Umatilla council approves zoning changes to meet state "missing middle" requirement

The Umatilla City Council on April 1 approved ZC1-2025, a set of zoning-code amendments that staff said are needed to comply with recent state housing legislation and to encourage higher-density housing downtown.

Planning staff told the council the changes respond to a state law that, staff said, “requires cities to provide what the state largely referred to as middle” housing and, as a result, “we are now required by state law by 07/01/2025 to amend our zoning code to allow duplexes in any [zone] where we would allow a single family home,” the staff presenter said during the staff report. The package also raises allowable densities in some multi-family and downtown residential zones and updates permitted uses in the downtown commercial zone.

The change most immediately driven by state law removes an outright single-family-only standard in low-density residential zones so duplexes would be permitted where single-family…