Housing and placemaking on the agenda

Connecting residents to housing and downtown takes center stage this week.

If it wasn’t clear before, it’s now indisputable that the housing crisis plaguing many American cities has hit the Reno-Sparks area in full force, with rising costs and limited options affecting residents across the economic spectrum, but especially those with lower incomes and fewer resources. The crisis is apparent in everything from the lack of housing inventory to the rising median price of available homes, skyrocketing rents, and increasing numbers of residents struggling without a roof over their heads. 

Reno was mentioned in a New York Times article just yesterday titled “The Next Affordable City Is Already Too Expensive,” which focuses on Spokane but paints a picture that will sound very familiar to Reno residents. And the national Marketplace broadcast featured Reno in a recent piece called “New Reno development highlights the city’s affordable housing shortage”.

On the local level, here’s some recent local coverage (some require subscriptions):

• “Reno median home sales price hits $600,000 for the first time in record-breaking climb” (Reno Gazette-Journal)

• “Raising the roof: Reno rents outpace tenants’ ability to pay” (Reno News & Review)

• “Nevadans grapple with punishing rent hikes even as economy rebounds.” (Nevada Independent)

• "Where is the cheapest rent in Reno?” (Reno Gazette-Journal)

• “Washoe County data shows number of homeless people living on the street has doubled” (Reno Gazette-Journal)

• "Applicants flood waitlists for Reno housing assistance" (This is Reno)

• “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly at Our Shelters” (Our Town Reno)

---

February 22 City Council meeting on affordable housing

In response to the crisis, the Reno City Council has scheduled a special meeting for tomorrow, Tuesday, February 22 beginning at 10am to specifically focus on affordable housing needs and strategies. You can attend in person or register to watch via Zoom, and access the agenda here.

Presenters will include State Treasurer Zach Conine, who is scheduled to talk about the Nevada State Infrastructure Bank and Affordable Housing Trust. One of the slides from his presentation that was posted in advance lays out some of the challenges facing our community in very stark terms:

Also presenting will be Amy Jones, Executive Director of the Reno Housing Authority, to discuss current and future RHA projects. You may have heard that the RHA recently took action to explore acquiring the Bonanza Inn and the old Sundowner Hotel downtown, as announced in a January 31 press release.

City staff are also scheduled to deliver presentations on various topics:

• Housing affordability, availability & expected growth in Reno

• Strategic planning & initiatives for the Housing and Neighborhood Development Division

• Land use & zoning in relation to affordable housing & housing supply

• The City's use of American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARPA) funds

There aren’t any specific measures up for a vote, but action items do include potential direction to City staff, suggesting that Councilmembers might ask staff to research, explore, or compile proposals for various strategies to address the crisis. The special meeting format should allow Councilmembers to conduct their discussions in a more relaxed fashion than the strict speaking time limits governing their regular meetings allow, so I hope it will be an informative and productive session.

If you would like to offer your own ideas or comments, you can deliver them in person or submit them in advance (ASAP) through the online public comment form at Reno.Gov/PublicComment; an email to Publiccomment@reno.gov; or a voicemail at (775) 393-4499, or participate via zoom following the instructions on the agenda here.

---

The February 23 regular Reno City Council meeting

The next regularly scheduled City Council meeting is the next day, on Wednesday, February 23, and you can access that agenda here. I encourage you to read it through for items of interest to you. Housing-related topics include Item B.18, supporting funding for the acquisition and/or rehabilitation of affordable housing projects on Kirman Drive and S. Center Street, with Item B.19 involving support for a new 250-unit affording housing complex (Pinyon Apartments) at the intersection of Moana Lane and Neil Road.

Also on Wednesday’s Council agenda is Item D.2, which would hire Gehl Studio to complete the Virginia Street Urban Placemaking Study that was first introduced last fall. I examined its initial scope and offered some thoughts on it back in September in a Brief titled “What’s the Future of Virginia Street?” which I invite you to revisit or check out for the first time.

The term “placemaking” is a bit of a buzzword these days, but the organization at the forefront of the movement, the Project for Public Spaces, has a definition that is worth quoting in its entirety here:

“As more communities engage in placemaking and more professionals come to call their work ‘placemaking,’ it is important to preserve the meaning and integrity of the process. A great public space cannot be measured by its physical attributes alone; it must also serve people as a vital community resource in which function always trumps form. When people of all ages, abilities, and socio-economic backgrounds can not only access and enjoy a place, but also play a key role in its identity, creation, and maintenance, that is when we see genuine placemaking in action.”

Placemaking, in other words, is not just about the outcome—functional and meaningful spaces—but the process of creating them. That’s because the ultimate goal of shaping spaces is not just about how they appear but about how people will—or won’t—interact with them, and who feels that they belong there. Making sure that the answer to that last question is “everyone” from young families to seniors, teenagers, singles, couples, visitors and residents of all socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds, requires a public entity to ask a series of questions when considering actions involving the built environment, questions like these:

• How will people from all walks of life engage with this space?

• Will everyone feel comfortable and safe here?

• Who might feel unwelcome here, and how can we minimize that experience?

• How can this space generate and contribute to a sense of community on an everyday basis?

• How does this space complement and contribute to the spaces around it?

• Does this place clearly reflect and promote our community’s values?

It’s more important than ever for Reno’s leaders to put concern for inclusivity and meaning at the forefront of any actions related to the built environment throughout the entire city, and particularly in our downtown core, which has, over the past few decades, become a place where many residents (and visitors) have simply not wanted to spend time and where most new residential development favors the affluent.

Gehl Studio is the U.S. arm of an international urban design firm, and according to the staff report was selected for “their approach to engaging with the community.” I’m happy to see that, since one concern I had back in September was the extent to which the broader public, and not just so-called “stakeholders” like downtown property owners, would be invited into the process—people who can be left out of many standard public engagement strategies like virtual town halls and digital surveys, but who deserve an equal place in the process, and in the spaces that result from it.

The firm provided a full 65-page proposal titled “Making Cities for People,” which is posted with the staff report here. Their proposed approach may already have been modified, so I won’t go into it here, but I encourage those who are interested to read through it and comment on the item if you’re so inclined.

It’s important to acknowledge that downtown Virginia Street poses challenges far beyond the ability of an enhanced public realm to solve. As I’ve discussed repeatedly, the vitality of Reno’s traditional casino core is hampered above all by the form and function of its privately-owned spaces, from the unforgiving block-long stretches of casino walls to the dearth of street-facing retail, dining, or services, to its many vacant lots and storefronts. (Last fall, I shot a video driving both ways along Virginia Street between Liberty & Interstate 80 if you need a refresher.) The Reno City Center project currently redeveloping the former Harrah’s Reno into a mixed-use residential project has great potential to activate the plaza facing Virginia Street (see photo below) with well-positioned, outward-facing eateries, so that could help considerably.

Another issue, as I mentioned last year, is the fact that some entities along the street are likely to have strong opinions about the surrounding public streets and spaces, and it’ll be important to ensure that the desires of special interests don’t overshadow the public interest, whether that’s in relation to the location of transportation routes (bus, bicycle, etc) or the creation of large open spaces year-round, that might be used for sporadic special events but otherwise languish unoccupied.

So overall, there’s a great deal for placemaking efforts on Virginia and the surrounding streets to tackle and potentially transform: not just the highly problematic City Plaza (which I discussed last July in a Brief called “Public Spaces and Public Places” and again last November in “Public Process in Crisis”), but the former CitiCenter station at Center & East 4th Street (haven’t heard anything about that in a while), the historic Southern Pacific Railroad Depot, and whatever can be done to help Locomotion Plaza serve as more than just a site for occasional special events and a colorful but unoccupied, cage-like backdrop the rest of the time (see below).

The placemaking study was originally conceived as a six-month process that would have begun in December. I’m not sure why it was delayed for so long, but if they retain the same time parameters, they would now be aiming for completion in August.

---

The City answers questions about the “Neon Line District”

On February 15, the City of Reno released answers to more questions posed by residents at the City’s January 10 community meeting about Jacobs Entertainment’s so-called “Neon Line District.” The nine-page document is posted on a new City webpage, with links to relevant materials and lists the company’s various permit and other applications. I’m hoping they’ll add the dates of upcoming meetings about them, too. For instance, the Conditional Use Permit for the company’s proposed “Glow Plaza and Festival Space” has been discussed by the Wards 1 and 5 NABs and is headed next to Planning Commission, but the page doesn’t yet indicate when (I suspect it’s sometime in March).  

I’ve written a lot about Jacobs Entertainment lately and don’t want to rehash the same points, but I do have just a few comments regarding this latest round of answers. And in doing that, I don’t want to minimize the considerable effort it has taken staff to provide them. Many are very straightforward and welcome explanations of various processes and terms.

But there are a few explanations that I find worthy of further interrogation, beginning with the statement on the webpage that “There has been significant community involvement in this project.” Has there, really? In what way? The fact that the public was able to provide public comment, as they can with any City Council agenda item, prior to the Council’s adoption of the Development Agreement does not constitute “significant community involvement” in the “Neon Line District.” And just as a reminder, the public comment that was provided was overwhelmingly in opposition to the terms of the City’s agreement with Jacobs. Overwhelmingly.

The City has numbered the queries, so you can follow along here, if you like.

First of all, the City did helpfully provide some facts and figures that hadn’t been compiled before. To question #82, a query about how many units Jacob has demolished, the City replied, “Our records show that 36 residential properties were demolished which contained 573 units. In addition, there were 15 commercial buildings that were demolished.” Wow. That’s actually even more than I thought.

To comment #88 pointing out that in demolishing so many structures, Jacobs converted properties that were on the tax rolls to vacant land, the City responded, “The demolition of many of the buildings actually brought additional revenue into the City as there were delinquent sewer fees associated with several of the buildings that far exceeded the property tax revenue generated due to Nevada's property tax structure.” So that’s an interesting take—the notion that demolition is actually profitable for the City is something I hadn’t seen expressed before.

Speaking of profits, query #137 asked about Opportunity Zones, prompting this explanation from the City: “The entire project area is with an Opportunity Zone (OZ). OZs are federally designated census tracts that are economically disadvantaged and offer significant tax incentives to those investors who deploy capital into these areas. The overall goal of the federal government was to take idle capital and have it redeployed to spur new investment in developments and businesses. The biggest benefit to the investor, assuming the capital is held within the project for 10 years, is permanent exclusion of taxable income on new gains.” (You can read more about how Opportunity Zones disproportionately benefit wealthy investors over the public or the low-income communities where they are located here.)

In its response to query #23 asking if the “Neon Line District” is an official designated district, the City doubles down on the argument that it is a district just like other existing districts in the City, only this time instead of invoking the Midtown or Riverwalk Districts, they compare it to the “Brewery District” on East 4th Street, writing, “The Neon Line District is not an official district recognized by our zoning code. The district is self described, such as the Brewery District.” Many residents, of course, may know that the Brewery District, centered on East 4th Street, is a designation adopted by a number of area establishments that collectively adopted the name for their communal benefit. The “Neon Line District,” in contrast, is a brand singlehandedly concocted by one company and applied to a large area that not only includes significant public space but scores of private parcels that it does not own. The City’s endorsement of that unilateral branding by enabling signage to be erected over a public street is unprecedented and, to me, indefensible.

And yet the City continues to defend it. To comment #178 criticizing the new proposed archway sign and the “Neon District” brand, the City replied, “Downtown Reno has several unique areas each with distinctive characteristics. These range from the beauty and recreation opportunities of the Truckee River area, the historic nature of the Powning district, breweries and distilleries along East 4th street, the nightlife and entertainment of downtown.  The Neon Line has established large art installations, lighting and "historic" neon art to the West 4th area.” I’m just going to point out here that according to the Development Agreement itself, any of that art can be “discontinued or relocated” without public review, so we’re talking here about temporary décor, not enduring area characteristics like a river or historic district. The “Neon Line” is not an authentic description of an area; it is a brand to promote and market Jacobs Entertainment and its future rebranding of the Sands Regency. Period.

Query #103 asked, “Have any of the other districts been under the control of primarily a single developer?” to which the City takes another tack, this time comparing the “Neon Line District” to large residential developments, responding, “Yes, most large scale developments, such as Arrowcreek, Somersett, and the Reno Experience District, require assemblage by the primary developer.” This is also disingenuous. Those are residential developments in which the entire project is master-planned from the outset. Jacobs Entertainment is not acting as a “primary developer” for the land it has purchased. It is developing selected parcels for its own private casino resort, and offering the rest for sale, presumably to be developed by buyers in whatever way zoning (or any future City-approved re-zoning) allows. That’s not master development, it’s private resort development combined with real estate speculation.

Many questions rightfully asked how much housing will ultimately be added to the area. Under query #92, the City responds, “Jacobs Entertainment envisions up to 3,000 units being constructed over the next 20 years. The market will ultimately determine how many units are built and the timeframe in which they are completed.” These numbers are sheer speculation with absolutely no basis in a planned or foreseen outcome. As I’ve stated many times before, the Development Agreement specifies construction of fewer than 200 residential units. That’s it. City Council had every opportunity to require thousands of residential units to be constructed in this area and they chose not to, full stop. To continue to invoke thousands of “envisioned” residential units is to mischaracterize the literal plan for this area by linking it to housing that may never transpire.

I encourage you to read it for yourself with a critical eye. Throughout its responses, the City references the “goal” and the “vision” behind the “Neon Line District,” using phrases like “the goal is to create a lively, safe, and vibrant downtown” (#25) and “The vision that Jacobs Entertainment has for their development is to create a vibrant downtown neighborhood” (#86). We know what vibrant downtown neighborhoods look like and what it takes to create them. The City’s own Master Plan laid out very concrete ways to do so by prioritizing residential density, street-level activation, and services benefiting residents along designated “Urban Corridors” like West 4th Street. This “project” does none of that, and as a resident who—like thousands of others—participated wholeheartedly in the creation of that Master Plan, I’m disappointed in language that seems intended to justify a Development Agreement that failed to exercise the City’s power—and responsibility—to implement it.

---

As always, you can view my prior newsletters, with more context, analysis & tips, on my Substack site and follow the Brief on Twitter, Facebook & Instagram. If you feel inspired to contribute to my efforts, I have a Venmo account at @Dr-Alicia-Barber and would be grateful for your support. Thanks for reading, and have a great week.