Preview: Week of February 10, 2025
Appointing a new Planning Commissioner, my continued concerns about Reno's Redevelopment Agency, Jacobs Entertainment to present its new proposal & more
If you are receiving this Brief during a popular and highly-viewed national sporting event, just a quick note that this edition previews Monday evening’s packed Ward 1 NAB meeting agenda, but its other contents can safely wait until you’ve recovered.
City of Reno meetings: Week of February 10, 2025
This week brings a slew of public City of Reno meetings. I’ll list them all and then highlight a few development-related items. Remember, you can download all meeting agendas and supplementary materials here.
Mon., 2/10 at 11am - Public Art Committee of the Arts and Culture Commission
Mon., 2/10 at 5:30pm - Ward 1 Neighborhood Advisory Board
Tues., 2/11 at 9:30am - Washoe Co. HOME Consortium Tech Review Committee
Tues., 2/11 at 2pm - Senior Citizen Advisory Committee
Wed., 2/12 at 10am - Reno City Council & Redevelopment Agency Board
Thurs., 2/13 at 3:30pm - Financial Advisory Board
Thurs., 2/13 at 3:30pm - Civil Service Commission
Ward 1 NAB meeting - Monday, February 10, 2025
I’ve dubbed 2025 the Year of the People because I want to inspire and urge as many of you as possible to get directly involved in the development of our city. One of the easiest ways to do that is to attend (physically or virtually) your NAB meetings.
Development Projects are presented at the NAB meeting of the ward where they are located, and feedback from them is forwarded to the Planning Commission. They mark the first time that the public can see a presentation from the applicant and ask questions of them, so they’re enormously informative—and far too underutilized.
Each of Reno’s six wards contains about 44,000 residents, so the NAB meetings should be packed with engaged citizens!
You can consult the City’s NAB webpage for maps and more info about them.
Ward One now includes downtown, the UNR campus and the neighborhoods to its immediate west and northwest, as well as northeast Reno. Because it includes downtown, many of these items could be of interest to the broader community.
There’s a lot on the agenda, including two items that are headed to all the NABs:
B.4 - Draft City of Reno Public Art Master Plan Update
B.5 - Discussion and Feedback from the NAB on a proposed ADU ordinance
In addition, this meeting has five development projects scheduled for discussion:
C.1 - Record Street Partial Abandonment (ABN25-00002)
C.2 - J Resort Festival Grounds at 251 Arlington Ave. (LDC25-00031)
C.3 - Summit Ridge Apartments Major Site Plan Review (LDC25-00040)
C.4 - 214 W. Commercial Row Live Entertainment (LDC25-00027)
C.5 - RTC Bus Terminal (LDC25-00041)
You can attend the Ward 1 NAB meeting in person at the McKinley Arts and Culture Center at 925 Riverside Drive or view and participate online via this link: https://links.reno.gov/4glUWRg. The meeting starts at 5:30pm on Monday, February 10.
February 12, 2025 Reno City Council meeting
There’s also a lot on this week’s Reno City Council agenda, so be sure to skim it for items of interest to you. Development-related items of note include the following:
Item D.1 - Presentation and Informational overview on the ReImagine Reno Master Plan Document. Staff Report here.
Item D.2 - Presentation and update on the Housing Court eviction diversion pilot program, in partnership with Reno Justice Court. Staff Report here.
Item D.3 - Presentation and update from the Truckee River Flood Management Authority (TRFMA) on their annual Capital Improvement Plan and ongoing projects impacting the City of Reno. This includes work along Riverside Drive. TRFMA presentation here.
There are also a number of ordinances related to rezoning for various projects (C.1 and F.1, F.2, and F.3), so check out the agenda for more on those.
G.1 through G. 7 - Selection of a new Reno Planning Commissioner and appointments of other City board and commission members
Item G.1 on the City Council agenda is the appointment of a new Reno Planning Commissioner. As the Staff Report indicates, the decision is made by the City Manager at the direction of the Mayor or the City Councilmember representing the ward with a vacancy, which at this time is the newly-created Ward 6.
The appointed commissioner does not, however, have to live in that ward, as you can see in the eight applications that have been submitted for this position (linked here): John Brownell, Kathleen Eagan, Michael Fuess, David Giacomin, Sophie Jantz, Lorna Quisenberry, Jennifer Tegnerud, and Jacob Williams.
When it comes to land development in Reno, there are no appointments more important or powerful than the members of the Reno Planning Commission. The agenda includes a helpful chart listing the current planning commissioners, the durations of their terms, and how to contact them. Other residents can comment on this item, too, of course—so if you’re interested in their qualifications and reasons for applying, be sure to consult those applications.
Items G.2 through G.7 on the Council’s agenda pertain to appointments for many other City bodies, including the Civil Service Commission, Arts and Culture Commission, Youth City Council, Ward 2 NAB, Ward 3 NAB, and Ward 6 NAB.
Redevelopment Agency Board (City Council) to appoint the Redevelopment Agency Advisory Board (RAAB)
The only item of note on the Redevelopment Agency Board agenda is the appointment of up to nine from a pool of 36 applicants to serve on the Redevelopment Agency Advisory Board (RAAB). All of their applications are linked on the agenda.
I last wrote about the Redevelopment Agency (RDA) in my January 26th Brief titled “What’s the Plan?” (and in much more detail last October). In January, I mentioned that the City had recently issued an RFQ to rebrand the Reno Redevelopment Agency, even though there’s no evidence that there’s anything currently wrong with it, and they’ve already received applications for funds.
As I mentioned before, I have concerns. First of all, I find it highly problematic for the stated goal of this RFQ to be to establish Reno’s Redevelopment Agency (RDA) “as a distinct, standalone entity separate from the City.” In the Q&A, it’s stated that “The separation we seek is to establish ourselves as a vibrant, modern, and professional stand-alone entity, distinct from the many economic stakeholder organizations in Reno and, in some respects, the ‘City of Reno’ itself.”
Distinct from the City of Reno?? Let’s review: Reno’s Redevelopment Agency Board is composed of the Reno Mayor and Reno City Council. The RDA staff works for the Reno City Manager under Economic Development (and their work is not confined to the RDA). The RDA’s Advisory Board will be appointed by the Reno City Council this week. How is this not a City of Reno agency, and isn’t it more than a bit disingenuous to try to rebrand it as though it is not?
In Boise, the Redevelopment Agency is governed by a Board that is appointed by the Mayor and confirmed by its City Council. They are unpaid and employ a staff of 19 people. In Denver, the 13-member Board is appointed by the Mayor and confirmed by City Council and appear to have their own 13-member staff. Cincinnati’s 3CDC is an independent nonprofit organization. Calgary’s Board is elected by their City Council and have their own professional staff. From what I can tell, in none of them is the Board the City Council or do their staff simultaneously work for the city.
Given the current state of campaign funding, how many applicants for Reno’s RDA funds will have contributed to the campaigns of seated Councilmembers? And if so, will they have to recuse themselves due to that financial entanglement? Should they?
Moreover, Reno’s City Council/Redevelopment Agency Board never had a discussion of how to “relaunch” its Redevelopment Agency at all, much less how to separate it from the City of Reno government. Somehow these plans just appeared, initiated under the auspices of former Reno City Manager Doug Thornley, who has since returned to his previous career as a land use attorney.
Some references to future plans for the RDA appear under a separate part of the Q&A section of this Request for Qualifications:
Question 5: What do are you expecting from this RFQ, are you looking to create a standalone identity as a redevelopment agency from the City with a different CMS website?
A: Nevada Revised Statutes (NRS) allows the Redevelopment Agency to operate differently than other departments within the City’s umbrella. We will be part of the City but will have a different identity. We will have a different website, it can use the same CMS that the City uses which is Granicus but it can also use something entirely different. This is setting the stage for us to operate as a separate entity. [emphasis mine] We do have plans for future placemaking campaigns and future marketing campaigns will come from this base that we are hoping to create from this project.
Another question reveals a bit more about the overall intent of this rebrand:
Question 22: Do you have success criteria for this project? (ex: recruit new members, XX growth in economic impact over YY time, development of community programming)
A: In the short term, this rebranding project will be considered a success if we generate both internal buy-in (City Council, City Departments, etc.) and external buy-in (current and prospective businesses, developers, investors, residents, and other stakeholders) for the new Agency brand. This includes developing a strong name, creating a modern and informative digital presence, and crafting content that transparently conveys the story of living and doing business in Reno.
Long-term success will be measured by the Agency’s impact on Reno. Is downtown a place people want to visit or live? Are we attracting new and exciting business opportunities for investors and residents? Are we optimizing the use of spaces available in the city? While the answers to these questions will take time, they will ultimately define the success of this rebrand.
Is anyone else seeing significant overlap with the Downtown Reno Partnership, whose area of influence covers most of RDA1 and some of RDA2? The DRP has its own Economic Development arm, described on this page. The stated goals here seem more than a little redundant with those stated by the DRP, which from what I can tell, never underwent its required comprehensive five-year review by City Council.
And let’s talk expense. Looking at the Q&A, it’s clear that many potential bidders indicated that the 3-6 month time frame and estimated $90,000 budget were too “aggressive,” and the City replied, “The project scope outlined in the RFQ is accurate in terms of desired deliverables, however, the timeline and budget are both flexible. At the end of the day, we prioritize high-quality deliverables and recognize that it might mean adjusting the timeline, initial budget, or both.” So it might cost even more?
I can’t end this part without pointing out something odd. One of the entities listed as a prospective bidder (which doesn’t mean an actual bidder) for this RFQ is Taylor Made Solutions, run by Ward 1 Reno Councilmember Kathleen Taylor. You have to register as a prospective bidder to view the full RFQ, but Taylor is literally on the Redevelopment Agency Board; if she wanted to see it, she could have just asked for it.
Reno’s Master Plan and evaluation of development projects
In light of the return of Jacobs Entertainment this week with its proposal to establish another festival area downtown—in combination with Item D.1 on Wednesday’s City Council agenda (a discussion of how to use the Reimagine Reno Master Plan to evaluate development projects)—it might be an opportune time to revisit a Brief I wrote three years ago. It’s one of my lengthier analyses, but I think it’s worth a re-read (or a first read, for those who didn’t see it the first time). Just click below.
When entities like Jacobs Entertainment come to the City of Reno with a development project that requires discretionary review, they have to indicate how their project aligns with the City’s Master Plan. In that 2022 piece, I outlined in detail how Jacobs’ actions stood in stark contrast to the principles of urban planning and, in particular, to the section of Reno’s Master Plan pertaining to “Urban Corridors” like Fourth Street, where the plan encourages “an integrated mix of higher-density residential, retail, commercial, and other employment and service-oriented uses.”
Jacobs’ presentation to the Ward 1 NAB on Monday about their proposed festival grounds on Arlington Avenue will be a prime opportunity to see again how they argue for the alignment of one of their projects with Reno’s Master Plan (and with orderly planning in general), as well as how they view it as compatible with its surroundings.
Amending the City of Reno’s Sign Code
As I mentioned in last week’s Brief, three virtual meetings concerning proposed changes to the City’s Sign Code will take place this week on February 10 and 13, with the same information to be presented at all three. You can find times and registration links under the Signs Ordinance header on the Zoning Code Clean-Up page and read a detailed alert from the nonprofit organization Scenic Nevada about it here.
RTC Washoe’s North Valleys Improvement Projects
I noticed after the fact that RTC Washoe held a public meeting to discuss their North Valleys North Virginia Street Capacity Project on January 30. You can view that presentation and its associated materials on the project website here and submit public comments using the form on that page through this Friday, February 14, 2025.
NEWS DIGEST: Updates and the Latest Development News
Here’s a little grab bag of some recent development-related stories in the local media.
Planning Commission recommends a moratorium on data centers
Reno planning commission recommends council put moratorium on data centers (Bob Conrad, This is Reno, 2/7/25)
Reno planning commission asks council to pause data center permits, mayor responds (Jaedyn Young, Reno Gazette-Journal, 2/8/25)
Regional fire and emergency management efforts
Reno, Sparks and Washoe officials disagree on best plan for local fire, agree to study options (Kristen Hackbarth and Bob Conrad, This is Reno, 2/6/25)
Reno, Sparks and Washoe County officials discuss forming regional fire operation (Nick Doyle, KOLO-8, 2/6/25)
The Reno City Center project (the former Harrah’s Reno building)
New twist in Reno City Center bankruptcy proceedings (Mike Van Houten, Downtown Makeover, 2/7/25)
The Lear Theater
I was surprised this week to see the Lear Theater pop up in a Bill Draft Request (BDR), with a request for $12.5 million in state funds, to be matched by the City of Reno.
What’s going on with the Lear Theater? Nevada bill proposes allocating $12.5 million (Jaedyn Young, Reno Gazette-Journal, 2/7/25)
In some of the coverage, the bill’s sponsor, State Senator Angie Taylor, indicated that she expects the building to become a theater, but it’s important to point out that that decision has not yet been made. Refer to my December 16, 2024 Brief for the latest City decisions about the Lear and what Reno City Council indicated the next steps would be, including community outreach and evaluation of all options. I’ll keep an eye on the progress of this bill and try to ensure that the information within it is correct.
That’s it for today. Have a great week, everyone. And drink plenty of water.
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.
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