Bend should pursue a policy of more density and fewer single-family homes, members of the city’s Urban Growth Boundary Steering Committee determined Thursday.

Under Oregon law, cities must draw an artificial line, the urban growth boundary, outside of which higher-density development is not permitted. Periodically, cities seek an expansion of the UGB, during which they must demonstrate to the state’s satisfaction that there is insufficient land inside the existing boundary to meet future demand.

Bend started work on its UGB expansion in 2005 and delivered its proposal to the state Land Conservation and Development Commission in 2009, only to have it rejected and sent back to the city for further work.

In an effort to take a fresh run at the process, the city this year formed three technical advisory committees to dig into the finer details of the preferred residential housing mix, the demand for commercial land of various types and the location of the boundary itself.

Thursday, all three committees brought preliminary recommendations based on their initial meetings to the UGB steering committee, a body made up largely of city officials along with a handful of private citizens.

While steering committee members quickly accepted the recommendations of the three advisory committees, they split on the recommendation of the residential advisory committee, which brought forward a dramatically different vision for Bend’s future housing stock than exists today.

As of 2007, 75 percent of the city’s housing units were single-family detached, with 3 percent single-family attached and 22 percent multifamily housing.

Generally speaking, single-family detached describes stand-alone houses, single-family attached describes condos and other housing types where the owner owns the land beneath the structure, and multifamily consists of multiple apartments on a single piece of land.

Residential technical advisory committee members Tom Kemper and Allen Johnson said their committee weighed two proposals, identified as Trend 1 and Trend 2.

Under the Trend 1 option, zoning and other tools would be used to pursue a goal of 60 percent of new housing being single-family detached, 7 percent single-family attached and 33 percent multifamily. Under Trend 2, 55 percent would be single-family detached, 10 percent single-family attached and 35 percent multifamily.

Kemper and Johnson said that although the committee settled on Trend 2, members were not in agreement. Members agreed to the Trend 2 approach as a preliminary first step upon learning from an LCDC representative that it would be more defensible than Trend 1 when the plan is eventually forwarded to the state.

Kemper said there’s clear evidence the city needs more apartments and rental housing, even while land zoned for such developments today sits unbuilt.

“Renters today are burdened, or half the renters today are burdened, under the classic version of paying more than 30 percent of their income for rent,” Kemper said.

Bend city councilors and steering committee members Scott Ramsay and Doug Knight both argued and voted against the Trend 2 option.

Knight said while rapidly expanding the city’s stock of multifamily housing is an “altruistic” aim, Trend 1 seemed a more middle-of-the road approach that considered market demand.

“I think the disparity between the need and the market is too large,” Knight said.

Steering committee Chairman Victor Chudowsky, also a member of the Bend City Council, said the argument that Bend is unique and its housing balance should be driven by market forces is the same argument previously rejected by the state. Fairly or not, the state expects Bend to encourage all types of housing within reach of all different income levels.

“We may not like that, but we have to face reality and do what’s expected of us,” Chudowsky said.

Steering committee members Jodie Barram and Tony DeBone, opponents in the race for the Deschutes County Commission seat held by DeBone, both cast a vote for greater density, Trend 2.

Barram, a Bend city councilor, said Trend 2 would push the city to more thoroughly consider the cost of development and “force the affordability conversation.”

DeBone, in his first meeting as a member of the steering committee since taking over that job from fellow county Commissioner Tammy Baney, said he was tempted to abstain from voting. He said, in the end, he found the claim that the Trend 2 option would be more likely to survive state scrutiny persuasive.

“Let’s aim for success, that’s what I’m saying,” he said.

— Reporter: 541-383-0387, shammers@bendbulletin.com

Editor’s note: This story has been corrected. In the original version the proportion of multifamily housing units and attached single family units among Bend’s 2007 housing stock was misstated. The Bulletin regrets the error.