Bend YIMBY News - 9/12/2025

Sep 12, 2025

Bend / Oregon

It’s been a while since we’ve sent one of these out - I’ve been away on vacation. So there’s a bit of catching up to do!

Our next meetup, will be at 5:30 PM, Wednesday September 24th, where we’ll have a recap of the YIMBYTown conference that chapter leads Ian Karasz and John Heylin are attending. The conference has a bunch of interesting talks ( https://yimby.town/schedule-2/ ) and I’m sure there’ll be plenty to discuss!

Bend YIMBY is collaborating with Central Oregon Land Watch to try and re-legalize “neighborhood commercial”: https://bendbulletin.com/2025/08/20/editorial-enrich-bends-neighborhoods-with-shops/

Here’s Ian speaking in favor at a recent BEDAB meeting:

Bend gets a shout out for the policy work we’ve accomplished here, from Strong Towns: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2025-7-2-small-scale-housing-wins-big-in-bend-oregon

“Oregon decides it was a mistake to let cities ban homes” - https://www.sightline.org/2025/07/28/oregon-decides-it-was-a-mistake-to-let-cities-ban-homes/

YIMBYs attended the ribbon cutting for these homes on Simpson. We went to city council to speak in favor of this housing when it came up for approval!

“Living on Luck: Why many in Central Oregon are closer to homelessness than you think” - https://www.centraloregondaily.com/living-on-luck-why-many-in-central-oregon-are-closer-to-homelessness-than-you-think/video_ba9c60a4-9b4c-5f1a-9a7e-cbc0879e6952.html

Habitat for Humanity happy hour - Wednesday October 1st, 5 PM at the ‘Restore’

Elsewhere

Our YIMBY colleagues in California got SB 79 through the assembly and Senate there - the bill goes to the governor’s desk to be signed! https://cayimby.org/legislation/sb-79/ this is a really big deal, because we know that what happens in California’s real estate market doesn’t stay there. This has been a long, difficult fight - 7 years in the making -

It turns out that supply and demand are real for housing: https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/blog/home-prices-decline-growing-number-markets-inventories-climb

“For a while urbanism” - https://archive.strongtowns.org/journal/2025/9/4/never-say-never-a-case-for-for-awhile-urbanism

Research on the effects of the immigration crackdown on housing https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4729511

Nashville legalizes “single stair” for condos and apartments: https://www.nashvillepost.com/politics/metro/metro-adopts-single-staircase-building-code/article_6def84c9-1fe2-4cee-af98-476e748a6e2d.html

Who speaks for the YIMBYs?