Envision Bend to unveil community’s five-year Vision Action Plan next week

BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) — Envision Bend is excited to announce the community’s five-year Vision Action Plan will be released on Friday, Sept. 29. The Vision Action Plan includes 28 strategies designed to align the community around key challenges and to improve the quality of life for all greater Bend residents.

The Plan’s release will culminate a community outreach, visioning and planning process that began in spring 2022. More than 2,400 residents provided input to the Bend Vision Project on ways to move the community forward. Four action teams then analyzed this input and developed the strategies that tackle leading challenges such as housing, child care, transportation and civic engagement. The 44-page Vision Action Plan also includes an overall community vision and a list of community shared values. 

Once the Vision Action Plan is released, lead partnering organizations will champion the various strategies and see them to fruition. Envision Bend’s role will pivot to guiding and supporting plan implementation. 

Among the strategies in the soon-to-be released plan:

• Innovative Workforce Housing is meant to increase affordable housing options for workers in proximity to major employment centers in Bend by establishing criteria for workforce housing, promoting preservation and development of such housing, and involving major regional employers in supporting and helping fund or subsidize its preservation and development.

• Mental Health & Wellbeing in our Schools calls for organizations to partner with school systems and K-12 stakeholders to identify opportunities where public and private support can expand or to amplify existing programs that seek to improve the mental health and wellbeing of our students, educators and administrators.

• Drake-to-Juniper Pedestrian Corridor is intended to develop a Drake Park-to-Juniper Park Pedestrian Corridor to further connect east and west Bend, to create a safe and accessible route between Downtown Bend to the Bend Central District via the proposed Hawthorne Bridge.

• Skyline Forest for Our Future is about the purchase, protection and restoration of the 33,000-acre landscape west of Bend and the once-in-a-generation contributions it can make to regional climate resiliency, critical wildlife habitat, wildfire safety, groundwater supply and quality, public access to outdoor recreational opportunities, and overall community health and well-being.

There are 128 partner local and statewide organizations listed in the Plan. These partners were recommended by the action teams as organizations that are in a position to lead or support the implementation of each strategy.  

Beginning Sept. 29, the Vision Action Plan can be downloaded off the Envision Bend website (https://envisionbend.org/). Be looking, too, for a public celebration event coming soon and learn how to support the community's vision by signing up for the Envision Bend newsletter on our website. Envision Bend is a nonpartisan, community nonprofit organization. Its mission is to bring diverse stakeholders together to educate, engage and empower all members of the Bend community to have a voice in our community’s future. In 2021, as the successor organization to Bend 2030, it reorganized and rebranded itself as Envision Bend. For more, please visit envisionbend.org or facebook.com/EnvisionBend