Council moves forward with annexation

By Terry Murry on Wednesday, January 26th, 2022 in Columbia Basin News Columbia Basin Top Stories

HERMISTON – A partnership between the city of Hermiston and the owner of acreage in the East Jennie Avenue area is opening a significant portion of land that was previously designated “open spaces” for development. Assistant City Manager Mark Morgan said the federal government had declared a large area to be Bakers Pond wetlands back in the 1980s.

“When the U.S. government was going through and determining wetland areas that shan’t be built on, they were just looking at aerial photographs,” he said.

The city and the property owner partnered to put boots on the ground and draw a definite line of what is a wetland and what is not. The city paid for that study and will be reimbursed with land.

“A portion of that property will end up coming to the city so that we’re able to expand our public works yard,” Morgan said. “Now, as we move forward, I think we’ll see some good residential development on the southern end of that property and it opens up the northern portion of that property for some commercial development or expansion of the city’s public works yard.”