January 13, 2021 Reno City Council Meeting Preview
January 13, 2021 Reno City Council Meeting Preview
Information & thoughts on a few development-related agenda items
Surprise! This post follows the previous one much more closely than they’ll appear in the future, I promise. But I wanted to offer information and thoughts on some of the development-related items on the Reno City Council’s January 13th agenda, their first (virtual) meeting of 2021. Scroll to the bottom for specific information on how to provide public comment for this meeting.
B. 5: Nomination of the C. Clifton Young Federal Building to the National Register
With Item B.5, City Council is asked to support the nomination of the 1965 C. Clifton Young Federal Building at 300 Booth Street to the National Register of Historic Places. Unlike the city’s historic register, the National Register doesn’t subject properties to any local regulations or protections; it’s purely honorary. I’d love to see this building on the local register in the future, too.
B. 12: Permission to Auction off City Property
Item B.12 would grant approval to auction off a small city-owned (vacant) parcel at the intersection of Mayberry Drive and Fairbanks Court. If you’d like to see it, you can enter the parcel number (010-430-12) under “Real Property” on the Washoe County Assessor’s website.
C.2: Items Related to the Prado Ranch Master Planned Development
Item C.2 requests approval of a Master Plan amendment, zoning map amendment, and tentative Planned Unit Development (PUD) Handbook for Prado Ranch, a proposed master planned development in Lemmon Valley. The Reno Planning Commission recommended denial of these requests in its January 16, 2019 meeting (Item 6) and City Council continued (a legal term for postponed) its own public hearing on the items a few months later. The revised plan apparently incorporates some key changes, but apparently not enough to warrant bringing it back to the Planning Commission.
This one had an unusually high number of public comments (301 in support and 13 in opposition) as of Friday 1/10 which prompted me to take a look at the printout (included in the Meeting Materials). Sometimes organizations submit a group comment voicing support of or opposition to an agenda item on behalf of the entire organization. In this case, Local 169, a Northern Nevada labor union of Construction Craft Laborers, added a special form on their website that allows individuals to check boxes indicating why they support the Prado Ranch project and then sends a personalized email directly to the City Clerk. So far it’s generated several hundred emails.
D.1: Acknowledgement of Violating the State’s Open Meeting Law on July 22, 2020
Item D.1 fulfills a legal obligation for the City Council to publicly acknowledge a finding from the State of Nevada Attorney General’s (AG) office that the Council violated the state’s Open Meeting Law (OML) in its July 22nd discussion of a Text Amendment to the City’s Skyway Design Guidelines. This finding came in response to a complaint lodged by the organization Scenic Nevada.
All the Council is obligated to do here is to acknowledge the AG findings, but I hope they spend a little time discussing it, because the OML violation wasn’t the result of inadvertently straying off-topic from a listed agenda item, as can happen. This particular violation was, rather, the predictable byproduct of changing a city law solely to expedite a favored construction project—and that’s ultimately just as important to acknowledge, and to vow not to repeat, as the legal violation itself.
First, a little background: UNR submitted an application to the City in February 2020 to build a pedestrian skyway over East 9th Street (which required a Special Use Permit since it would extend over the public right-of-way). They ran into a perceived hurdle when City staff realized that all skyways over city streets had to undergo review by a City-appointed Design Review Committee (DRC) consisting of citizen design and planning professionals (the law originated when casinos were erecting skyways throughout downtown).
The obvious next step would have been simply to convene that committee and put it to work reviewing UNR’s application. Instead, with the assistance of City staff, Councilmember Neoma Jardon initiated a Text Amendment to the Skyway Design Guidelines that would carve out an exemption from DRC review for skyways meeting the precise specifications of the UNR skyway.
The OML violation occurred during the first of two required City Council readings of that Text Amendment in its July 22nd meeting (item E.2) when Councilmember Jardon invited “a representative from UNR” (the University’s then-Director of External Relations and continuing Nevada State Senator Heidi Gansert) to speak, and immediately asked her a series of questions about UNR’s proposed skyway: “This project, can you tell me a little bit about the contractor, the architect, the need for the ADA compliance, who it benefits, how many it benefits?” In response, Gansert launched into an elaborate explanation of the need for the UNR skyway and assertions of urgency for construction of the parking garage complex to begin by November of 2020.
As the AG indicated, that line of discussion violated the state’s Open Meeting Law because Item E.2 was not about the UNR skyway but a proposed change to the Skyway Design Guidelines. The organization Scenic Nevada, which had been advocating for DRC review of that skyway, recognized this immediately and filed their formal complaint with the state.
Now, a change to city laws may indeed be spurred by identifying a broader problem that a specific project brings to light. But that wasn’t the case here. In fact, in all of the public discussions of this proposed Text Amendment, neither City staff nor City Council identified any reason why all narrow skyways located outside of downtown and spanning two-lane city streets (the criteria listed for an exemption) would warrant less review than any others. Rather, the discussion on July 22nd and in all other meetings focused on why the UNR skyway in particular shouldn’t be subject to design review, tailoring the exemption to its precise specifications.
Serious concerns were raised about Scenic Nevada’s OML complaint by Councilmembers Naomi Duerr and Jenny Brekhus, as well as several members of the public, in the second reading of the Text Amendment during the Council’s August 12th meeting (Item F.7) , but those concerns—and the complaint itself—were characterized as baseless by both City attorney Jonathan Shipman and Councilmember Devon Reese (also an attorney). The amended Skyway Design Guidelines, complete with the new exemption, narrowly passed with votes from Councilmembers Jardon, Reese, Weber, and Delgado, allowing the UNR skyway to move forward without design review. (It’s worth noting, however, that UNR now indicates on its website that construction of the parking garage and attached skyway will not begin until Spring 2021).
So what’s the ultimate harm? In my opinion, it’s twofold. First, nothing erodes faith in public policies and processes more than favoritism. The message sent by the adoption of this precisely tailored Text Amendment—brought into focus by the OML violation—is that it’s possible for an applicant for a City permit to secure a permanent change to City code specifically to expedite its own project. And that’s just wrong.
The second area of harm regards the project itself. We now have slated for construction above a city street a skyway that hasn’t been reviewed by a committee of citizen professionals working on behalf of the City of Reno—a skyway that was recommended for rejection by the Reno Planning Commission, and that juts directly into a section of the UNR greenbelt that is designated as a State Arboretum. If the goal of the city’s Skyway Design Guidelines is to secure design excellence and to ensure that the public interest is being taken into account for any skyway built above a city street, this whole process was a disappointing step backward.
F.3: Adopting the Revised Title 18 (Reno’s Annexation and Land Development Code)
For Item F.3, Council would repeal the old Title 18 and adopt the newly revised Title 18, the city’s Annexation and Land Development Code, which governs all laws and policies related to land use and development in the City of Reno, from construction standards and development procedures to historic preservation and signage regulations. This zoning code update (dubbed RENOvation) has been underway for two years, involving substantial public input and review by the Planning Commission and other relevant commissions. This is the final reading for the new code’s adoption, with the exception of several items that have been set aside for further discussion, to be introduced for approval as separate Text Amendments down the road. It’s a big deal.
H.1: Possible zoning changes for the former Lakeridge Tennis Club site
Item H.1 is being introduced by Councilmember Naomi Duerr to initiate a Master Plan and zoning map amendment for 6000 Plumas Street, otherwise known as the Lakeridge Tennis Club site. The development partners, Reno-based Reno Land Inc. and Newport Beach, California-based Lyon Living, successfully had the property rezoned in October of 2019 but submitted revised plans last April to demolish the existing fitness club and swimming pool and construct a somewhat different project than had been previously depicted. The company since has announced its intent to return with a different development plan.
Approval of this item would initiate an estimated 6-7 month process to change the property’s Master Plan land use designation from Community Commercial (CC) to Multifamily 14 dwelling units per acre (MF14), a process that would involve neighborhood meetings, staff review, public hearings, and discussion at the Planning Commission and City Council level. (For descriptions and explanations of these different zoning designations, consult Reno’s Land Development Code.)
Be sure to consult the full agenda to see if there are other items that interest you, and have a great week!
BRIEF TIP: Providing Public Comment for Reno City Council Meetings
You can provide public comments for the January 13th meeting via email or voice mail. You may also view the meeting via Zoom (and potentially deliver live comment during an item) if you pre-register in advance. As explained at the top of the meeting agenda, submit any print or voicemail comments by 4:00 p.m. Tuesday in order for them to be included in Wednesday’s record. See my previous post for how to get City Council agendas emailed to you directly.
Thank you for this information!