Population shows increase of 690 in Whitman County

The Washington State Office of Financial Management (OFM) released its annual population estimate figures for counties statewide last week, with Whitman County estimated to have gained 690 residents.

The OFM population estimates are used to determine state program administration and the allocation of selected state revenues.

Most of the county increase was attributed to two areas: Pullman, where the OFM estimates a gain of 540 new residents through April 1 of this year, and rural areas which increased from 6,084 to 6,240 for a gain of 156, or approximately 2.5 percent. This increase for unincorporated compared with a net gain of 123 in rural areas during the prior six years.

When asked about this population jump, County Commissioner Art Swannack said he could only speculate.

“Nobody’s unincorporated a town that I know of,” he commented.

Pullman’s rate of gain with 540 more residents was 1.6 percent of the 32,650 estimated count. Pullman now accounts for 68.1 percent of the county’s 47,940 residents.

The OFM did have one explanation for the rural change.

“It’s pretty much due to the change of the occupancy rate,” said Yi Zhao, OFM population analyst.

Zhao said during the recession in 2010, some houses in the unincorporated areas, mostly around Pullman, were left unoccupied, and the houses that were occupied had small household sizes. However, both of those have jumped recently, Zhao said.

“That data is showing improvement,” she said. “It is less vacant and more houses are occupied, household sizes are bigger and adult kids are living with parents.”

Zhao did say the office was not sure where the people who moved into the unincorporated areas came from.

County Planner Alan Thomson said a number of potential cluster zones in the county can result in more rural population. The county last year set a Dec. 31, 2015, deadline for filing cluster zone applications. Most of those have been in the Pullman area.

A cluster zone allows for residential housing development, with a required minimum of four lots per 20-acre section.

“We’ve created the parcels, but there are no buildings on those lots,” he said, noting there are 44 potential new home sites in the new Pullman-area cluster zones.

“There is a large number of people coming with Schweitzer Engineering, that may be one possible answer,” he said. “Some of those folks might be going to unincorporated areas around Pullman.”

Thomson also said some new building could account for some of the growth, but not all.

“We’re not issuing that many building permits, though,” he said. “I don’t know where they’d be going.”

Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories (SEL) announced in March plans to add approximately 850 employees to its Pullman location. This includes the construction of two new buildings that would add more than 200,000 additional square feet of space. That construction is expected to be completed by June 2017.

Commissioner Swannack also speculated that SEL employees may be moving “out into the country.”

“Pullman’s continuing its trend of growth through Schweitzer, the university and other businesses,” said Swannack. “I was happy to see that the smaller communities remained relatively the same. It’d be nice to develop more small businesses in these communities though.”

County cities and towns outside of Pullman sustained a net loss of six.

Those that gained residents include Colfax (+5) 2,795; Colton (+5) 425; Farmington (+5) 155, and Palouse (+10) 1,040. Those that lost residents included Albion (-10) 545; Endicott (-1) 295; LaCrosse (-5) 315; Oakesdale (-5) 425; St. John (-5) 505, and Tekoa (-5) 780.

Communities which had no changes include Garfield 595; Lamont 80; Malden 200, Rosalia 560, and Uniontown 335.

Garfield has remained at the same population since 2012, Lamont since 2011, Malden and Rosalia since 2015 and Uniontown since 2014.

The overall county population estimate of 47,940 puts the county way ahead of an OFM projected population for 2030. That total was 46,764.