The City of Bend held its State of the City in the form of a community gathering on Sept. 8 at Alpenglow Park. In addition to offering live music, food trucks, activities and information on various City departments, Mayor Melanie Kebler spoke to the community about City goals and priorities.
Kebler discussed the future of Bend and how its leaders will attempt to address and meet the challenges of growth. During the speech she focused on the city’s triumphs and goals regarding affordable housing, keeping the community safe, improving city transportation and conserving water.
Bend is expected to see 40,000 new residents over the next 20 years, Kebler said. “It’s vital that we plan for a sustainable future, one where everyone in Bend has the chance to thrive, with a place to live that they can afford, a job that pays the bills and a community where they feel welcome and safe,” she told the crowd.
With Bend’s median listing home price hitting $895,000, yet another record this summer, Kebler addressed concerns many residents have around the cost and availability of housing. “We need more housing, and we need housing that people can afford,” she said.
The City, according to Kebler, has taken several steps to address these issues and will continue to do so, recalling the City’s support for the creation of nearly 1,000 deed-restricted homes since 2021 and changing codes to allow for easier ADU building.
Kebler listed the issue of homelessness in the community as a top priority. With homelessness increasing every year in Bend for the past decade, Kebler showed her support for the city’s current efforts to house people and help them out of homelessness, pointing to the acquisition of shelters offering services to those who need it.
Additionally, Kebler applauded the city’s efforts to conserve water and expressed a need to maintain and enhance its conservation efforts.
“Though Bend uses only 2% of the water in the Deschutes Basin, we must continue to plan and conserve our water,” said Kebler.
“If there’s one thing I know about Bend, it’s this — we are a community that has always adapted to meet the challenges of our times,” Kebler said.
This article appears in Source Weekly September 14, 2023.
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We don’t need more housing, we need to stop issuing and ban short term rental permitting, hold developers accountable for affordable housing through deed restriction housing throughout developments and create a program for the property tax increase not to hurt the retired folks. A 3% property tax increase compounded every year could become difficult for retired folks on limited income thus pushing them out. Creating more housing doesn’t make it any more affordable. The city has not done their job in planning for growth and affordability. Look at NWX, it’s a community with affordable apartments ($444 month), duplex , townhomes, condos , cottage clusters and single family homes with commercial spaces, churches, schools, stores etc. but without deed restrictions, it’s not affordable because the little single family home that one bought five years ago for $350,000 without a deed restriction is now selling for over a million dollars. I don’t agree that we need to build more housing. To continue to clear cut and build more housing only puts more pressure on our resources like water and our infrastructure that we don’t have to support this growth. It also creates more global warming/climate change. If you build people will move here and the people moving here are not worried about affordable housing.