The Bend City Council convened on December 4, 2024, for a work session at 5:00 PM and a regular meeting at 7:00 PM. Key decisions included selecting the Caldera Ranch site for a one-time UGB expansion under SB 1537, advancing electrification policies, and approving multiple development code amendments. The meeting lasted approximately six hours and included extensive public testimony.
Electrification Policy Update (Work Session)
Transportation Fee Phase II (Work Session)
UGB Site Selection Under SB 1537 (Public Hearing)
Development Code Amendments – Auto-Dependent Uses and STRs (Public Hearing)
Parking Code Amendment (First Reading)
Other Regular Agenda Items
So we're going to go ahead and get started with our work session. Thanks, everyone, for being here. I see you respectfully holding your signs down so that people behind you can see. Thank you for doing that. And so we're going to start with our electrification policy update, and we've got staff here who can go ahead. It looks like she might be connecting to audio. Okay. We do have one more Tracy Lensford who'll be joining, but I will move on since she is still getting hooked up. Oh, there's Tracy. Perfect. Okay. So as a reminder of the background of this project included in our council goals for this biennium was an action to develop policy to reduce natural gas use. We held a work session on March 20th with you all to outline a process through which we would research and then consider policies for how we can encourage electrification and reduction of natural gas in bed. This is a strategy that is rooted in trying to achieve our climate goals. At the March work session, we discussed and then launched a two-phase process. The first phase was a period where we were researching best practices from other communities around the country to understand what options we have to encourage electrification. We really wanted to understand the full range of options, including both voluntary and regulatory approaches so that we can make an informed decision about what approach makes the most sense for Bend. Phase one also included getting input from stakeholders as part of the research process and then working with the environment and climate committee to review these policies. And then the committee was asked to help identify which of the policies of that list warrant further exploration. So the goal in phase two is to take a narrower set of policies and do further research, broader public and stakeholder engagement to identify and develop whichever programs or policies the council is interested in us pursuing. So we're at the conclusion of phase one. So we have for you the results of that research that we did and also the committee's recommendation about which policies to pursue. We'll also share some of the key takeaways from our stakeholder meetings. And the goal today is really just for you to receive all this information about the work we've done today, and then to get direction from you about how you'd like to proceed with pursuing any of these policy options. So first I'm going to pass it to Maddie. She is going to share some just a couple of findings from our building stock characterization study. This study was meant to help identify where we have the biggest opportunities for electrification within our building stock and bin. Awesome. Thanks, Trey. Cassie. So just to situate us in the context of this project, here at the bottom in this little pie chart are the results from the last greenhouse gas emissions inventory showing that residential energy made up about a third of Bend's local emissions. So a rather large component we're talking about here. Next slide, please. A building stock characterization looked at end uses for natural gas and electricity to, like Cassie said, identify opportunities and what is kind of worth your while when you're talking about electrification. On the left is showing natural gas end uses, and this is for an average household. So this won't be the case for every single household. But space heating is a really big driver of natural gas use 55%, and then water heating is also a big portion as well at 38%. You'll notice other uses like cooking, clothes drying, and then other um pool and hot tub heating are quite small comparatively. And then if you look at the pie chart on the right, um, this is showing electricity end uses a little bit more variable in terms of what electricity is used for. Um you can see that um this use in residential buildings is really being driven by space cooling, space heating, and water heating. Um next slide, please. Um flipping over to the commercial side of things. Commercial energy drove about one-fifth of Ben's local emissions. Um, so another significant portion there as well. Next slide. And then similarly, looking at end uses for natural gas and electricity in commercial buildings. On the left is natural gas end uses, space heating is a huge component here. 69% of natural gas in commercial buildings is generally used for space heating, um, followed by cooking, which you'll notice is quite a bit larger than for residential, um, and water heating is a big portion at 10% as well. Um, and then on the electricity side of things, again, uses are more varied. Uh, ventilation is quite high, cooling is quite high, lighting as well, and then you've got this other bucket for items that are not easily placeable.