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 fee‑development analysis, and to begin joint committee meetings in November with the aim of producing a recommendation to council in the spring.

Lacey summarized the work plan staff has presented to council: begin with outreach and education, develop a combined incentive/disincentive package that may include a fee, and continue to monitor regulatory pathways to restrict gas use (such as right‑of‑way or NOx‑based rules) though staff is not actively pursuing those regulatory approaches at this time. “Last year, we launched a process to explore different policy options that we have to reduce natural gas use in Bend,” Lacey said.

Public commenters and BDAB members raised questions about legal risk, likely effectiveness, and equity. David Berger of UA Local 290 and the Oregon State Building Construction Trades Council asked explicitly for trades involvement: “I would respectfully request that, myself and or the building trades are involved in this process.” BDAB members also urged early engagement with developers and trades to identify likely downstream consequences and potential legal challenges. Staff said Cascade Natural Gas, Pacific Power and Central Electric Co‑op would be offered ex officio seats on the joint committee and that staff plans developer and industry roundtables as part of the process.

BDAB made a motion to recommend that the council add an ex officio seat for the trades; the motion passed on a voice vote with no recorded opposition. Staff said the city is in procurement for a consultant to help design fee options and analysis; that consultant will participate in the Oct. 22 council meeting. Staff estimated joint committee meetings would start in November and that a policy recommendation could come to council in spring.

The advisory meeting included discussion of different approaches to setting a fee — for example, basing it on a social cost of carbon (an approach cited in Ashland’s model) or calibrating it to the market cost to switch to electric so the fee would reliably drive behavior. Lacey noted the comparability challenges: Ashland’s fee schedule goes into effect Jan. 2026, and Burlington’s different model (effective Jan. 1, 2024) has not yet required assessments because applicants complied in that jurisdiction’s context. Staff emphasized the novelty of the policy and the limited transferable empirical track record.

BDAB members emphasized research priorities for the joint committee: more precise estimates of incremental construction costs to electrify, long‑term energy cost comparisons for homeowners, and clearer commercial‑sector data (staff said commercial permit data do not fully capture later gas hookups). Several members recommended that outreach and an energy navigator program remain part of the work plan to support voluntary conversion while the fee analysis proceeds.

What happens next: staff will present fee‑goal options to the City Council at a work session Oct. 22; the city will onboard a consultant to support fee development; the joint committee (three members each from BDAB, the Affordable Housing Advisory Committee and the Environment & Climate Committee, plus ex officio utility seats) is expected to begin meetings in November; BDAB recommended adding a building trades ex officio seat to that joint committee.