The Crescita development in Bend is one of the Rooted Homes projects that hit the goals of affordability and green. 

Green buildings, more housing and affordable housing are not mutually exclusive goals.

Stick solar panels on a roof or add a heat pump and that can be some mighty wise use of electrons. But in Bend last week green goals and housing goals were bumping up against each other and competing.

When city staff brought forward ideas for revising the city’s tax incentives for housing, staff did not include any green or energy efficiency requirements for qualifying for a new, proposed incentive. Staff’s thinking was to focus on affordability. Keep the requirements to a minimum. Less fuss for developers and builders could accelerate housing.

Bend City Councilor Mike Riley asked staff to include consideration for energy efficiency.

On Thursday, when a working group from the city’s Environment and Climate Committee discussed how the city’s green goals should be revised, something similar happened.

Members of the working group discussed including a goal to have the city accelerate permits for green/energy efficient buildings. Cassie Lacy, a senior management analyst for the city, was certainly not against the idea. She cautioned that it would be important to get feedback from councilors. One of the reasons the city’s tax incentives for housing had been put on pause was that it was successful in incentivizing energy efficiency and less so with affordability, she said.

A city tax incentive policy, with the unwieldy name of the multi-unit property tax exemption, had been set up in a way that applicants didn’t have to be affordable and green to qualify. Applicants could choose to qualify by satisfying the requirements of building 10% of the units as affordable or “High Standard of Energy Efficiency/Green Building Features,” among other options. And members of the community and councilors expressed concern that, in the end, the tax incentive didn’t seem to be doing enough to help make housing more affordable.

Pursuing green goals and affordable goals sometimes pull in different policy directions. Without clear direction from the Bend City Council, opportunities to get them pulling in the same direction will be missed.

It’s no secret that going green or being energy efficient can be done in a way that contributes to affordability. The problem can be the cost, especially for retrofits. Heat pumps and solar are smart environmental decisions. They can be smart financial decisions, too, if the upfront costs — even with incentives — don’t scare consumers away.

But there are great examples in Bend where affordable housing has been married with green. Rooted Homes builds affordable and workforce housing. Its homes are built to the goal of net zero energy standards. In other words, enough energy is produced on site to cover the energy needs of the homes. It can make the homes all the more affordable in the long run because residents aren’t as much at the mercy of utility rates for heating, cooling and whatever else.

We want to see that approach in new buildings across Bend and in retrofits. When councilors are looking at tax incentives for housing and revising its climate action plan, the goal should be more housing, affordability and green.