Bend council refines 2025–27 work plan: housing targets, transport hubs and reprioritized climate actions
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Summary
City staff presented a draft 2025–27 council work plan and dashboard schedule on June 4. The plan refines housing metrics and committee scopes, scales back some near-term climate items to year two, and proposes a quarterly reporting structure and possible changes to meeting cadence. Council asked for small refinements and asked staff to bring an
City staff brought a draft citywide 2025–27 council work plan to the Bend City Council on June 4, seeking direction on priorities, timing and how the city will report progress.
Staff and consultants — led by Chief Innovation Officer Stephanie and Executive Officer Kate Schneider — described a multi-month process that included community listening sessions, a council retreat in February and advisory committee input. The draft plan centers a “connected community” concept and outlines six goal areas (housing; transportation & infrastructure; economic prosperity; climate resiliency; public safety; and accessible government) layered with council guiding principles.
On housing, staff proposed splitting actions into immediate and follow-on work. Staff moved some research and outreach tasks to later in the biennium and elevated a measure to track permitted housing units across the biennium to a stand-alone action; the housing committee’s scope would expand to include affordable ownership and rental promotion. Under transportation, staff proposed reducing the number of immediate mobility hubs from two to one and clarified governance and oversight language for project delivery and GeoBond oversight.
Council discussed the proposed reprioritization of climate items. Staff recommended postponing a proposed “energy navigator” outreach program for a year in order to focus on an electrification fee and incentive programs the council has identified as higher near-term priorities. The council generally supported postponing the navigator program to allow emphasis on electrification policy and a new climate action partner grant program while acknowledging the navigator could fold in later.
Other changes clarified the core-area advisory board’s role (keeping its scope focused on the core area rather than reorganizing citywide urban renewal oversight) and redirected some deferred items to a “revisit in 2027–29” list if staff capacity is limited.
Staff proposed a council-goal dashboard and a predictable quarterly reporting calendar; councilors asked that crash and injury trends be tracked under public safety and requested a “walkshed/bikeshed” metric under transportation. Councilors asked staff to explore a meeting structure with separate business meetings and stand-alone quarterly work sessions to allow deeper topic focus.
Councilors requested minor textual changes (for example, replacing “no net increase in water demand” with a per-capita water use target) and asked staff to present tracking details on per-capita water-use levels at the next quarterly update. Staff will incorporate council edits and return the plan for adoption at the next council meeting alongside the biennial budget.
