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Bend staff to develop local natural‑gas fee and incentive package after study of Ashland, Burlington models
Summary
City staff outlined next steps for a fee‑plus‑incentive approach to encourage building electrification; research shows wide variations between peer programs and local permit data indicates most new single‑family homes in Bend still use gas.
City staff on Tuesday described a phased plan to study and design a local fee on fossil‑fuel building systems for new residential construction and to use the revenue to fund incentives to electrify existing buildings.
Cassie Lacy, senior management analyst in the city manager’s office, summarized research into similar policies in Ashland, Ore.; Burlington, Vt.; and Breckenridge, Colo., and presented Bend permit data showing that between 2020 and 2024 most new single‑family homes in Bend connected to natural gas.
“Last year, we launched a process to explore different policy options to reduce the use of natural gas in Bend,” Lacy said. She explained that the Environment and Climate Committee recommended pursuing regulatory restrictions on fossil‑fuel appliances in new construction or, if that is infeasible, a fee on natural‑gas appliances paired with incentives to electrify existing buildings.
What staff found: Ashland’s model charges a per‑appliance fee calculated from a social cost‑of‑carbon value multiplied by an average…
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