By the end of this year, construction will likely begin on a new development in the northern tip of Redmond, eventually adding 128 housing units to the city.

Hayden Homes, which is headquartered in Redmond, hopes to break ground on its Cinder Butte Village development in November or December.

This project will help bring new houses to a city with a major housing shortage, said Chris Davis, the homebuilder’s regional director for Central Oregon.

And because the construction industry has been deemed essential by Oregon’s government during the COVID-19 pandemic, Hayden Homes can start working on the development’s infrastructure soon, he said.

“There is certainly a supply issue right now,” Davis said. “Fortunately … as an essential activity in the state, we’re still able to build homes … and still keep that part of the economy moving.”

The homes will be built east of the intersection of NW 10th Street and NW Upas Avenue, with the majority of the construction occurring just outside Redmond’s city limits.

However, once the homes are built, the city will annex that land, said Scott Woodford, senior planner with the city of Redmond.

At its regular meeting Tuesday night, held remotely, the Redmond City Council unanimously approved land use applications for the project, and re-zoned a portion south of NW Upas Avenue so denser housing could be built.

In total, Cinder Butte Village will have about 75 detached, single-family homes and 53 cottage units, which are smaller, higher-density homes that may or may not be detached, Davis said.

When the first houses are ready for sale — which could be as early as the spring of 2021, pending weather — they will be priced between 80% and 120% of the average mortgage in Redmond, Davis said.

According to real estate website Zillow, the median home value in the Redmond area is $340,217 — although Zillow expects that price to dip slightly in the next year.

Along with building the houses, Hayden Homes will make improvements on NW 10th Street and NW Upas Avenue. The former could be widened, depending on a traffic study, and is guaranteed to include a multiuse path for pedestrians and cyclists, Woodford said.

Upas Avenue will go from being a gravel road into a major collector street, and the city’s eventual goal is to extend it as a bridge over U.S. Highway 97, Woodford told the City Council on Tuesday night.

A roundabout or four-way stop at the 10th and Upas intersection — which currently just has a stop sign for drivers traveling from Upas onto 10th — could also be created, depending on a traffic study, Woodford said.

This new development is right next to two Redmond School District facilities: Tom McCall Elementary and Elton Gregory Middle School. The elementary school is far under its 662-student capacity, with 386 students attending this school year, according to state data. Elton Gregory Middle could get a bit more crowded, with 744 students enrolled in a school with a capacity of 800 students.

The property where the new homes will be built was originally planned to be a new building for Central Christian School, as recently as 2017, according to city documents. However, the school — which teaches students from pre-K through 12 grade — abandoned that plan and is under contract to sell the land to Hayden Homes, Davis said.

Central Christian School decided to abandon plans for that new building after moving into a preexisting building near Redmond Airport, said Elisa Carlson, head of the private school.

“It was really a timing issue for us, and needing to move the school sooner than the property was going to be ready for us to do that,” she said.