Downtown Pendleton, Oregon on a wet day, with brick storefronts
Pendleton Oregon downtown · Publichall at English Wikipedia · Public domain
Eastern Oregon

Home inspection in Pendleton

Home inspection in Pendleton, Oregon: which agency issues permits, how far the records go back, wildfire code status and local conditions.

Wildfire code, section R327
Cannot adopt locally checked 2026-08-07

No local building department since October 2025. BCD administers the building program.

Verified fields
Permit authority
authority
Oregon BCD, TEMPORARY
hard date
2025-10
retained by city
Planning, zoning, land use and business licensing remain city functions. A city business licence is still required.
Contact
main
500 SW Dorion Avenue, Pendleton OR 97801, building inspections 541-966-0205, Community Development 541-966-0203
The email listed on the city own building page is a STATE address, [email protected], reinforcing the handoff. The legacy [email protected] is stale.
Design criteria
codes referenced
2023 ORSC section 301 for residential; 2022 OSSC chapter 16 for commercial
wind
102 mph, Risk Category II, per OSSC 1609.3
frost in
24
seismic
Category C. Historically Pendleton is a category C.
roof snow
20 psf historically used for residential; varies 12 to 20 psf by roof slope and tributary area
ground snow
No static number. Use the online lookup tool at snowload.seao.org/lookup.html
Pendleton is the ONLY jurisdiction among Grant, Morrow, Umatilla and Pendleton that publishes its own design loads. These values came through a text-extraction proxy because the PDF is not directly machine-readable. Internally consistent and code-plausible, but confirm 102 mph, 24 inches and SDC C visually before publishing as quotes.
Housing stock
vintage
ACS 2020-2024 5-Year, Census Reporter release acs2024_5yr
census fips
4157150
total units
7016
median year built
1963
median value
$287100
sf detached pct
60.1
Snow load region
region
Columbia Plateau
ground snow adjustment psf per ft
0.007
means
Ground snow load rises by this many psf for each foot of elevation gain within this region.
Region and factor only. This is NOT a finished ground snow load for an address; that needs the region base load and the site elevation.
Permit fees
basis
The City of Pendleton charges for building permits based on State of Oregon standard rates.
worked example
A home with a construction value of $200,000 carries an approximate total building permit and plan review fee of $1,800.