There is much to appreciate about Malheur County, including its commitment to supporting regional businesses and industries and providing the best possible quality of life and livability for its residents, businesses, and visitors.
Situated in Eastern Oregon, Malheur County offers prosperity and growth opportunities to individuals seeking to establish, expand, or locate their business, thanks to its convenient access to regional, national, and international transportation networks. While making great efforts to support the trades, health care, and education in order to support a thriving economy with a large number of job opportunities, Malheur County strives to work closely with potential businesses while offering superior industrial zoned properties and facilities.
The County’s reload facility is another point of pride. Located on the Union Pacific mainline on about four miles of track, there is intent to ship agriculture products out as well as in.
“Obviously, there are a lot of other ancillary products that would work as well,” says Taylor Rembowski, Director of Malheur County Economic Development. “It’s roughly 280 acres, so we have a lot of space for development out there and potential for an industrial park bringing in commodities, construction, or lumber. Shipping containers would work and any other containers needing to go to port or coming from port heading to the Midwest and further. The intent is to get more semi traffic off Oregon’s roads and make things more efficient for local shippers.”
Additionally, this “massive” county that runs from the southern Nevada border up along the Idaho border—and is roughly as big as the state of Vermont—also boasts various valuable mineral resources.
“It’s the twelfth biggest county in the nation,” says Rembowski. “It’s huge and also very unpopulated, less than 35,000, so we have a lot of open space that in previous times and eras was explored for some gold and silver and a lot of mercury. We have a new gold mine that’s approximately a year away from opening if all the permitting gets approved, and that will be the first of its kind in the state of Oregon. It won’t be open pit, but a tunnel mine that will help the environment, landscape, and wildlife remain stable.” While it’s getting close, it has been a long, drawn-out process to get the permitting done between the federal government and the state and local government, adds Rembowski.
“And then we have our new favorite mineral in America—lithium. The southern portion of the County has a vast amount of lithium, so we have a company down there doing exploratory work right now. If they find what they’re looking for, which I sense they will, that will open that conversation up to large open pit mining for lithium. We need precious metals in this country—particularly lithium, which we have in our phones, tablets, and everything we use daily—but also for national security and defense systems. As a nation, it’s wise to have our minerals sourced internally, instead of relying on other nations.”
While mining can often get a bad rap, Malheur County is striving to ensure it is done in a more environmentally friendly manner. “It’s not always the best for the environment, but we still have to pick and choose where we’re going to disturb some things and how to minimize that disturbance,” Rembowski says. “It’s unfortunate that it does cause a disturbance, but the reality is we’ve all grown to rely on it, so we’ll figure that out.”
Along with an abundance of natural resources, Malheur County also offers impressive incentives for new homeowners and existing home renovation costs in an effort to draw in and retain new residents.
“We’re in competition with Idaho, right across the border, whose property taxes aren’t nearly as high as Oregon’s,” says Rembowski. “So, people tend to want to buy or build in Idaho, and then they want to come over here and shop in Oregon because we don’t have sales tax. We’ve discussed incentives to try and offset that kind of migration into Idaho for homebuilding, because we need businesses and homes over here, and we need the property tax revenues from it, which funds most of our county.”
As a result, the County has come up with some appealing incentives: If you build a brand-new home, when that home is complete, you’ll receive $6,000 and then $1,500 for property taxes per year for the next decade—a total of $15,000 in property tax abatement plus the initial $6,000. “That’s a $21,000 incentive, which we feel is pretty competitive,” says Rembowski. “If you remodel an existing home and it gets a new tax-assessed value after your remodel, we will give you up to $20,000 or 15 percent of the increased tax value. if your house went up $100,000 in tax value, we would give you 15 percent of that, so that also focuses on making and keeping our neighborhoods nice.”
Additionally, Malheur County offers a housing rehabilitation loan of $15,000 for five years interest-free. “We see a lot of activity with these grants and loans; it’s very helpful,” says Rembowski. “When trying to make every penny count with inflation and everything else, this has certainly been very helpful for local people.”
When it comes to geographic benefits, the County also boasts numerous unique attractions. “We really like our state. It’s massive and very diverse, from the coastline to the high Cascades, to the forests and snow-peaked mountains, to the desert and rolling hills and sagebrush. It’s a big, diverse state that’s just stunning. It’s rugged and a beautiful little part of our world to go visit.”
Then there are the Owyhee Canyonlands, featuring a wild and scenic river with world-class brown trout fishing. When trout were introduced in the ’90s, the area quickly became a world-class destination for fishing on a large reservoir that’s roughly 22 miles long. “It’s also quickly becoming a destination for, once again, the Idaho contingency,” says Rembowski.
“There are a million people living in the Boise Metro and we’re seeing a lot of use from the Idaho side, so the beauty is being preserved. We’re looking at trying to monetize and create some economic strategy for our county, because it’s being used so much by out-of-state folk, and we really don’t have a revenue stream to maintain it and keep it beautiful as it is, so we’re working on some different packages to try and monetize that, which has been very fun to work on.”
Additionally, the advent of side-by-sides, UTVs, and ATVs has made the area even more accessible. “There are a lot of gravel roads out here, thousands of miles of gravel roads, so it’s become a bit more user-friendly as people have been able to cruise down the roads in their off-road vehicles.”
The Owyhees also provide a stunning backdrop for hunting and fishing, affording excellent use of the outdoors. “There is also potential for the Owyhees to turn into a national monument, much like Arches National Park or Moab in Utah, and become a big tourist destination, but we really have to focus on where these people are going to eat, sleep, drink, and get fuel,” Rembowski explains. “We’re not there yet, but the federal government is definitely pushing that on us. It’s a work in progress.”
In terms of opportunities for businesses looking to come in and set down roots, Malheur has much to offer on many levels. “We have some great incentives there, between the local and state incentives. We have tax abatement incentives for new businesses for up to five years, so you wouldn’t pay property taxes for your first five years in business. These goals are all around full-time employees: if you’re going to start a business and have seven full-time employees, within the first five years we manage that and make sure you’re not paying property taxes during that time to help give you a give you a leg up, which I think is very important.”
There are also some renewable resource tax deferments as well, he adds. “If you were going to put a large solar farm on some property, we have tax abatement for that as well. Renewable is definitely the way, I think, to meet our future power needs, so it’s nice that we fit that mold and can offer those incentives.”
On the state level, there are community grants for infrastructure—wastewater, drinking water, roads, bridges, and schools—as well as grants for businesses that export goods worldwide and loans that are available to entrepreneurial businesses and businesses that are currently in operation and wanting to scale up.
The County’s biggest hurdle is diversity in its business sectors, Rembowski adds. “We’re very Ag-oriented here; most of our employers are from the Ag sector and we’re trying to find other industry to bring to the area. I think the reload center will help add some additional jobs that aren’t necessarily Ag-related and maybe some in renewable energy as well,” he says. “Our biggest issue locally is really just looking at greater diversity.”
Nationally, housing shortages and the cost of living are other huge challenges, but ones that Malheur County is striving to address. “I think with our incentive packages, we’re hoping to offset some of that for potential people who are willing to relocate,” Rembowski says. “That would also really help with the workforce. We’re being very active as a county to look at and use these incentives to hopefully alleviate some of that stress for people that may be new to the County and wanting to relocate here. Opportunities are available here for people and businesses looking to set down roots.”
