Bend is in the midst of a housing crisis, with rental vacancies at something like 1% as of 2016.
We believe that Bend should be a city where vital, hard-working members of our community like firefighters and teachers should be able to afford to live.
The way to keep Bend affordable is to add more housing: Yes In My Back Yard!
This can take several forms:
- Building out via an expansion of the Urban Growth Boundary. This is currently under way.
- Growing up by building taller buildings in places. There is no need for skyscrapers in Bend – more 2/3/4 story buildings are more than enough.
- Filling in existing space. Most of us here enjoy the nature in the area, both to the west and east of town – let’s use the existing spaces we have before we pave over more.
Bend is large enough to have a variety of housing styles to suit many people’s needs. We believe a free market is the best way to decide how much of what kind of housing to build where.
Bend does not exist in a vacuum: other places like the San Francisco Bay Area, Portland and Seattle also need to “legalize cities” and allow housing to be built.
