The BulleTin • Wednesday, april 28, 2021 A13
CDC: Vaccinated people can safely be outside without masks
BY MIKE STOBBE
The Associated Press
The Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention eased
its guidelines Tuesday on the
wearing of masks outdoors, say-
ing fully vaccinated Americans
don’t need to cover their faces
anymore unless they are in a big
crowd of strangers.
And those who are unvacci-
nated can go outside without
masks in some situations, too.
The new guidance represents
another carefully calibrated step
on the road back to normal
from the coronavirus outbreak
that has killed over 570,000 peo-
ple in U.S. For most of the past
year, the CDC had been advis-
ing Americans to wear masks
outdoors if they are within 6 feet
of one another.
“Today, I hope, is a day when
we can take another step back to
the normalcy of before,” CDC
Director Dr. Rochelle Walen-
sky said. “Over the past year, we
have spent a lot of time telling
Americans what you can’t do.
Today, I am going to tell you
some of the things you can do, if
you are fully vaccinated.”
The change comes as more
than half of U.S. adults have re-
ceived at least one dose of vac-
cine, and more than a third have
been fully vaccinated.
Walensky said the decision
was driven by rising vacci-
nation numbers; declines in
COVID-19 cases, hospitaliza-
Parking
Continued from A1
But the idea has received
pushback from several res-
idents, who fear the policy
change could lead to more
crowded parking around the
city, including more cars spilling
into neighborhoods.
A group called Does Parking
Matter? — which is comprised
of a loose association of people
who belong to neighborhood
associations — sent out an on-
line, not-statistically-valid sur-
vey earlier this year asking res-
idents whether they supported
the idea of removing parking
requirements for new housing:
About 83% said no.
“We all want to build a bet-
ter Bend,” said Mike Walker,
a representative for the group.
“We just need to understand
there’s more than one side to
that story.”
The case for getting rid of
parking requirements
The basic concept goes like
this: Parking is expensive, and
that drives up the cost of a proj-
ect. A new parking space in a
structure can cost $30,000, ac-
cording to Michael Anderson,
a researcher with Sightline In-
stitute. The idea is that the less
land mandated for parking, the
more of it can be used to build
housing. That means a devel-
oper can put more units on the
ground, which makes a project
more financially feasible than it
was with the parking require-
“I think a lot of opposition
comes from seeing the
status quo as the natural
state of things. We have
built Bend to induce folks
to get into their cars.”
— Melanie Kebler, Bend city councilor
123RF
ments, which can translate
in the end to lower rents and
home prices.
With cities getting more and
more expensive to live in, the
goal of policies like these is to
offer choices, Anderson said.
“One of the ways to do that is
to offer more and less-expensive
housing in places where you
don’t have to drive as much,”
Anderson said.
Kebler doesn’t see remov-
ing parking requirements as a
silver- bullet solution to bringing
down housing prices and mak-
ing Bend a less car- dependent
city, but rather as one strategy of
many to get there.
“We have to start some-
where,” Kebler said.
The concerns
Some residents and devel-
opers fear the costs of remov-
ing parking requirements out-
weigh the benefits.
Walker, a member of the
River West Neighborhood As-
sociation, questions whether
removing parking require-
ments will deliver the benefits
advocates claim.
Walker said he is uncon-
vinced that removing require-
ments for parking would affect
rents, based on conversations
he has had with property man-
agers.
The parking group is inter-
ested in a conversation about
parking reform, Walker said,
but fears that no requirements
at all will lead to developers
who won’t build enough park-
ing for their projects. That
could mean more cars on the
street, causing congestion in
nearby neighborhoods.
“I trust the big builders,”
tions and deaths; and research
showing that less than 10% of
documented instances of trans-
mission of the virus happened
outdoors.
Some experts portrayed the
relaxed guidance as a reward
and a motivator for people to get
vaccinated — a message Presi-
dent Joe Biden sounded, too.
“The bottom line is clear: If
you’re vaccinated, you can do
more things, more safely, both
outdoors as well as indoors,”
Biden said. “So for those who
haven’t gotten their vaccinations
yet, especially if you’re younger
or thinking you don’t need it,
this is another great reason to go
get vaccinated now.”
But unvaccinated people —
defined as those who have yet to
receive both doses of the Pfizer
or Moderna vaccine or the one-
shot Johnson & Johnson for-
mula — should wear masks at
small outdoor gatherings that
include other unvaccinated peo-
ple, the CDC says. They also
should keep their faces covered
when dining at outdoor restau-
rants with friends from multiple
households.
Everyone, fully vaccinated or
not, should keep wearing masks
at crowded outdoor events such
as concerts or sporting events,
the CDC says. The agency con-
tinues to recommend masks at
indoor public places, saying that
is still the safer course even for
vaccinated people.
Walker said, referring to devel-
opment companies like Pah-
lisch Homes that build large
housing subdivisions. “But
there’s a lot of smaller devel-
opers who will overbuild the
lot, trying to maximize the
size, and their tenants will start
falling out into the neighbor-
hood.”
The concern of cars spill-
ing out into neighborhoods is
also shared by some affordable
housing developers, who said
they would build parking on-
site regardless of whether the
city mandates it or not.
“I don’t think we would
just move forward and say we
would do one without park-
ing,” said Rob Roy, a co-oper-
ating manager of Pacific Crest
Affordable Housing in Bend.
“Cars are still a part of how we
live still.”
Roy said the current park-
ing requirements for affordable
housing on the books work
well.
And while parking comes
with a cost, a more concerning
barrier that makes it harder for
affordable housing projects to
pencil out is the price of lum-
ber, Roy said. The cost of lum-
ber is coming up three to four
times higher than the company
currently budgets for, he said.
Keith Wooden, the real
estate director for Housing
Works, said Bend doesn’t have
a robust enough public tran-
sit system to reasonably con-
sider building housing with-
out parking on-site. Wooden
said he would support making
easy and low-cost variances
for parking for certain kinds of
housing projects for popula-
tions like seniors or adults with
developmental disabilities, who
may not have as many cars as
the general population anyway.
The possibility of people
from his housing develop-
ments parking in surrounding
neighborhoods is also not a
risk worth taking. Affordable
housing projects already carry
a stigma and can face pushback
from neighbors, Wooden said.
“Yeah, you get more units in
the short term, but then you
have a forever problem of peo-
ple spilling into the streets …
and the reality of asking: ‘How
long is it going to be until
people don’t need that car?’”
Wooden said.
The fact neither developer
would likely at this time take
the opportunity to reduce the
amount of parking bolsters one
of the policy advocates’ central
points.
Removing parking require-
ments does not mean existing
parking will be taken away, and
it doesn’t mean new parking in
Bend won’t be built, said David
Welton. Welton is a founding
member of the BendYIMBY
group, which advocates for an
adequate and diverse hous-
ing supply for all residents and
supports the removal of park-
ing requirements.
Because most Bend resi-
dents are still dependent on
cars, developers will still meet
the market demand of people
wanting a place to put their car,
Welton said.
It’s lower-end housing, like
microunits or smaller apart-
ments, where not having park-
ing requirements can make a
difference as to whether a proj-
ect could get off the ground in
the first place.
Welton also believes con-
cerns about cars “spilling out”
onto streets are overblown,
especially when compared to
Central Oregon’s housing crisis.
“A place to live is a pretty big
benefit,” Welton said. “A car
parked along a street, in my
book, is not a big harm.”
As for concerns about Bend
not having public transit in
place to support less parking,
Councilor Kebler said part of
what incentivizes public transit
be more robust is having dense
neighborhoods. Getting rid
of parking requirements helps
create denser neighborhoods
that can be more easily served
by transit.
“I think a lot of opposition
comes from seeing the sta-
tus quo as the natural state of
things. We have built Bend to
induce folks to get into their
cars to get around,” Kebler said.
“We have prioritized space in
our land use for cars and use of
cars. That’s why we are where
we are today. To move away
from that, we’re going to have
to make different prioritiza-
tions and decisions.”
e e
Reporter: 541-633-2160,
bvisser@bendbulletin.com