A Tale of Three City Ordinances
A close look at the process to change City of Reno laws, plus previews, updates, and the latest news in local urban development
In addition to the usual updates and previews, I want to write today about a topic that I’ve been hearing many concerns about, and that’s the need for the City to be thorough, transparent, and consistent when enacting changes to the city code, whether that’s the Administrative Code or the Land Development Code. To do that, I’ll take a close look at three ordinances currently in various stages of discussion.
But first, let’s look at this week’s meeting schedule and last week’s outcomes.
City of Reno public meetings: Week of March 17, 2025
Here’s this week’s lineup from the Current and Upcoming Meetings webpage:
Mon., March 17, 4pm - Arts and Culture Commission (Agenda) (Register Online)
Tues., March 18, 5:30pm - Ward 2 NAB (Agenda) (Register Online) - Development Projects up for discussion include a proposed Starbucks on Booth Street across from Reno High School and a parking variance on Humboldt Street.
Wed., March 19, 5:30pm - Urban Forestry Commission (Agenda) (Register Online)
Wed., March 19, 6pm - Reno Planning Commission (Agenda) (Register Online). Items include an initial review of the proposed ordinance enabling Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) citywide (more on that below) plus more project review.
Thurs., March 20, 6pm - Ward 4 NAB (Agenda) (Register Online) - Development Projects up for discussion include the construction of a natural gas line and gas regulator station near Silver Lake Road and a major site plan review and grading for the Apartments at Dandini.
Outcomes from the March 12 Reno City Council & Redevelopment Agency Board meetings
You can find the City of Reno’s summation of its March 12 deliberations here: March 12, 2025 Reno City Council Meeting Highlights
Thoughtful and detailed media coverage of these meetings has been steadily improving lately, with reports from a variety of local and state outlets. I highly encourage you to read them thoroughly.
Continuing actions and coverage regarding Data Centers
Reno City Council unanimously voted to overturn the Planning Commission’s denial of the conditional use permit for the Oppidan Data Center. Mayor Schieve announced that a joint meeting of the Reno City Council and Reno Planning Commission could be held in the next few weeks to discuss possible regulations for data centers.
Reno City Council approves making modifications to planning decisions concerning Reno's first data center (2 News Nevada, 3/12/25)
Reno approves first evaporative cooling data center, council to discuss more standards (Ben Margiott, News 4 Reno, 3/14/25)
Council approves another Reno data center despite ongoing public outcry (Kelsey Penrose, This is Reno, 3/14/25)
The Grand Sierra Resort’s Arena project, the Downtown Reno Partnership budget, and other City Council items
Downtown Reno Partnership budget approved with $4 million funding (Kelsey Penrose, This is Reno, 3/16/25)
Reno Redevelopment Agency approves next step for Grand Sierra Resort's $380 million arena (Chris Murray, Nevada Sports Net, 3/13/25)
City of Reno Approves Grant for Senior Home Improvements (Makayla Hardy, 2 News Nevada, 3/14/25)
SPOTLIGHT: A Tale of Three Ordinances
Today I’m shining a spotlight on three different City ordinances that are in different stages of formulation, discussion, and adoption—one you’ve likely heard a lot about, one that selected residents have been in recent discussions about, and one that none of us had heard about until last week but that has already received approval of a first reading, requiring just one more vote by the City Council to put into practice.
A City ordinance is a law created by the City to govern its actions, and the City of Reno’s are instilled in its Administrative Code and Land Development Code. These ordinances include examples of both. So let’s get started.
Ordinance #1: Accessory Dwelling Units - to be discussed at the Reno Planning Commission meeting on Wednesday, March 19
As mentioned above, the proposed ordinance enabling the construction of Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) citywide comes before the Reno Planning Commission for an initial discussion this Wednesday, March 19.
However you feel about ADUs, I think we can agree that the City’s approach to this potential ordinance adoption has been a model of resident engagement. I wrote about the initiation of these discussions back in October of 2023, when City Council received a presentation from staff and directed them to start the public process.
The ADU ordinance is Item 5.2 on Wednesday’s Planning Commission agenda, where you’ll find the following resources:
Staff Report - This includes a summary, background, discussion, analysis, required findings, and the recommendation for the commission to review the proposed changes and provide feedback.
Exhibit A - ADU Draft Ordinance - This is the full Chapter 18.03 with proposed changes marked in red.
Lot Size Map - This map marks in GREEN the residentially zoned parcels that are equal to or greater than 9,000 square feet (the required minimum lot size to erect an ADU), and in RED those that are smaller.
Also included on the agenda are links to a map of the survey responses, a summary of prior public comments, and the full public comments themselves.
Notably, as the Staff Report indicates, this ordinance would only apply to ADUs and would not address their potential use (or the use of any structure) as short term rentals, a separate topic that could potentially be addressed in the future.
You can make public comments on this or any other Reno Planning Commission item during the meeting in person or via Zoom by registering here. To comment in advance, you can use the online form at www.reno.gov/PCPublicComment; email RenoPlanningCommission@reno.gov; or (if it isn’t urgent) send a letter to the City of Reno Planning Commission, P.O. Box 1900, Reno, NV 89505.
Ordinance #2: Live Entertainment Districts - currently under discussion by City staff and “stakeholders”
A potential ordinance establishing new standards for “Live Entertainment Districts” is apparently in its early stages, stemming from concerns raised by downtown residents about excessive noise, and by concurrent concerns raised by bar and nightclub owners in MidTown and downtown regarding regulations governing them.
As I mentioned in my February 23 Brief, I was confused to see the sudden appearance on the City’s calendar a few days earlier of a “Live Entertainment District Community Forum.” I was confused because this had seemingly come out of nowhere, there was no description of it anywhere on the City’s website, and it wasn’t being streamed or recorded, even though its participants included Mayor Schieve and representatives of several City departments. I had tagged the Mayor on social media about it, since she had apparently convened it, and she later called me personally to reassure me that this meeting had simply been an opportunity for downtown residents and bar owners to engage in civil conversation after a prior meeting that apparently got heated.
According to City staff, however, it was apparently much more than that, as last week, Development Services Assistant Director Angela Fuss sent an email to the attendees of that meeting titled “City Meeting to Discuss Potential Changes to Live Entertainment Regulations - Group Meeting on March 25th at 3 p.m.” The email included a document described as “potential draft changes to the Live Entertainment regulations, including a C-scale noise limit,” which I’ll attach here.
And this isn’t just about downtown. As the email indicates, “Indoor Live Entertainment City-wide is proposed to be allowed to operate the same hours as the zoning district allows. Downtown, Midtown and 4th Street can operate all types of businesses 24 hours a day, which would allow Live Entertainment 24 hours a day, as well. The zoning in the Wells Avenue area limits all businesses to close at 11 p.m., unless approved to stay open later with a Conditional Use Permit. If a bar wanted to stay open past 11 p.m. the business is already required to go through a Conditional Use Permit approval process.” In addition, the email reads, “Any Live Entertainment past 11 p.m. shall not exceed 80 dBc, as measured from the outside of the building, along the exterior property line. This is proposed to be a new C-scale noise regulation for Live Entertainment and would be City-wide.”
That meeting is now listed on the official City of Reno calendar as “Discussion on Live Entertainment zoning code regulations.” The email from Ms. Fuss stated, “Please share with your fellow bar owners and fellow neighbors and then we can plan to meet on Tuesday, March 25th at 3 p.m. at the Reno Council Chambers to discuss as a group. This is the initial draft, and everything is on the table for discussion and change. There are many more months of input needed before any changes are formally adopted so know that this is just one step in a long process.”
That process was projected to include the March 25 meeting, and if enough agreement emerges from it, scheduling a City Council item to initiate a text amendment followed by a public input process to include virtual community meetings and NAB presentations, a discussion by the Planning Commission to generate a formal recommendation, and then possible adoption by City Council.
I’d like to strongly urge the City of Reno to find a place on the city’s website to keep track of ongoing developments regarding this issue, just as they have for stakeholder meetings regarding the proposed Sign Ordinance, since the emails sent out by City staff currently constitute the only record of these ongoing discussions. And of course, if you’re interested, plan on attending that March 25 meeting at City Hall.
Ordinance #3: Sewer Connection Fee Credits - approved for a first reading at the March 12 Reno City Council meeting
The final ordinance I’ll discuss today was introduced for the very first time at the March 12 Reno City Council meeting, and approved for a first reading by four of the six Councilmembers in attendance (Mayor Schieve was absent) in about 17 minutes.
This is the section of code regarding Sewer Connection Fee Credits that I discussed last week. Unlike those other two, this does not pertain to the Land Development Code, so the Planning Commission does not have to review it before Council adoption.
What I’m actually hoping is that I might persuade some of you to watch these 17 minutes for yourself. Even if you don’t have a strong opinion on the Sewer Connection Fee credit policy itself, I think you might be interested in how this item played out.
As a reminder, new development projects pay sewer connection fees that fund the City’s sewer lines and wastewater treatment plants. In 2011, the City of Reno created a policy to encourage redevelopment by imposing a five-year expiration deadline for a developer to apply sewer connection fee credits from a demolished structure toward the development of something new on the same site. The idea was to create an incentive to build something on a cleared parcel within a reasonable period of time so it wouldn’t remain vacant.
The video of Item E.1 begins here, and the first thing you may notice is that City staff did not even prepare a formal presentation, but rather had the City attorney read the proposed changes followed by questions. Councilmember Naomi Duerr immediately raised concerns that the sudden appearance of this item on an agenda was not following Council’s own established procedures for ordinance adoption, as Council had had no prior conversations about it or even a policy briefing, and she expressed her preference not to bring it up for a vote during this meeting.
Assistant City Manager Ashley Turney then proceeded to offer a series of justifications for the ordinance change that were not in the Staff Report:
That City staff has been looking into this change for “well over a year” (but apparently without mentioning it to City Council during any of that period).
That staff had determined that the five-year credit expiration date was “not incentivizing redevelopment” as they hoped it would. There was no evidence provided for this statement, when my immediate question would be, “How are you making this connection?” If sites have remained vacant for more than five years after its structures were demolished or burned down, could that perhaps be attributable to the fact that the property owner didn’t have a new project in mind when undertaking demolition, thereby assuming the risk of credit expiration?
That there is a downtown apartment project with an estimated 300 units currently in its “due diligence” period (which I think means the land hasn’t been purchased) that needs to be able to count their site’s expired credits in order to make their project “pencil”—and that they need to have them guaranteed by May. There was no explanation of precisely where this project was, whether it would be affordable (I’m thinking not, since affordable projects often get these fees reduced or waived), how long ago the structures formerly on the site were demolished, and what the financial shortfall would be to “pencil,” whatever that means.
That this policy would apply to approximately 92 parcels (where are these? throughout the City? Do only the sites where demolition occurred since 2011 count, or any site where some documented structure once stood?).
Councilmembers Duerr and Ebert raised a number of solid points and concerns in their allotted time, including Duerr’s point that the City’s ongoing conversation about possibly subjecting vacant land to some kind of penalty would potentially pose a contradiction to this very proposal. She also asked for data to demonstrate that anyone had actually asked for an extension of the five-year deadline.
Staff provided no evidence that this has been a larger problem than that facing a current developer or “potentially two” hoping to build on a site whose credits have already expired, or that the current policy has prevented ANY other project from being developed, even though this change could deprive the city of literally millions of dollars (92 parcels!). Councilmember Ebert even brought the topic back under H.1, stating that with the City’s pressing budgetary concerns, it would be prudent not to waive things like expiration dates and instead use the tools currently in place to collect revenues where they can.
As I’ve stated before (but wasn’t brought up in this brief discussion at all), I’m also worried that this change could encourage even more premature demolition of buildings that could otherwise be renovated, because the City would have just removed one of its only incentives for landowners to wait to demolish a building until they have a clear plan to replace it with something new.
Ms. Turney repeatedly stated that this policy was established in 2011, implying that it was somehow outdated or that the development environment had changed in some drastic way since then. But it was actually less than four years ago (when City Council was discussing its proposed Development Agreement with Jacobs Entertainment) that they deliberately upheld the five-year deadline for applying those sewer connection fee credits to new construction, with Councilmember Devon Reese in particular arguing that five years was plenty of time to build something on a cleared site.
So at the end of the day, this 4-2 vote represented a 180-degree reversal of the Council’s position from 2021, with a striking absence of concrete data to justify it and no mention at all of the financial hit that it could engender.
Staff assured Council that they’d be providing more data at the second reading, but a full justification and further time for discussion by both Council and the general public should have taken place prior to an initial reading and vote. It’s troubling.
A few words on how to encourage (or discourage) public comment
If you do watch the above item, you’ll note that reference is made to a single public comment that was submitted for it, albeit a little late (that morning). That comment was mine. I didn’t see my primary concerns about this change addressed in this proposed policy change, was pretty sure very few people were even aware of the issue, and wanted to make sure that Council considered some potentially unintended consequences (I can’t presume they’re all reading the Brief, after all).
Here’s what I wrote:
Dear Mayor Schieve and members of the Reno City Council,
I am writing to respectfully discourage the adoption of an ordinance to delete the expiration date for sewer connection fee credits, as proposed under Item E.1. While, as the Staff Report indicates, the current economic climate may be delaying the onset of new construction, that is no reason to permanently alter the development code to discourage timely construction on newly cleared sites.
The Staff Report's encouragement of clearing blight in combination with eliminating this deadline could have unintended consequences, promoting the premature demolition of structures that could harbor great potential for adaptive reuse should circumstances or ownership change. The definition of "blight" is far too subjective.
At the same time, eliminating the credit expiration date altogether, combined with the high cost of new construction, could leave sites vacant indefinitely, which is not something the City of Reno should be facilitating.
Please reject this proposed ordinance and seek out new, less extreme ways to encourage construction on key parcels, with the recognition that the City's own Master Plan and Downtown Action Plan encourage preservation and adaptive reuse, and that the economics of construction will not always be characterized by the current situation.
Thank you so much.
Alicia Barber, PhD
Resident, Ward 2
In effect, my position was in agreement with what Council itself had affirmed less than four years ago—that the five-year credit expiration date should be upheld. So imagine my surprise when Councilmember Reese made reference to it as having been submitted by “someone who challenges all the decisions we do,” and although he said he wanted to “make sure that we’re giving a good opportunity for those people to redress their government,” he then proceeded not to address any of the concerns I had actually raised in my comment (the potentially raised risk of premature demolition and prolonged site vacancy) and simply asked staff an unrelated question.
Listen, I don’t think I need to explain what makes that particular characterization of me or my writing so absurd. You only have to consider the sheer number of decisions Council contemplates, combined with the narrow range of topics I even discuss in the Brief (land development and related issues), the smaller number of those I actually opine about, the fact that (as Mr. Reese himself likes to remind us), the appearance of an item on an agenda does not itself imply Council support, and the fact that less than four years ago, Mr. Reese himself agreed with my support for the five-year expiration, to understand that his seemingly offhand comment about challenging “every decision we do” was not actually intended to be factually accurate.
[Let’s also recognize here that the City Council is not a monolithic “we” and that some of the decisions of some members may both warrant and receive more “challenges” than others.]
I won’t presume to know what motivates a person to say things that aren’t true, but regardless of a Councilmember’s personal (and inaccurate) impressions of a person or their work, the discussion of the public comment that that person submits to Council should be about the substance of the comment, not about the person who submitted it. In this particular instance, the substance of my comment was not addressed at all, replaced by a sweeping, inaccurate statement about me and my work.
That’s obviously not going to stop me from commenting, and I hope it won’t stop you, either. But it’s offhand remarks like this that discourage the very thing our City Councilmembers should be encouraging: public participation. Let’s hope that this can serve as a reminder to all of our elected representatives to take submitted public comments seriously and to do their best to actually respond to their content (that’s obviously easier if there’s only one). At the same time, let’s all recognize that the legislative actions of our elected representatives should indeed be examined, debated, and sometimes challenged and critiqued, and that residents should feel that they can do so without fear of mischaracterization, freely exercising our right to participate in the democratic process that we should all be upholding.
As for me, I’ll stay true to my original intent, as I have stated from the beginning: to “help keep my local community in Reno, Nevada better informed about actions that impact our city’s development.” And that community (and my intended audience) naturally includes our City Council, whose members I encourage to read the Brief for themselves (and I’ll send them links to each future edition, in hopes that they will).
NEWS DIGEST: The latest in local urban development
Coverage of development issues over the past week included new developments at the former Harrah’s Reno site (newly renamed “Revival”), among other diverse topics.
The former Harrah’s Reno/Reno City Center property
Coverage of the redevelopment plans for the former Harrah’s Reno property included news about its new majority owner and their intentions, plus confusion as the Reno Suites portion of the property announced its imminent closure.
Madison Capital Group becomes the majority owner, manager and developer of the Former Harrah's/Reno City Center (Mike Van Houten, Downtown Makeover, 3/10/25)
'It's really happening': Developer pitches 'Revival' project for Harrah's in downtown Reno (Ben Margiott, News 4 Reno, 3/12/25)
Former Harrah's Casino in Downtown Reno Turning to Multi-Use Development (Makayla Hardy, 2 News Nevada, 3/13/25)
Reno Suites: Confusion at ex-Harrah’s Reno tower as ‘guests’ get 7-day notice (Jason Hidalgo, Reno Gazette-Journal, 3/14/25)
Development-related issues throughout our community
Where is the $9 million? Uprise Fiber scandal with Joe Hart on Ballot Battleground: Nevada (Ben Margiott, News 4 Reno, 3/12/25)
Washoe County School District to break ground on new $33M transportation hub (News 4 & Fox 11 Digital Staff, News 4 Reno, 3/13/25)
Truckee River flood project aims to protect community from $2 billion damage risk (Sophie Lincoln, News 4 Reno, 3/13/25)
Reno City Council approves demolition of old police HQ for new fire station project (Anthony Ramos, News 4 Reno, 3/13/25)
UNR used controversial funding to fast-track business building, but at what risk? (Jason Hidalgo and Jaedyn Young, Reno Gazette-Journal, 3/14/25)
Keeping the drinks flowing: Local beverage purveyors are battling inflation and other challenges (Michael Moberly, Reno News & Review, 3/14/25)
Erin go Bragh!
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.
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 contribute, you may purchase a paid subscription through Substack or contribute via Venmo at @Dr-Alicia-Barber or via check to Alicia Barber at P.O. Box 11955, Reno, NV 89510.
Holy moly. I watched that 17 minutes of the City Council meeting on item E.1 Sewer Connection Fee Credit Policy. So proud of Naomi Duerr and Megan Ebert on this one. And I'm contacting Council Member Reese about his characterization of public commenters. We need to hold our representatives accountable.
Thank you for staying "true to your original intent." Whining and lying are for losers.