The city of Hermiston approved dozens of new housing permits in 2023 while seeing its population exceed 20,000.
According to a 2024 Growth & Development report, Hermiston approved 74 new housing permits last year, bringing that total to 548 new housing unit permits since Jan. 1, 2020. Those new permits include 108 for income-restricted apartments, 61 for manufactured homes, and 390 for other types of housing.
“With direction from the City Council and community input, the city has made housing development and planning for the future a top priority,” said City Manager Byron Smith. “We have worked closely with developers to identify potential sites and ensure infrastructure is in place to make these investments. The opening of the Moorehouse Apartments this year has already made a notable impact on the city’s housing inventory, and we look forward to seeing other developments come online in 2024.”
The city also completed the majority of work on several capital improvement projects in 2023, including the highly-anticipated N. 1st Place rebuild. The project replaced aging water and sewer lines, repaved the street surface, and added continuous sidewalk between Hermiston Avenue and Elm Avenue.
“The Capital Improvement Plan makes sure we’re addressing immediate infrastructure needs, but also preparing for the future by combining projects that will need to be done in the near future,” said Assistant City Manager Mark Morgan. “By getting state funding to pay for the street and sidewalk on N. 1st Place and replacing the water and sewer lines while the street was already torn up, we saved a considerable amount of money in the long term.”
According to the 2023 Portland State University Certified Population Estimates, Hermiston added 353 residents between July 2022 and July 2023, bringing the city’s population to 20,322.
When will you care about the people like us with water that kills us? It literally took the life of our baby. I miscarried. You should as a City get County AND State AND Federal AND Tribal to help with this “Lower Columbian Basin” water problem. You can tell the Umatilla Tribe that as far as the Umatilla River runs it’s their problem too! Please SAVE OUR LIVES. DO MORE.
Thank- you,
Rebecca Hood