not reflect the development of Wildflower and South Hill Commons housing and the Westgate apartments except to show Pendleton permitted more than 400 units between 2021 and 2022.

The report suggests that middle housing — such as duplexes, triplexes and cottage clusters — could help meet the city’s housing needs.

This development would be reflected in the housing needs analysis Pendleton will need to complete in 2029.