PENDLETON — The Pendleton Development Commission could soon get into the home improvement business.
On behalf of the commission, Kaitlyn Cook, an associate from the University of Oregon’s Resource Assistance for Rural Environments program, studied downtown blight and presented the results at a commission meeting on Tuesday.
Cook said she did the study so that the commission, which is comprised of members of the Pendleton City Council, would better understand the issue of blight while members consider how to move the urban renewal district forward during the last four years of its lifespan.
“I’m not a structural engineer,” she said. “I looked at the buildings and looked at determinators of blight.”
Cook studied every structure from Southeast Sixth Street to Southwest Sixth Street, Umatilla River to railroad, and graded them on a 900 point scale.
She assessed the buildings based on nine qualities of blight, including peeling paint, yard maintenance issues, and structural problems.
Based on her scores, she determined that there were 52 blighted buildings in the downtown area, 25 of them residential.
Although city officials have long been critical of absentee landlords and banks who let their properties fall into disrepair, only a little more than half of the blighted structures were renter occupied.
The development commission’s advisory committee has been exploring how the urban renewal district could take a greater role in housing, said Charles Denight, the commission’s associate director.
They’ve been busy crafting a proposal to improve the urban renewal district’s existing stock while still filling an unmet need.
Denight said the Greater Eastern Oregon Development Corp. and Community Action Program of East Central Oregon already offer housing renovation programs, but they’re more focused on paying for projects that will improve the health or safety of a homeowner.
Additionally, previous city programs like Restore Pendleton would make a financial effort to fix up a home, only to see it fall back into disrepair.
To avoid duplication or previous pitfalls, the advisory committee is considering a five-year forgivable loan program that can be applied toward external renovations.
Under the program, homeowners would be able to give their houses a facelift on the commission’s dime, as long as they can pass a series of inspections.
With each passed inspection, the homeowner would get 20% of their loan forgiven. If the owner passes all inspections after five years, they owe nothing.
Denight said the program could also be available to renters, but they likely wouldn’t be able to access a fully forgivable loan.
If the commission moved forward with the loan idea, it wouldn’t lack the funds to sponsor it.
If they relied on tax revenue alone, the urban renewal district could spend another $5.9 million on projects. But if they decided to access their full line of credit, that number expands to $33.5 million.
Originally published in the Eastern Oregonian