If you had to design a charge for nonresidential buildings in Bend a fee for transportation, what would you do?

The city has already said houses might pay about $15 a month and apartments might pay a bit less. The city may initially charge less than $15 and ramp up the fee. The money raised would go to transportation operations and maintenance.

The Bend City Council asked the city’s economic development advisory board to come up with a recommendation for how to charge nonresidential buildings.

Some of city staff’s ideas took form at Monday’s meeting of the board. Councilors will make the final decisions. The plan may become more solid at a work session of the Bend City Council on Jan. 3.

What was most interesting to us from what was presented Monday was the proposal to phase in the plan over three years. Next year, a goal is to raise about $5 million total, then $10 million the following year and then $15 million in the third year.

Residential buildings — homes and apartments — would contribute $2.65 million the first year, $5.3 million the second and $7.95 million the third year.

Nonresidential buildings would also ramp up — $2.35 million, $4.7 million and $7.05 million.

Within the categories of nonresidential buildings, city staff broke out the contribution for various subsets. Tourist accommodations, think hotels, would go up beginning at $210,000, then $420,000 thousand and then $630,000.

Schools, which includes K-12, Oregon State University and Central Oregon Community College, would go up $320,000, $640,000 and $960,000.

All other nonresidential may be done on a square-foot basis and would make up the bulk of the contributions for nonresidential.

There are some policy issues that emerge.

It wasn’t something discussed at the meeting, but the Bend-La Pine Schools may have to make cuts next year because of declining enrollment and the commensurate decline in state funding. This new city fee might lead to additional cuts in the schools. Is that OK?

Bend also has some businesses in locations with small square footage. They could end up paying less than what a residence might pay. Should the city charge a minimum of at least the amount for residential buildings?

And finally, if the city charged based on square footage, very large buildings in Bend — there are about 25 larger than 100,000 square feet — could face steep new charges of thousands of dollars. Should the city put a cap on how much it charges?

The economic development advisory board had to stop deliberating after about an hour because of the absence of a quorum. So there is no clear recommendation to the Bend City Council, yet.

If you have thoughts about how the fee should work, tell councilors what you think. You can email them at council@bendoregon.gov.