BEND, OR -- The Bend City Council unanimously approved a resolution committing to reducing the use of fossil fuels in new construction. Mayor Melanie Kebler says it only impacts city-owned properties, "We're already doing that commitment with our Juniper Ridge public works campus. That is fossil fuel-free, except for a couple of backup generators that might have some gas in them. It's going to be all electric, it's going to have solar panels." She tells KBND News, "We want to just really commit to anything we do going forward, and if possible, retrofit some of our other buildings, to really walking the walk on doing that green energy and avoiding fossil fuel use."

Eventually, she says, they may expand the reach of the resolution, "Just the development of policy generally, to incentivize or maybe regulate, we're not sure yet, around moving away from natural gas and other fossil fuels in Bend. How do we do that in a way that makes sense for the community and that's going to be effective? So, this is just kind of a first commitment from the city; on our own buildings, we're going to doing that. And then, we're going to be working the next year on the policy citywide."

A companion effort is also underway to look at how Bend could create a low-car district. "There's a lot of work coming our why that's from the Climate Friendly Equity Communities rules that came down from the state a couple of years ago, and just other state legislative action," says Kebler, "That's encouraging cities to develop in a more urban way, and in a way that allows people to live without a car or with very little use of a car. And that's for climate reasons, that's for health reasons and also just to help us densify and not have to sprawl out into our surrounding areas."