Editorial: The future of vinyl windows in part of Bend

Published 9:30 pm Wednesday, December 28, 2022

They can be clever on the Bend Landmarks Commission.

The commission has a challenging and important task. It’s a city committee that helps Bend hold on to its history. It hosts hearings on changes to homes in Bend’s historic district. It also advises the city on ways to retain the city’s historic character.

This is a vast oversimplification of its work, but in Bend’s historic district: Wood windows good. Vinyl clad windows less good. Vinyl windows not good.

Decisions about preserving history come, of course, with tension. There can be choices between being historic and affordability, creating more housing in the city and making Bend more green.

We bring this all up because Mayor-elect Melanie Kebler wrote the commission, as she did other city committees, inviting them to send along their thoughts before the new council begins setting its goals in January.

At its December meeting, one issue the landmarks commission discussed: Change the code to outright ban vinyl windows in the historic district.

After some discussion, they decided that might wave “a red flag” and not go through. So the suggestion was they perhaps do it in a more subtle way with a change in code language “that’s based on the judgment of this commission and staff.”

Same sort of ban. Different way of doing it.

They did have some other ideas. An idea was to create a discount to the thousands of dollars in city fees it can cost to make a change to a home in the historic district. If the purpose of a renovation is to truly make a home more historic, perhaps the city could waive fees or provide a partial rebate.

That’s a nice idea. But the council’s goals have been things such as increasing the affordability and availability of housing, to take climate action and to increase equity. We can’t imagine the new council is going to have much different goals than that. Does handing out discounts on city fees for renovations on historic homes truly advance that? Should the city do it anyway to advance historic homes?

The members of the landmarks commission are clever. And we hope councilors recognize if they give the commission a chance to make changes to the code, the commissioners might really be aiming to do things like create de facto bans on vinyl windows.