Wallowa County, Oregon
Wallowa Lake
Wallowa Lake is a designated unincorporated community — one of the rural places Oregon’s land-use system treats as a defined settlement outside any city’s urban growth boundary. A state rulemaking now under way could change what can be built here.
- County
- Wallowa County
- Designation
- Designated unincorporated communityUnder OAR chapter 660, division 22 — one of the four divisions the current rulemaking proposes to amend.
- Nearest urban growth boundary
- Joseph — about 2.2 miles awayWithin five miles of an existing boundary.
- Record status
- Not individually verified. Compiled from the statewide dataset.
Community records come from our statewide map dataset, built from Oregon geographic data (retrieved July 2026). 272 communities are listed; distance to a boundary is recorded for 253 of them. We publish what the data says and correct it when someone who lives here tells us it’s wrong.
What’s being proposed
Oregon’s Land Conservation and Development Commission is considering new rules for housing in unincorporated communities. The stated goal is more housing. The rules could also let counties raise density, expand community boundaries, and permit more intensive urban uses outside urban growth boundaries. Whether Wallowa Lake is affected depends on decisions that haven’t been made yet — which is why comment now matters.
Comment on the record for Wallowa Lake
Comments naming a specific place carry weight the generic ones don’t. This opens the letter builder with Wallowa Lake, Wallowa County already filled in.
Write about Wallowa LakeOn the map
Wallowa Lake sits at 45.3041, -117.2117. The statewide map shows every community, its designation, and its distance to the nearest boundary.
Open Wallowa Lake on the statewide map