BDAB recommends trades representation on committee developing Bend electrification fee

The BDAB committee voted to ask the City Council to include a building trades representative as an ex officio member of the joint committee that will develop a proposed electrification fee and an incentive program to reduce natural‑gas use in new residential construction.

City staff senior management analyst Cassie Lacey told the advisory body the council had directed staff to focus on a fee as the “foundational part” of an incentive and disincentive package. She said city permit data show most new single‑family homes in Bend still use gas: “a whole 95 of single family homes use gas,” while townhomes and duplexes used gas 88% and 76% of the time, respectively; large multifamily was the outlier, with about 12% of multifamily applications using gas in the last five years.

The recommendation matters because the council has asked staff to pursue development of a fee that could be used to either change builder behavior or raise revenue for electrification incentives. Lacey said the staff plan is to present options to the council at a work session Oct. 22, to hire a consultant to run…