ALERT: We need to talk about Reno's Redevelopment Agency.
ALERT: We need to talk about Reno's Redevelopment Agency.
Concerns about Redevelopment operations, staffing, and potential changes to its Advisory Board, plus the return of the Stevenson Street abandonment request
Early voting has already started, so if you need more information about the Reno City Council races, consult my 2024 Reno City Council General Election Guide for links to candidate websites, interviews, op-eds, campaign contribution records, and more.
You can view the full list of this week’s public City meetings here. The final Reno City Council and Reno Redevelopment Agency Board meetings before Election Day will be held this coming Wednesday, October 23.
Today’s Brief focuses primarily on my concerns about items on Wednesday’s Redevelopment Agency Board agenda and the operations of Reno’s Redevelopment Agency in general. After that, I’ll highlight the return of the Stevenson Street abandonment request, scheduled for consideration by City Council the same day.
Rushing the Redevelopment Agency Board
I want to draw everyone’s attention to City Council’s role as the Reno Redevelopment Agency Board today because I feel very uneasy about how City staff is recommending that the Board proceed this week—and indeed, how they’re proposing Redevelopment should work in Reno from this point forward.
You can find the Redevelopment Agency Board agenda here. It contains three department items:
Item C.1 relates to hiring a contractor for asbestos abatement in the old Police Department building.
Item C.2 proposes to substantially revise the bylaws for the Redevelopment Agency Advisory Board (RAAB), including completely changing its composition by adding qualifications for membership.
Item C. 3 is already asking the Board to consider directing staff to proceed with negotiations with the developers of the Grand Sierra Resort as a “Catalyst Project” using a Tax Increment Financing (TIF) deal structure. Their general application is included, in four attachments that everyone should read.
Items C.2 and C.3 specifically make me very uneasy because I do not think the members of City Council, sitting in their role as the Redevelopment Agency Board, have yet been given what they need to make informed decisions about either one.
I raised a number of my concerns back in August with my post, “Not So Fast, Please: More Time Required to Relaunch Reno Redevelopment.” Councilmembers Brekhus, Duerr, and Ebert echoed some of them and raised others in the August 14 meeting, as you can see when you read through that meeting’s posted Minutes.
Decisions about the operation of Reno’s Redevelopment Agency isn’t the kind of topic that generates a lot of public comment or public participation, not only because Reno’s Redevelopment Agency has been largely inactive, but because its operations don’t have an immediate impact that’s easy for most residents to assess.
For that reason, I frankly expected to see the relaunch of the Agency after such a long period of dormancy handled much differently by City staff when they brought their whole “redevelopment relaunch plan” to to the members of the Agency Board (City Council) in August. I thought at that time that they would structure the discussion in a way that would fully explain the Agency’s past operations, actions, and continued obligations, and offer options to the Board for how they might proceed. It would have been best conceived as a workshop, allowing unlimited questions and discussion.
That’s not what happened. Instead, staff presented the Agency Board with a completed set of documents that they recommended the Board approve, and their self-imposed time limits allowed minimal discussion. Due to their concerns about the substance and sequence of what they were being presented, duly-elected Councilmembers Meghan Ebert, Naomi Duerr, and Jenny Brekhus voted against adopting the “Participation Programs” introduced by staff at that time—specifically because they did not believe that staff was presenting them with the information necessary to evaluate how the Redevelopment Agency had worked (or not) in the past, and how it could work in the future.
Just think about that: Three out of seven members of the Redevelopment Agency Board (our current City Council) were not comfortable with moving forward with staff’s recommended documents, citing valid concerns about what they thought needed to come first or be structured differently. And yet Councilmembers Devon Reese and appointed Councilmembers Kathleen Taylor and Miguel Martinez, as well as Mayor Schieve, voted to adopt those materials and procedures anyway, apparently unconcerned that they did not have the support of more than 40% of their body.
Even worse, the concerns that Councilmembers Brekhus, Ebert, and Duerr raised have still not been addressed. And I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask that the Redevelopment Agency Board not move forward with any additional decisions until those questions and concerns about the basic operation of the Redevelopment Agency have been addressed to the satisfaction of the entire body—not when we’re talking about how to structure an entity that will eventually be responsible for distributing revenues upwards of $400 million, according to the City’s own estimates—and potentially dictate how key components of our city’s landscape are shaped.
I’ll just dive right in with my continued concerns and questions. And if you find yourself harboring some of the same questions and concerns, I hope you will let City Council (in their role as the Redevelopment Agency Board) know via your comments, emails, phone calls, or whatever way you would like to contact them.
CONCERN: How the Redevelopment Agency will be staffed
As I have written before, Reno’s Redevelopment Agency once had more than a dozen dedicated staff positions. That number was gradually reduced as RDA revenues declined. In 2008 it had 17 staff, cut to 6.5 in 2009, with the loss of the final staff members in 2011. The current position of Revitalization Manager held by Bryan McArdle was created in 2015 specifically to assist the Redevelopment Agency Advisory Board after all the rest of the staff positions had been eliminated.
The Redevelopment Agency is currently housed within the City Manager’s office, but it is unclear how many staff members are working for it or what expertise they hold.
Although it was not cited on the document, the materials that were presented to the Agency Board in August were put together not by City staff but an outside consultant, Jeremy Aguero of Applied Analysis. If you haven’t heard of him, here are a few articles:
“Eye Of Sports Hurricane In Las Vegas: Consultant Jeremy Aguero’s Fingerprints On Raiders Stadium, Athletics Ballpark Push, F1 Race Economic Numbers, Super Bowl Are Everywhere In Vegas” (Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com, 5/4/23)
“Analyst, consultant, or lobbyist? Legislative insider avoids disclosure” (Dana Gentry, Nevada Current, 6/29/23)
“Aguero to continue with A’s as his firm exits Stadium Authority” (Mick Akers, Las Vegas Review-Journal, 8/9/23)
“Jeremy Aguero’s Nevada: How a well-connected consultant shaped the state over two decades” (Sean Golonka, The Daily Indy, 12/17/23)
I’m not sure if Aguero or his company had ever put together documents for a Redevelopment Agency before, but it’s pretty significant that Reno City staff did not take on that task themselves. Those materials set up a detailed process for how outside developers and investors can apply to partner with the Agency to eventually receive funds generated in Reno’s two redevelopment areas, singlehandedly described what the Agency would want to see in those areas, and outlined how the Redevelopment Agency staff would rank applications to partner with the City before bringing them to the Agency Board (City Council) for consideration.
And what is the plan for future Redevelopment Agency tasks? When you look at the Staff Report for Item C.3, you’ll see that Staff is asking Council to approve its hire of a “third-party consultant” to conduct a very complicated feasibility analysis of the Grand Sierra Resort’s application, including project feasibility and financial projections; economic and regional impact; and the negotiation of terms for a public-private partnership including a TIF deal structure.
Does it seem wise for Reno’s Redevelopment Agency Board to move forward with an understanding that the most critical Agency tasks would be outsourced to an unnamed consultant rather than handled in-house? What are the drawbacks of having someone who is not a City employee completing this kind of analysis and negotiation? Who exactly evaluated the application from the Grand Sierra Resort that’s included with item C.3 and concluded that it met all the criteria to proceed with negotiations?
City staff have cited the Redevelopment Agency in Boise, Idaho (called the Capital City Development Corp.) as a model of Best Practices for redevelopment. But they didn’t mention that the Capital City Development Corp. (run by an Agency Board that is not Boise’s City Council) has 19 employees. Nineteen! You can view their specializations here and FAQ about their whole operation here. Here’s an excerpt:
There are obviously a lot more examples of Redevelopment Agencies than Boise (and staff has said they visited or examined many of them). But City Council should be asking what the plans are for staffing Reno’s Redevelopment Agency now and in the future. Would more staff be hired? Why or why not? What tasks would be outsourced, and what disadvantages might arise from not having qualified staff in-house? And who is calling the shots when it comes to the formulation of these recommendations when Reno does not even have a permanent City Manager right now?
CONCERN: Changing the composition and role of the Redevelopment Agency Advisory Board (RAAB)
Item C.2 on Wednesday’s agenda proposes a number of proposed amendments to the Redevelopment Agency Advisory Board (RAAB) bylaws. As you can read in the Staff Report, most of these are procedural, but one of them would change its entire composition from a true citizen board with no specific qualifications required to one requiring very specific professional expertise or certifications:
This would be an enormous mistake—and I think it’s one that comes mostly (and perhaps innocently) out of a lack of familiarity with what the RAAB was and did.
The Agency Board is clearly and understandably concerned about how they’re going to get the expert review that used to come from the professional Redevelopment Agency staff. But changing the RAAB into a board of experts tasked with technical review is not the answer. Doing so would fundamentally eliminate its role that it was created to serve: that of a citizen board representing the community’s voice in the future of the redevelopment areas. It represents the people of Reno. This reconfiguration would eliminate that public voice and role and drastically reduce the scope of the RAAB and its potential to keep the public informed.
I wrote extensively about the role and past activities of the RAAB in my post, Bring Back Reno’s Redevelopment Agency Advisory Board, from this past March. To reiterate some of its chief roles, I’ll first quote the City itself: “Annually the Redevelopment Agency Advisory Board recommends and the City Council/Agency Board approves priority economic development/redevelopment projects and programs.” The “Status Report” presented by Bryan McArdle in August explained that the Advisory Board has “played a crucial role in providing input and ensuring that redevelopment efforts aligned with the community’s needs and preferences. This committee’s contributions helped shape various projects and initiatives to enhance the downtown area.”
I’ve spoken extensively with Mike Van Houten of Downtown Makeover about the RAAB, whose meetings were the source of information about all activity occurring in the redevelopment areas. It had a liaison from City Council who attended the meetings, and its minutes were directly reported to Council (as the Agency Board) by the Redevelopment Director. Mike shared these thoughts with me.
Why does the RAAB need to remain a true citizen board?
To provide stakeholder and public oversight of public money. Recall that the revenue generated in the redevelopment areas is public money that is being temporarily diverted from its traditional public destinations as sales or property tax in order to fund more development in the redevelopment areas.
To provide the Agency with input from a wide spectrum of perspectives including downtown residents, downtown business owners, and those who downtown wants to attract. Past members included downtown residents, attorneys, people involved in the arts, in the development of the kayak park, and so much more.
To help avoid possible corruption. The more public eyes, the better.
To review progress toward achieving redevelopment goals and priorities in the redevelopment areas, not just related to RDA projects but to all activity.
Mike directed me to his posts from 2005-2015, which regularly reported on the information presented and discussed at RAAB meetings. Here’s one from 2008 where Redevelopment Director Mark Lewis directly addressed the role of the CAC, as the RAAB was then called. Here’s another one from 2009 where topics included the stilted attempts to open a pharmacy in the Riverboat building, the Sierra Spirit bus route, an update on the baseball stadium, a presentation about a proposed STAR bond district—and yes, a staff presentation on the potential fiscal impact of the Tessera Project.
The RAAB is the missing link that served as the central point of discussion and presentations regarding development activity within RDA1 and RDA2, and its absence has resulted in a gaping hole in public information and discussion. If you feel like the public doesn’t have a true sense of all the activities occurring in the redevelopment areas (I know I do), this is why. There is no citizen board or commission like this. It did not duplicate the role of the Ward 1 NAB, not only because Ward 1 extends far beyond RDA1, but because the RAAB addresses vastly different matters affecting both RDA1 and RDA2 with members who live throughout the community and its primary purpose is to monitor and shape the progress of redevelopment in these designated areas.
The RAAB took citizens seriously and gave them a central role in redevelopment. As Mike Van Houten wrote to me, “It bridged the gap between the planning commission and the council. It was a regular stop for projects that didn’t need RDA funds but instead needed council or planning commission approval…these were projects that resided in the RDA districts or somehow helped the RDA priority list such as retail in the downtown core. The board was priority-driven, not project-driven.” The board could ask the Redevelopment Director for an update on something like the CVS in the Riverboat building and he would provide them with a report in the next meeting. This is the role that Revitalization Manager Bryan McArdle would now conceivably play.
“The [RAAB] was priority-driven, not project driven.” - Mike Van Houten
That still leaves the question of how the Agency can get input from people with relevant expertise in redevelopment when evaluating projects, a valid concern. Again, how do other cities’ redevelopment agencies handle this? What other options are available to Reno? Council can’t make an informed decision without having all the information and options presented to them, and that hasn’t yet happened. If you look back to Boise for comparison, their Agency Board is NOT their City Council; it consists of residents with relevant expertise who are the decision-makers about redevelopment. This amendment as proposed by City staff would essentially be placing the RAAB in the kind of role played by Boise’s actual redevelopment decision-making body, its Board of Commissioners.
If our City Council thinks that Reno’s Redevelopment Agency and its Advisory Board need the input of people with specialized expertise in urban planning, architecture, commercial real estate, and the like, then let’s consider all the options. They could, of course, hire more City staffers with that expertise, as was previously the case. They could even consider handing over the role of the Redevelopment Agency Board to a specialized group of appointees who City Council appoints, as Boise has done. But turning the RAAB into a specialized panel of experts is not the answer.
So what do you think? Does the RAAB as currently constituted—as a true citizen board—sound like something you would like to see retained? If so, please send an email to Publiccomment@reno.gov or use another method to state your objections to item C.2 on the 10/23/24 Redevelopment Agency Board agenda, which would change the RAAB’s entire composition and role.
CONCERN: The Agency Board has not been briefed on the Agency’s past deals, successes, and failures.
In the August meeting, Bryan McArdle gave the Agency Board a Status Report for the Redevelopment Agency, purporting to be an overview of its history. It included images from past redevelopment plans including a handful of proposed projects that never came to fruition, including riverfront developments and even laser shows. It was a quick overview, entertaining and informative in some respects but not others.
What it didn’t provide—what City Council in their role as the Redevelopment Agency Board really needed to hear—was a full explanation of the deals that the Redevelopment Agency actually entered into and are still laboring under. That’s what Councilmember Naomi Duerr specifically requested and one of the reasons she stated that she could not vote to approve staff’s materials and programs at that time.
Take a look at the City’s webpage for “RDA Priorities, Projects and Incentives.” Many of the project descriptions are out of date but it includes references to the AAA Stadium, Freight House and Tessera Sales Tax Increment Districts, Whitewater Park Extension, and more. What were the financial and legal arrangements regarding these past projects, and what obligations remain? What do they tell the City about what the Redevelopment Agency should and should not do in the future? How can we avoid some of the mistakes that led to past disappointments, debts, and all-out failures?
Let’s face it: If redevelopment had worked in Reno, we would no longer have designated Redevelopment Areas; they would have successfully redeveloped long ago and the RDA terms would have expired, with the increased property and sales taxes going back into the originally-designated public coffers. That didn’t happen, and now we’re taxed with setting things up to hopefully produce a better outcome, decades from now. It’s well worth taking the time to get the structure and processes right.
CONCERN: These Redevelopment Areas do not have community-sanctioned area-specific plans.
The whole point of redevelopment is to eliminate blight and increase property values. But there are a lot of ways to do that, and a project that might generate the most property taxes might not be the best fit with its surrounding community. There have been some hints from City Council that they want to embark upon generating more specific area plans, but that hasn’t happened yet. It certainly should happen for the various redevelopment areas before the Agency Board starts accepting applications to partner with the City on redevelopment within them. If it doesn’t, then the City is putting itself in the position of responding to suggestions from others rather than allowing residents to express what they would like to see in their neighborhoods, and then partner with other entities who could bring such projects to fruition.
CONCERN: How will the Redevelopment Agency coordinate with the Downtown Reno Partnership?
I don’t have a lot more today about this one now, but clearly both entities are engaged in encouraging downtown development, so how will their activities be coordinated? For perspective, there are many cities—including Boise—that have both a Redevelopment Agency and a Business Improvement District like the DRP, and it’s illuminating to see how their roles differ. One fundamental difference is that the DRP is an organization of property owners in a confined section of downtown; it is not a public body but a private nonprofit, and it does not represent the citizens of Reno.
It’s not clear what time on Wednesday the City Council will meet as the Redevelopment Agency Board, but as seen on the agenda, you can attend in person at City Hall or virtually by registering at the same link as the City Council meeting, and providing public comment in the same way listed above, but clarifying that you’re referring to the Redevelopment Agency Board meeting rather than City Council.
Reno City Council meeting: October 23, 2024
The full agenda for the Wednesday, October 23 Reno City Council meeting is here and will feature three public hearings:
Item C.1 – Amendment to the Bella Vista Ranch Phase II PUD. Staff report here.
Item C.2 – Cavalry Chapel zone change. Staff report here.
Item C.3 - The returning request to abandon Stevenson Street between West First and West Second Streets (highlighted below)
Reno City Council Item C.3 – Abandonment of Stevenson Street
I last wrote about this item in September when the item was originally scheduled to be heard. The September 11 Council meeting was cancelled due to the Davis Fire, and now the item is back, but with a substantial change. There are more than a dozen attachments with this item, but you can get the gist of it in the Staff Report here.
The request is still for the City to abandon Stevenson Street and divide its ownership between the property owners on either side. The difference this time is that they are proposing to create 68 parking spaces and make them all available for public use, although that number would decrease when the west side of the street is developed.
This is certainly a better proposal than the previous one, which would have reserved many spaces for private use only by the adjacent properties, even if they were empty. But the graphics still refer to private-only spaces, which is inconsistent. Council needs to clear that up and continue to interrogate why they should approve this.
Why can’t the City of Reno just reconfigure the street this way itself, installing parking meters on all 68 spaces and retaining it as a public street? Reserving spaces with a QR code doesn’t seem like a process that all members of the public could easily access. And if a vehicle’s paid time has expired, how likely is it that the vehicle would be removed in time for someone else to use the space for a time they reserved? And why do any of this before it’s known what would be developed on the west side?
As always, you should read the full Council agenda for other items of interest to you. You can attend the Reno City Council in person or virtually by registering here. Comments can be delivered in person, by submitting an online public comment form at Reno.Gov/PublicComment; (2) emailing Publiccomment@reno.gov; (3) leaving a voicemail at 775-393-4499; or 4) participating in the meeting via Zoom.
Be sure to check out my Citizen Guide for helpful resources and links for anyone hoping to become more informed and engaged in issues related to urban development (& more) in Reno.
As always, you can view this and prior newsletters on my Substack site, subscribe to receive each new edition in your email inbox, and follow the Brief (and contribute to the ongoing conversation) on X, Facebook & Instagram. If you feel inspired to support my writing and research with a financial contribution, you can sign up for a paid subscription through my Substack site or contribute to my Venmo account at @Dr-Alicia-Barber or via check to Alicia Barber at P.O. Box 11955, Reno, NV 89510. Thanks so much for reading, and have a great week.