Two things are true about Redmond Municipal Airport right now, and only one of them made the news.
The first is visible from Highway 126: glulam beams going up over a new concourse, foundation work finished, construction crews building toward a late 2027 opening on a $180 million terminal expansion. The second sits in a Deschutes County land use file, a text amendment approved back in June 2024 that quietly redrew the boundary lines governing which properties around the airport answer to height limits and noise mitigation rules. One got a groundbreaking ceremony. The other pulled roughly 125 additional parcels into a zone most sellers never mention and most buyers never ask about.
If you're comparing Redmond to other Central Oregon towns right now, the airport is part of the pitch. Growth, jobs, direct flights, a genuinely exciting amenity. All of that is real. But growth that changes a flight path also changes a zoning map, and the map moved more recently than most listings let on.
The part that made the news
Redmond Municipal Airport, known locally as Roberts Field, hasn't had a major terminal expansion since 2008. In the years since, passenger traffic has more than doubled, and the existing building simply wasn't built for that kind of load. The current project, being constructed by Skanska with design work from Hennebery Eddy Architects and RS&H, adds more than 80,000 square feet, seven new jet bridges, and enough new seating to more than double capacity in the waiting areas. The roof structure uses mass timber, with a glulam beam supplied by TimberLab, a detail that shows up in coverage because the project topped out in July 2026 and is reportedly running on time and on budget.
None of it is funded by local property taxes. The $180 million comes from airport revenue bonds, FAA grants, airport cash reserves, and other federal funding, including a $3.8 million allocation announced earlier this year by Oregon's congressional delegation. Airport Manager Zachary Bass has described the logic behind building ahead of demand plainly: it isn't a matter of whether growth shows up if you build it, it's that growth can't show up if you don't.
The near-term payoff for anyone flying out of Redmond is tangible. The concessions hub going into the new terminal is set to include Bend Brewing Company, Sisters Coffee, Sparrow Bakery, and Peet's Coffee & Tea, a lineup that reads like a highlight list of Central Oregon rather than a generic airport food court. Redmond currently runs five airlines, Alaska, American, Breeze, Delta, and United, covering 30 daily flights to 13 cities. Airport leadership has said the expanded terminal creates room to add another carrier once it opens.
That's the story that gets told at ribbon cuttings. It's a good one. It's also incomplete.
The part that didn't
Airports don't just occupy the land under the runway. Oregon land use law gives them an Airport Safety Combining Zone, a set of overlapping height and use restrictions on nearby parcels designed to keep incompatible development out of the airport's approach paths and noise footprint. Redmond's version is paired with a 55 DNL noise contour, a mapped boundary where new noise-sensitive construction has to prove it can keep interior sound levels within federal limits.
Redmond's Airport Master Plan was last fully updated in 2018. The 2023-2024 text amendment process reworked the written description of the airport's runway dimensions and future parallel runway, and that shift in the underlying geometry moved the mapped location of the safety zone and the 55 DNL contour along with it. The Deschutes County Board of Commissioners approved the amendment on June 26, 2024, and it became effective that September. The county's own case file puts the practical impact in plain terms: approximately 125 properties are now included in the newly adjusted Airport Safety zone or noise contour that weren't part of it under the prior map.
What that means for a specific property depends on distance from the runway. Some parcels pick up height restrictions on new structures, relevant if you're planning a shop, barn, or second story. Others fall inside the 55 DNL contour, where new noise-sensitive construction, additions included, now needs a signed letter from an acoustical engineer confirming the interior will meet required decibel limits before the county will issue a permit. That's a step, a cost, and a timeline item that doesn't show up in a listing description, and it applies regardless of what the median price in that part of Redmond happens to be doing.
The map and the noise aren't the same thing
Here's where it gets less intuitive. Being outside the official contour doesn't guarantee quiet, and Redmond has its own documented case proving it.
Back in 2019, the airport reported a roughly 500% jump in noise complaints from Redmond-area residents in a single year, climbing from about five complaints annually to more than 30. Eighty-eight percent of those complaints came from Eagle Crest Resort, a community located about eight miles from the airport itself, well outside any reasonable read of a close-in flight path. The cause wasn't runway traffic. It was a shared FAA holding-pattern radio tower sitting just west of Eagle Crest, used by pilots stacking up for clearance at any of six regional airports, Redmond, Bend, Madras, Prineville, Sisters, and Sunriver. Because that tower sits outside the airport's own five-mile radius of operational control, airport staff had essentially no ability to route traffic away from it.
That episode is seven years old now, and I'm not citing it as a current complaint count. I'm citing it because it's the clearest illustration on record of a mechanism that hasn't gone away: the official noise map measures runway-based exposure, and the lived experience of aircraft noise can come from somewhere the map was never designed to track. A parcel can sit outside the 55 DNL contour on paper and still be under a holding pattern in practice. The reverse can be true too.
| The Official Zone | What Residents Actually Hear | |
|---|---|---|
| Basis | 55 DNL contour and Airport Safety Combining Zone, set by county land use amendment | FAA holding-pattern traffic near a shared radio tower |
| Last changed | Redrawn in 2024, adding roughly 125 parcels | Not tied to any mapped boundary or airport-controlled radius |
| What it triggers | Height limits, acoustical engineer sign-off for new noise-sensitive construction | No permit process, no disclosure requirement |
| Who can confirm it | Deschutes County Community Development, by tax lot | Neighbors, and time spent on the property at different hours |
What to actually check before you write an offer
If you're looking at a property near Redmond's airport, whether that's a subdivision a mile off the runway or acreage further out toward Eagle Crest, treat these as two separate questions rather than one:
- Ask Deschutes County Community Development whether the specific tax lot falls inside the post-2024 Airport Safety Combining Zone or 55 DNL contour. The boundary moved two years ago, and a listing agent working from an older mental map may not know it shifted.
- If you're planning new construction or an addition inside the contour, build the acoustical engineer letter into your budget and timeline before you finalize plans, not after a permit gets kicked back.
- If height matters to your plans, whether that's a shop, a detached studio, or a second story, check the distance-based height limits tied to the zone rather than assuming standard residential rules apply.
- Spend time on the property at different hours if flight noise is a concern at all, especially anywhere near a holding pattern corridor. The county's map won't show you that, and no disclosure form is going to catch it either.
What this means if you're comparing Redmond to somewhere else
The airport is a legitimate reason to like Redmond right now. More flights, easier access to Portland and beyond, and an expansion that's paid for by users of the airport rather than local taxpayers all point toward a town investing in its own infrastructure. But growth of this kind rarely stays contained to the thing that got built. It also redraws the rules for the land around it, and those rules moved as recently as two years ago, with more change plausible as the terminal itself nears completion in 2027.
A median price tells you what closed. It doesn't tell you whether the parcel you're eyeing sits inside a zone that changed while nobody was watching, or whether the quiet street two blocks over is quiet because it's actually outside every flight pattern, or just because nobody's tested it during a busy holding-pattern afternoon yet.
That's the kind of detail that only shows up when someone's tracking the county file alongside the construction updates. If you're weighing a move to Redmond, or comparing it against Bend or Sisters for your next place, Ninebark Real Estate can walk the specific parcel with you, not just the headline. Get a Free Home Valuation and let's talk through what's actually on the map for the property you're considering.
FAQ
How do I find out if a specific Redmond address is inside the updated Airport Safety Combining Zone? Deschutes County Community Development maintains the current Airport Safety Combining Zone and 55 DNL noise contour maps tied to the 2024 text amendment. Parcel-specific status is available through the county's land use records by tax lot, and it's worth checking directly rather than relying on an older map.
Does falling inside the zone mean I can't build what I want? No. It means added steps, not a ban. Depending on distance from the runway, you may face height limits on new structures, and if you're building or adding onto a noise-sensitive structure inside the 55 DNL contour, the county will require a letter from an acoustical engineer confirming interior sound levels meet the standard before it issues a permit.
If a home isn't in the official noise contour, does that guarantee it's quiet? Not necessarily. Redmond's own history with Eagle Crest shows that real noise sources, like a shared FAA holding-pattern tower used by multiple regional airports, can sit well outside the airport's own mapped contour and outside its authority to mitigate. The map measures one thing. What you'll actually hear living there is a separate question worth checking in person.
