Envision Bend is beginning final development of the community’s five-year Vision Action Plan that is designed to help the greater Bend area address community challenges and improve residents’ quality of life. The Vision Action Plan will be publicly released on Sept. 21 at a community celebration event. Among the community challenges and issues addressed in the plan: Workforce housing, urban trails and pedestrian corridors, access to child care, investment in Bend’s Core Area, solar energy development, and public transit expansion.
“The impact of this plan will raise awareness and align strategic efforts across the region to address large community challenges and improve residents’ quality of life,” said David White, Envision Bend Board chair. “We anticipate this plan will build new collaborations, spur the creation of new organizations, and bring in state level and private funding to our region.”
The Vision Action Plan will feature four focus areas: Guiding our Growth; Ensuring a Safe, Healthy Environment; Building an Economy for Everyone; and Cultivating an Inclusive Community. Each of the focus areas will include one “game changer” project designed to have a transformative impact on the entire community, five additional strategies, a “quick win” project, and lead partners for each of the projects and strategies. The lead partners are public, private, and non-profit organizations that are in position to adopt specific community ideas and bring them to fruition. The plan also will feature a community vision, list of community shared values, and other information.
All of the plan’s contents are based on input from nearly 3,500 “voices” that we engaged with during our community outreach phase in 2022 and in early 2023. That outreach work included 73 community leader interviews, 17 focus groups for the general public and specific communities of interest, and 2,045 online community survey respondents. Further input was received from 225 participants at the project’s Vision Summit in February 2023 and 933 respondents to an online community poll in March
The ideas that came from this outreach phase were further refined into actionable steps by four Vision Action Teams that met a combined 16 times this spring. Envision Bend is a nonprofit organization that works with government, business, community groups, and people of all backgrounds and perspectives from across the Bend area to help shape the community’s future, making Bend a better place for everyone. To learn more, please visit envisionbend.org or facebook.com/EnvisionBend.
