Bend YIMBY News - 7/18/2025
Bend / Oregon
Our July meetup is going to be a joint event with Bend Bikes! Wednesday July 30th, 5:30PM onwards at Bevel on 911 SE Armour Road. All are welcome.
RSVP here if you are on FB: https://www.facebook.com/events/1809443503336826
Not Bend but Bozeman, Montana, which is similar in a lot of ways. Lots of people want to live there and it’s not a big city. So what happened when they built a lot of brand new, “luxury” apartments? Rents came down! https://montanafreepress.org/2025/06/23/has-bozemans-rental-market-finally-flipped/
Governor Kotek’s housing bill passed the legislature and has now been signed into law: https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2025/06/oregon-middle-housing-bill-passes-legislature-expands-2019-reforms.html
More information on that and other housing bills: https://bendbulletin.com/2025/07/07/lawmakers-passed-slate-of-bills-meant-to-address-states-woefully-short-housing-supply/
New Oregon agency to help fast track housing production: https://oregoncapitalchronicle.com/briefs/gov-kotek-launches-new-agency-to-fast-track-housing-construction/
This was a really good look at what went wrong with Oregon’s transportation bill, which doesn’t spare anyone: https://bikeportland.org/2025/07/02/house-rep-mark-gamba-speaks-out-on-why-democrats-didnt-pass-a-transportation-bill-395241 - the bill included money for infrastructure in Bend.
New middle-income housing in Bend: https://www.centraloregondaily.com/news/local/bend-parkside-place-home-development/article_a9cc2519-341d-4b52-8d7e-c725551db319.html
This, on our Facebook page, was really cool to read. Sandy’s family will be taking advantage of the new code changes:
Today's the day - the first day that you can apply for a building permit under Bend's new "secondary kitchen ordinance". This is the plan that thanks to Ryan Starr and others, will allow me to share a home with my son and his family and to have my own separate "second" kitchen.
We created our remodel design, found a draftsman and have our plans drawn up, have our forms filled out, have our lists checked off, have spoken with the great planners at the Bend Planning Department, and will push "send" this morning on our application. We'll be the first (we believe) to apply for this new type of building permit here in Bend.
We're told that as with any new procedure, there will be questions and legal checks that may slow the permitting process a bit, but we're hoping that we may be able to begin construction on this project in the next couple of months.
This is a new procedure for us - we're not familiar with all of the requirements or many of the building code terms, so we're researching just to understand what information is required. It's a bit daunting, fingers are crossed that we won't have too many delays due to incomplete or incorrect information in our application.
Thanks to those who spearheaded this idea and took it to the proper city authorities for review and consideration, my extended family will be able to live more affordably, together in one multi-family residence.
Rick Russell gave Bend YIMBYs took a tour of Mountain View Community Development’s micro shelter projects. Great work that will provide a roof over people’s heads
Elsewhere
State of the nation’s housing: https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/state-nations-housing-2025
Sprawl is still not the answer: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-06-27/sprawl-is-not-the-answer-to-the-us-housing-crisis
California is taking some more steps to make infill housing easier to build: https://calmatters.org/housing/2025/06/ceqa-urban-development-infill-budget/
“A lot of U.S. cities are getting their "right of way" all wrong — and urbanists can help by getting to know this poorly-understood concept.” https://usa.streetsblog.org/2025/07/07/the-single-most-important-element-in-creating-good-cities
