June 15, 2021 The Week Ahead
June 15, 2021 The Week Ahead
This week’s meetings and a glimpse down the road
Summer may not have officially begun, but it sure feels like it. Temps are running high, schools have let out, and the Reno City Council has embarked upon its annual summer break, with its next meeting to take place on July 21.
There are a few other meetings coming up this week that I’ll highlight first in this brief Brief, and then I’ll mention a few items we can expect to see on the Council’s docket once they reconvene next month, to be further elaborated upon in the future.
Before that, however, I had the pleasure of being interviewed on May 12 by Ilya Arbatman for his terrific show Soft Power Radio on KWNK Community Radio. We spoke about The Barber Brief and why I started it, my philosophy about public involvement in city development, and some current projects including Jacobs Entertainment’s proposed Neon Line District. You can listen to the complete interview on the KWNK website here, and please consider lending your support to non-profit community radio, such an important part of our local media landscape.
THIS WEEK’S MEETINGS
June 16: Reno Planning Commission
On Wednesday, June 16, the Reno Planning Commission (which has resumed in-person meetings) will consider revisions to the City Code's Title 18 land use standards related to services for the homeless and the new Nevada Cares Campus, which according to the City’s daily updates, is currently sheltering 518 single men, 37 single women, 23 couples, and 8 pets.
Some of the proposed changes would restrict the operation of new homeless meal providers, codifying restrictions on where they can operate and indicating that they must coordinate with the new campus. The goal here is clearly to further consolidate the city’s primary homeless services within the area bounded by Sutro Street and Galletti Way, and I-80 and the railroad tracks. See my prior post for more background on that.
There’s another requirement for any public meal providers to be associated with an “on site homeless shelter or transitional living facility,” so it’s worth asking whether that would prohibit any community groups from distributing food at all and what the implications of any of these changes might be for St. Vincent’s Dining Room and Reno-Sparks Gospel Mission, which are located next to the City’s Community Assistance Center on Record Street.
Another proposed change would remove requirements for conditional use permits (which require public review) for future expansions to the campus that are deemed "minor." As regular readers know, I’m always leery of eliminating public review of anything involving public expenditures or public property, so that’s probably something for anyone with an interest in the city’s homeless services to check out, too.
The Planning Commission’s vote on this will serve as a recommendation to the City Council, which will ultimately hear this item and make the final decision on it. See the full agenda, staff report, and language of the proposed ordinance changes here (the item is 6.2). The Planning Commission meets in Council Chambers at 6:00 p.m. on Wednesday, June 16. You can provide public comment via voice mails or by emailing RenoPlanningCommission@reno.gov by 4pm today (June 15) to be conveyed to the Commission prior to the meeting, or just show up to provide comments in person.
June 16: Ward 2 Neighborhood Advisory Board
Retaining its status as the only Neighborhood Advisory Board (NAB) to have resumed meetings since last March (hopefully more will return next month), the Ward 2 NAB will meet in person at 5:30 pm on June 16 at the Moana Nursery Design Center Training Room at 1190 W. Moana Lane. You can view the full agenda here. The NAB will be discussing two development projects, both described on this page.
A Corwin Ford auto dealership adjacent to residential zoning on a lot northwest of the intersection of South Virginia Road and South Hills Drive.
The Steamboat Mixed Use Development: mini-warehouse and drive-through facilities on a little over six acres southeast of the intersection of South Virginia Street and State Route 341.
Remember you can always view the City of Reno’s full calendar to keep an eye on upcoming meetings and find links to agendas.
What to Expect When City Council Returns in July
I’ll have more on future City Council agendas once they’re posted, but in the meantime we can anticipate a few projects and items that will be coming their way fairly soon, Here’s just a taste, with much more discussion and analysis to come.
Jacobs Entertainment
Jacobs is likely to reappear pretty quickly with a request or two. During the discussion of their initial proposal for a Development Agreement on April 14, Jacobs’ representative, Garrett Gordon, indicated his desire to return with a final proposal on June 9, which of course didn’t happen. City Council had been slated on May 12 to discuss a sewer connection fee credit policy change that would significantly benefit the company, but that item was pulled from the agenda and not discussed.
Jacobs will be eager to get back in front of Council soon since their options to purchase two City-owned parcels (one on West Second Street across from St. Thomas Aquinas Cathedral and another at 290 Keystone Avenue) are set to expire. Their proposal, if you recall, asked the City to sell them these parcels at a massive discount.
The company has to provide notice of an intent to exercise their option on the Second Street property by July 31, and would have to justify why they should not pay the full appraised value of the parcel, which was the stated intent in the original agreement.
Jacobs was supposedly in the process of arranging for the development of 290 Keystone by an entity called Pacific Development in February of 2020 to develop a residential project as part of the Mayor’s “1,000 Homes in 120 Days” program, but it’s not clear what, if anything, became of that.
In any case, we shouldn’t be seeing a request to approve an entire Development Agreement with Jacobs right away, since City Council voiced unanimous support in their April 14 meeting for public workshops of some sort to discuss the whole proposal. They did give City staff direction to continue meeting with Jacobs about their ideas, including the notion of establishing a new Tax Increment Financing (TIF) district that could potentially funnel millions of dollars in property tax revenues to the company, so I’m curious to see what emerges from those talks and how City Council plans to secure public input on all of it (and to allow all City Councilmembers to speak for more than three-minute intervals, their self-imposed restriction during meetings).
Lakeridge Golf Course Driving Range
The request to rezone the Lakeridge Golf Course driving range from open space to single-family neighborhood housing in order to construct a townhouse development there will be coming to City Council sometime this summer after the request was denied by the Reno Planning Commission on April 7. I discussed that meeting in my May 17 post and you can read more in a Reno Gazette-Journal article that quotes T.J. Duncan, an executive with Duncan Golf Management, which operates the golf course.
In response to that article, resident Margaret Crowley wrote an opinion piece where she provides context about the arrangement between Duncan Golf and Toll Brothers, which is the developer of the adjacent and proposed townhouse developments. This discussion is an important one, involving as it does the City’s policies regarding the preservation of open space, and I’ll have more to say when it’s agendized.
700 Riverside Drive
Several residents appealed the City’s issuance of a building permit for the apartment building slated for construction at 700 Riverside Drive, in the Powning Conservation District, in a hearing held on May 4. On June 3, the hearing officer issued her decision that the City did not abuse its discretion in approving the building permit for the project. However, one of the appellants has appealed the hearing officer’s decision, and a public hearing is currently scheduled to take place during the Reno City Council meeting on July 28. I’ll have more on that down the road, too.
BRIEF TIP: Read a book!
Whether this summer finds you taking to the road, heading to the beach, or just relaxing in the backyard, it’s a great time to dive into some new reading. The editors of Curbed have put together an extensive list of 101 Books About Where and How We Live, and it’s full of titles related to cities, places, and people, covering everything from classics like Jane Jacobs’ The Death and Life of Great American Cities to Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor’s 2019 Pulitzer Prize finalist Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership. Take a look and don’t forget to support your local independent bookstore if you find something you like!
That’s it for today. As always, you can view my previous e-newsletters, with more context, analysis, and tips, on my Substack site, https://thebarberbrief.substack.com/. Thanks for reading, stay cool and hydrated this week, and please check on your neighbors to make sure they are, too.