all right thank you all for attending the regular meeting of the Reno City Planning Commission today's date is Wednesday July 17th 6 PM we will kick it off with item number one Pledge of Allegiance commissioner velto please the United States America America and to the for it stands Nation God indivisible withy andice for all all right moving to item number two roll call Michelle please Harris Armstrong here Manny Basera here Carri R here Alex VTO here Sylvia villan NOA here JD dulich here we have a COR excellent thank you moving on to item number three public comment this item is for either public comment on any action item or for any general public comment members of the public may call into the meeting to provide public comment by using the zoom link provided on the agenda specifically https SL links. reno.gov sl3 V5 v c 95 it should be noted for those in the audience that comments are to be addressed to the Planning Commission as a whole comments heard under this item will be limited to 3 minutes per person and may pertain to matters both on and off the Planning Commission agenda please note that the Planning Commission may not take action upon any matter not agendized for possible action on today's agenda when you are called on for public comment please state your name for the record and begin speaking the timer will begin when you say your name and you will be afforded 3 minutes if you are an attendee in the zoom meeting and would like to make public comment at this time please raise your hand lastly while in this room please be respectful warnings will be issued by the presiding officer if there is disruptive behavior and you will be asked to leave the chambers if the behavior continues we did receive voicemails and correspondents that were General in nature and not specific to any items on this agenda these were forwarded to the Planning Commission and have been entered into the record we did not receive any voicemails sorry all right any requests to speak forms over there right now nope all all right anybody in the chambers wish to speak on General Public comment seeing none we will close item number three public comment move on to item number four public hearings any person who has chosen to provide his or her public comment when a public hearing is heard will need to so indicate on the request to speak form provided to the secretary alternatively you may provide your comment when item three public comment is heard at the beginning of this meeting looks like we had item five 4.1 was pulled do we need to address that in any way uh item 4.1 will be on the August 7th agenda due to a noticing error okay thank you all right we'll close item 4.1 move to 4.2 case number lc24 d56 Habitat for Humanity okay good evening um members of the Planning Commission Jeff Foster associate planner for the record see I was listening um I'm bringing you two cases tonight uh the first of which is LDC 2456 Habitat for Humanity it's actually the trucky Meadows Habitat for Humanity and I'm just going to for the sake of brevity refer to it as habitat um moving forward so the project site uh is on the north side of echo Avenue between Mount Charleston and mount Vita streets um south of the Arena stead airport it's about 3.03 acres in size it's currently vacant uh it was previously owned by the university and the three structures that were on the parcel have been removed the request uh before you is a tentative map to establish a 22 lot single family detached subdivision so as we zoom in here a little bit um you can see that there is single family residential uh use to the north and that's actually habitats Mount Charleston subdivision there's also City of Reno Fire Station number nine to the north of the project site uh to the West is the uh Sierra Nevada Job corpse Center campus to the East and to the South you have a vacant land oh uh the key issues are project design and compatibility with surrounding uses the zoning is multif family residential 30 units per acre and of course multif family 30 uh is primarily intended for multif family development however uh secondary uses that are allowed include town homes and single family residential the master plan is multif family neighborhood and here are a handful of policies that support the proposed project so in terms of project design the gross density is about 7.26 units per acre um of course with the allowable 30 units per acre uh under the zoning the site could theoretically be developed with about 90 units um the uh project is required to have 22 parking spaces the project includes approximately 50 parking spaces which uh are comprised of the uh driveway space one driveway space per unit and then 28 on Street spaces um all the streets are proposed to be public and this is similar to habitat's previously approved Mount Charleston subdivision that I pointed out earlier that's just to the north of the of the site in terms of uh continuing with project design you have 22 single family detached homes that are each less than 1250 Square ft with three or four bedrooms uh they are on Lots ranging in size from about 3,900 Square ft to about 5400 Square ft with an average lot size of about 4600 square ft um and the proposed elevations appear to meet the wall articulation requirements in code and full compliance with code design requirements will be addressed at the building permit phase continuing with project design um there are no common areas this subdivision the all of the parcel is being divided up into the public streets and within the 22 uh Lots there are no common areas Landscaping that is in the right of way as you can see there's Landscaping outside of the Lots uh that's in the ride of way that Landscaping along with uh Landscaping in this green area here which is within um sorry between the public road and the sidey Guard fence in the sidewalk um that Landscaping is the responsibility all of that Landscaping is the responsibility of the adjoining owners to maintain and those uh are addressed in conditions six and seven I also wanted to point out that there are several sidewalk waiver requests in these areas here um engineering has tentatively uh agreed to at least one of the requests but the formal requests will need to be made uh down the road and reviewed by engineering at that time moving forward to compatibility with surrounding land uses um the project is generally in character with the area including habitats Mount Charles Mount Charleston subdivision as I've pointed out a few times as well as extensive single family detached residences in town homes to the southeast and to the Southwest you may have noticed those on the vicinity map earlier uh due to the small nature of the project it's expected to have a minimal traffic impact all required parking is included on site um since it is next to uh residential we have included uh condition number eight for allowable days and hours of construction and again because it's in the vicinity of the Reno stad Airport the Reno Tahoe Airport Authority requested a a noise notification to go to each of the uh buyers and to uh be maintained uh in perpetuity notifying homeowners that they are proximate to the airport and that's condition number nine here are the recommended findings for the tenative map staff can make all recommended findings and here's the recommended motion and I'm available for questions thank you Jeff will we be getting a presentation from the applicant yes to get a very brief presentation because Jeff did a great job for the record Dave SN grve I'm planning manager of CFA Bowman here with me in the audience tonight is uh Christine price and also Kim Kim Clark with trucky Meadows Habitat for Humanity and Billy Anderson who is Project engineer and project manager with lumison Associates I'd like to just begin before I go into any slides and Jeff covered a lot of the stuff so I'll skip through some of them pretty quick but I do want to thank your staff we spent a good amount of time with Jeff and with James ferson working through some things this there were some modifications to the site plan that we worked through some issues with and made some changes kind of Midstream in consultation and and discussions with the city staff and I also want to thank the broader staff that reviewed this in other agencies most most specifically the wer County School District Kyle Chisum and Jennifer Iverson were very helpful the safe routes to school program is one of the things that we had to meet and and uh also with Lisa Lissa Butterfield with rtaa was very helpful in a lot of the conversations we had anytime you're dealing with affordable housing it's always very challenging to try and get something given that we're at $600,000 median home price we're trying to be in the 200 to 250 range so controlling some of those variables was a lot of the discussions that we had with the staff members not only with Reno but with the other agencies and I do want to let everybody know how appreciative I am of the time that they took with us and how we were able to work through some things to hopefully be able to keep the prices keep the cost down to keep the prices down for these houses so with that Jeff did a great job in covering the location um and then the zoning and master planning We Are multif Family neighborhood there is an allowance for single family within the mf30 zoning designation this one's a little bit different um this shows RTC Route 7 uh so this is directly across Mount Charleston you can see where in the upper right hand corner of the photo where the subject parcel is right across the street with the crosswalk there there's a bus stop there so people who don't have as as much money on housing may be a little bit shorter on vehicles there is a bus route very close by which uh can provide different Transportation routes to get into town obviously this will get you to different places within stad but also bring you down to city center to to get on other routes through the RTC Network you around the site I I'll just kind of cover the top top part of this we're asking for 22 single family lots for to be developed by trucky met Habitat for Humanity the target for this is to make these affordable for individuals and families who are at 60% or less of area median income and that's what I talked about earlier with housing prices so high in the area we need to get these down as low as we can to make them affordable for people who normally would not be able to get into the housing market and start to build some some Equity so that's why it it's very important and what the work that we did ahead of time with the staff and working through a lot of the issues and questions o went the wrong way Jeff mentioned the former uses on the site as former the job core uh administrative offices Google Street View actually had some of some pictures that they took that showed the old boarded up houses these have all been removed I got some photos in the next slide Christine price has been with Trucking about's Habitat for Humanity has been pursuing this property for some time she actually knows a lot of the history of kind of what was going on the deric nature of these and kind of the challenge that they presented to the neighborhood before they were entirely removed and we're we're now left with pads and then an asphalt area that was the parking lot uh for the administrative offices on the site these are pictures of the site the the buildings have been removed you've still got a private power line on there and you've got one little concrete structure there in the upper right hand and Corner photo uh Jeff ran through the site plan the all H all the houses are proposed to be below 1250 Square fet in size these are small modest houses these are starter houses these are things that people can get into and hopefully start to build some Equity where they can move up and and start to experience some successes in terms of home ownership in terms of our sidewalks Jeff mentioned that we we have some sidewalk waivers that we've talked to staff about we'll we'll be submitting waivers on those but you can see the light blue areas are existing sidewalks there actually is an existing sidewalk along the front edge of echo Avenue um but we'll be re we've got to rebuild that entire sidewalk about 80% or more of it was damaged so that's going to have to be replaced anyway so all the blue in here is proposed new sidewalks you can see the north the South connection we've got quite a few that'll go between Christian price way and Echo Avenue and then we've got East West this is actually shorter than a typical City Block between the two East West one on Eko and one on the south side of Christine price way so we've got plenty of pedestrian access just in summarizing the project we're targeting housing opportunities for lower inome individuals we've got bus mass transit route close by we've got ample pedestrian access ties into the existing sidewalk system which presents walkable opportunities desert height Elementary School and Sierra Nevada high school and with with the overall project it'll help clean up the neighborhood more specifically this property with that we're in agreement with staff's analysis and review and recommendation on the project we're in agreement with the conditions as presented and we're available for any questions you may have thank you Dave appreciate it now go to the Commissioners for disclosures uh commissioner rorer when you start us off great yeah commissioner R Meer I read and reviewed the materials and um I'm familiar with the site commissioner VTO commissioner VTO uh same disclosures commissioner Basera same disclosures commissioner Armstrong I have the same disclosures commissioner Vena same disclosures commissioner Dracula same disclosures all right we'll now open it up to public comment I'm not seeing any requests to speak forms anybody online voicemails nope no voice mails correspondents or request to speak forms okay anybody in the chambers wish to speak on this item seeing none we'll close public comment and kick it to the Commissioners for questions of Staff or the applicant commissioner v w please thanks question for the applicant hello yes for the record Dave Snellgrove um so you have the so the designation allows for 30 single family I or no um wait I'm sorry it's multif family yeah and you guys are building 22 units um and you have you could potentially build up to 90 units is what I think so why the decision to only do 22 the multifam and and trucky meows habitat for Community could speak to a better but in in terms of how they end up building they'll build one to three homes per year and that's kind of in their digestible chunk because they work with volunteer resources volunteer materials in a lot of cases building a bigger apartment unit and putting 90 units on three acres would be challenging and be largely challenging due to parking you'd pretty much either have to go Subterranean or the bottom floor would be parking it could be done but that's not in really in the mix of what Habitat for Humanity does they try and build single family individual housing i' be happy to have if Christine price had any additional comments on that yes she's nodding her head if you if I can indulge me and have Christine come up sure thank you so much for your question um it's pretty easy we build single family units for home ownership Apartments do not uh fit our model for providing safe and affordable housing for families so we have always done single families and detach single family we've done a duplex which still fited in that model because we could we could U title it separately for that but yeah that's our goal is to provide home ownership opportunities for families with yards you know and whatnot so that our model of single family uh it fits our goals and our mission much better than an apartment complex or a duplex or condos or town homes we have done one we have done one duplex so that that is something we have done uh but this particular area really lends itself to H having that separation and that home ownership and autonomy one more question sure um the sidewalks what what was the issue with the sidewalks so is it because just the being able to fit the single families on there you needed the space was a cost basis oh okay and and and a space but the the majority of it was cost I'm I'm going to turn this back to the expert on that I'll I'll I'll add to it in terms of the sidewalk on the north side of Christine PR way if we were I think it was the one that we'd lose four Lots with that yeah the the one that went and if you can bring the slide back up I can if you go to mine here okay do you have it on there it's one with the blue lines on it well okay no yeah I don't have that one so on on the North side where he's got that first uh orange one yeah that doesn't have a sidewalk on that side if we add a sidewalk into that right away it gets rid of enough width that we can't get those top four units anymore so in terms this is a big issue in terms of trying to get more density on the site which you were talking about at first it allows for 90 we're proposing 22 adding that additional 5 foot for the sidewalk actually takes away from where we can't get the number of lots on there that can help reduce the overall cost of the project to help them meet the 200 to $250,000 price range so what Christine said that yeah it was a cost basis issue it's actually a space basis issue too for us we have a lot of pedestrian access both east to west that I showed and also north to south that not having a sidewalk on one side of the street given that this is a very light area there's not going to be that many cars that travel through here there's other routes so it's going to be the people primar living in here and you might have six seven eight Lots worth of cars that come by it and think about a small neighborhood area there aren't that many Vehicles driving on the street so feel that that's it's a very safe option okay and then one more question the uh underground so it said new electric do you guys suspect that there's going to have to be new um electrical I think it said electrical lines and if there are they're going to have to be underground is that that is that is a code requirement that's one we can't get away from all the new electric we have to put underground there is an existing power line there and that's going to be completely removed right Billy it's the existing overhead line comes in and it previously served those Administrative Office is actually a private line it's not it's not an Envy energy owned line it was Private that went in and just serve the old job core offices that overhead line will be removed and all the new utilities will be undergrounded per City Cod okay great thanks that's all uh commissioner dra quick question um impressed with this so you said it's going to be around two to 250 for the purchase price that's what they're targeting and at 1250 so we had like 200 bucks a foot I think the math I think your Math's right how did how did you do that I'm just impressed I'm just more or less wanting to be educated on that that I'll have I'll have Christine talk about how the magic gets made and you don't have to go into length you know too in depth but just curious so our program is designed to build with volunteers so we reduce the majority of the cost that normal Builders have because we're using volunteers donations of both material and skill uh and that's basically how we keep that cost down uh as well as we'll eat some you know I I mean the the duplexes we just finished because of the cost of the extra wood and the the price of wood and windows and whatnot um we didn't hit our Target uh on that and so as an organization we still made sure that it was affordable for the homeowners so we we ate the the overage on that you know we're always trying to you know to get donations the more we can the better we can do on the houses the better we can do for the for the individuals but either way even if we exceed that in co building costs um I hate to even say that out loud but uh we will keep the homes will be affordable they will be in that 2 250 range for those homeowners so that it is Affordable for them and they're zero interest so that's the other thing that makes it affordable for this for these groups Bravo okay appreciate that notably for my fellow Commissioners I've never heard of a house being built for less than 400 a foot recently so it's massive anyway sorry I'll give it away to other Commissioners commissioner B please sure just a question for Jeff I believe it's probably for you I was just curious um on June 10th the Reno Tahoe Airport Authority had requested that a um noise reducing material be incorporated into the building and then some weeks later they I think retracted that recommendation in favor of like information pamplets and just curious um how that aligns with building code or the acceptable standards of staff so and and uh Dave snow grve can actually speak to this a little bit more directly in terms of the communication with rtaa that that uh he went through but effectively because um I mean I'll say procedurally because they came forward with a an updated letter that they were fine with just the noise notification um that we were willing of course to then take that more recent up uh you know recommendation and apply that in terms of a condition of approval versus the previous letter that had requested the uh air conditioning um and the building uh materials so um the the ultimately the the the project still complies with code um with without the uh air conditioning and the and the building material upgrades if you will um so anyway but Dave do you wanna yeah be happy could you bring my my presentation back up I do have a slide in my extra slides here that I could go to yeah I had a good conversation with Lissa Butterfield um and tried to address this in the initial application materials let me go down to the pretty colored Maps there we go okay so you have the airport noise overlay uh that affects a lot of the area instead and then over to the right is one of the national Transportation noise contour maps I had identified on here where the approximate location of the site is and we're in the 50 to 54.9 D reading just exterior noise level kind of in the middle of that so we might be in the 51 52 range in what they would anticipate noises from the airport one the airport's not used that frequently and with the air races going it's used less frequently they do have operations out there and Lista caution me that they like when there's a big fire they will run some air uh air equipment from out of that at times it can get noisy having been someone that grew up under the air under the flight path of March Air Force Base outside of Riverside I know what it's like and I know what the military base especially can can have in terms of noise and my parents didn't believe in the use of air conditioning we had it but we didn't use it very frequently so I know that there are times that it can be uncomfortable and we have been going through a heat wave here recently but it's usually pretty short during the year getting back to what I said initially controlling some of those variables and some of those costs helps them get to the 200 250 range I would love to be able to say yeah we' we'd love to have all this stuff in here but quite frankly the exterior noise levels the interior noise requirement is at 49 DB we're one you know maybe 3 or 4 DB over at the outside noise level so I wasn't seeing the Nexis of this is definitely required here the farther you get away from the airport there's less justification to say yes you definitely need to have that if we were in the red or the or the pink areas be a little harder argument to make when we get into the you know 60 to 69 deel range because we're right on The Fringe with the outside noise level and we just have to get a few lower the walls and the windows are going to help do that if somebody does have their windows open in the evening it's going to be infrequent this isn't like living around the Reno Tahoe International Airport where you've got flights at different times of the day and night and they're pretty regular this would be sporadic and yes there are times that be woken up I had that with March Air Force Space and I get it but there are also ways to manage the coolness in your house and keep keep it a little bit cooler through the daytime as well I have my own personal examples of that with my mother-in-law's house that's has no air conditioning and we've stayed there and during 100 plus days and there's ways we we had it where it Max it got up to it was 82 during the day closing your windows blinds there's ceiling fans there's box fans there's all sorts of other ways that you can help cool things off so I Jeff told me that this may end up coming up as one of the discussion points I appreciate the question and I hope that you understand appreciate the answer and what we're trying to accomplish great thank you Dave thank you commissioner perer if I can just follow up from a code perspective um our code does provide for additional um requirements building requirements for properties within the noise overlay specifically of the Reno Tahoe International Airport just as an example um where we kind of cut the line is at the 65 DBA level in the noise contour and as Mr sow indicated this is below that so even if if this was near the Reno Tahoe International for example we still would not require these supplemental um building measures okay so it's it's not in conflict with our code the way it's written okay thank you commissioner rorer didn't want to forget about you you want to chime in uh no questions here thank you okay great I have a a question I didn't understand kind of what was happening so can you the if I'm understanding correctly the airport noise in order to get the new CH the changes we eliminated air conditioning is that did I understand that correctly I'm confused the rtaa initially went to and they issued a letter that identified that we'd need to do have an acoustic analysis done which cost money and and quite frankly I didn't feel it was necessary because we're at an exterior noise level by their own mapping that shows us just marginally above to the the interior levels also they initially put on that air conditioning would be required typically you'd end up seeing that in or around an airport but as as uh planning manager R mentioned that if you even if you were by the Reno Tahoe International Airport and you were below a certain level in your noise Contour it wouldn't be required so the air I'm I don't understand how those two is it because the the pollution no it's not the pollution it's it's noise levels interior to the house yeah and if people have their windows open there's ways to cool off we have we get wild swings here at 40 to 50° between day and nighttime temperatur so at night you can cool a house off very well and effectively and with fans it it comes even more but if you had the windows open let's say during the middle of the night at 2 a. and they they fly some planes over fighting a fire or something like that yeah it's a little noisier at those single instances but they're not frequent coming from RE so there were so initially when you proposed that there were no AC so there's still no AC but we there's the option for homeowners to in put put AC's down the road they there's swamp coolers there are ceiling fans there's box fans there's all sorts of ways that you can do it and just managing the coolness in your house during the daytime shutting all your blind shutting all your windows turning off the the lights really helps um so managing appropriately and then fans when it is cooler to draw that cooler are in really helps the cool house off as well well and obviously the big point of this was to be able to keep these affordable but again there is the option for homeowners in the future future homeowners to be able to you know they can add cooling devices on certainly absolutely okay great thank you would we like to move into to discussion or entertain a motion commissioner V sure happy to entertain a motion [Music] um let me um just find it here for a sec I'll try to make our uh former commissioner uh m is proud of us by referencing the case number in the matter of case lc24 d56 based upon compliance with the applicable findings I move to approve the tenative map subject to the conditions listed in the staff report and I can make the findings we have a motion commissioner Bel do it again commissioner belto all second we have motion and second any further discussion all in favor i i i u motion passes unly thank you good luck y'all thank you for doing this all right closing 4.2 moving on to 4.3 case number LDC 24- 000057 Ortiz residence looks like we'll get another presentation from what was your name again okay good evening once again Jeff Foster associate planner for the record I remember it a second time um the second case that I'm bringing you tonight uh one of my colleagues earlier today was joking that this is the Jeff show tonight so anyway um so I'm bringing you LDC 2457 which is the Ortiz residence so this is a project on the north side of Huff acre west of uh Virginia in 395 as you can see here uh the site is approximately 3.62 Acres uh it's developed with a single family residence that was built in somewhere approximately uh 1873 um and it also includes several out buildings a garage a milk uh barn and a hay shed uh the request before you tonight is an alternative equivalent compliance I'm going to shorten that to aec uh when I move forward here um specifically for two things one is to deviate from the required front yard setback and two is to locate a new principal structure to the rear of an existing accessory structure I did want to point out that the Planning Commission this body approved a variance in December of 2020 for the exact same requests underneath a variance instead of an alternative equivalent compliance as aec's were not available at that point in time okay um the building permit was approved for that project uh but it was never issued and it subsequently expired um and the owner recently applied for a building permit and was flagged for needing to obtain a new entitlement and that's why they're here before you tonight so the structures that I mentioned earlier the historic house the garage the hay shed and The Milk Barn shown here in the foreground um uh the proposed location of the new main house uh there off to the left in the back and you'll see that from a different Vantage Point here Vantage Point here in a minute I mean I use the word historic not officially the the structure is not officially designated as historic but due to its age it qualifies as historic in nature and that's why we use the the the historic reference so in terms of the key issues um we are dealing with code compliance and compatibility with the surrounding Dev development pattern um as we zoom in here you can see single family residences to the north and to the east you have another single family residence to the South um along with agricultural land and a single family residence and um a vacant land to the uh West as you can see in this area uh the surrounding development pattern is largely is sorry is generally large homes on large Lots with large setbacks um it's essentially generally uh rural in character the zoning district is large lot residential 2 and a half acres and the master plan is large lot neighborhood um and here are policies that support the proposed request so in terms of Code Compliance um we have two code sections that we are looking at first of all 1804 903 A5 A1 requires the front yard setback of any new principal structure to be generally consistent with the front yard setback of existing structures on on either side and as you can see the existing primary residence off to the left this the setback from the front property line to that structure is approximately the same as the setback from Huff acre to the structure uh on the parcel to the east so it is currently in conformance with that code section the second uh code section is 1804 903 a5b which says that on Lots with a principal single family use accessory structures are prohibited in the area between the front property line and the principal structure so um I'm going to address the second code section uh that I just talked about first on this slide so um the applicant proposes construction of a new single family principal sing uh dwelling on the rear half of the site they plan to retain and restore the existing single family dwelling in its current location and to convert it to a detached guest Court guest quarters and other detached accessory structures will be located in the front yard of the new principal dwelling the applicant has stated that to meet code the buildable area for the new structure that they would like to build will not suffice without first demolishing the existing single family home which due to its historic and intrinsic Family Value um is undesirable so as we move to 1804 903 a5b approval of the aec would facilitate maintaining the neighborhood character and consistency by preserving existing structures and strategically locating the new structure to the rear of the existing structure and you can see the uh gold arrow that I put up there that's where that new structure would be located screened behind uh the existing single family home since code does not allow uh in this Zone uh multif family or accessory dwelling units we have included condition number five that requires the existing single family home to be converted to a guest quarters guest quarters are not adus because they do not contain separate and independent uh cooking I.E kitchen facilities uh and may not be rented so they are not dwelling units this same condition was included in the previously approved variants from December of 2020 um and the applicant has agreed to convert the existing single family home to an accessory dwelling or sorry a guest quarters not accessory dwelling that's what we don't want them to um so to convert it to a guest quarters um and they have also agreed to the guest quarters use specific standards that we have in code in terms of the compatibility with the surrounding development pattern um many of the surrounding large lot residential 2 and a half acre Parcels have large single family residences and detached accessory structures similar to this project in fact the two Parcels directly across the street uh to the South have detached accessory structures that are effectively in the front yard and I do have a slide that I can show you that later if you'd like uh again back to the code section that we're looking at 1804 903 A5 A1 um there would be a 33 foot wide approximately 33 foot wide buildable area in which the new primary residence could be located without demolishing the existing historic family dwelling and that 33 ft uh wide buildable are area is benchmarked in relation to the home to the uh East as you can see here that 33t wide buildable envelope would not accommodate the desired home um and requiring the existing residents to be demolished is counterintuitive and we feel staff feels that the strict application of the code creates a practical difficulty and undue hardship on the applicant approval of the a of the aec would allow the applicant to place their new home uh at the rear of the property to maintain the current appearance of the structures along the front and conserving these historic structures align with the broader Community Values of historic sorry of Heritage and cultural preservation and I think that this is backed up by several support comments that came in previously for the variance and then also more recently for this aec request um and I do have a slide showing where all the all of those folks are who support this request if you'd like to see that as well here are the recommended findings for the aec staff can make all the recommended findings and here's the recommended motion and I'm available for questions thank you Jeff looks like we'll get a presentation from the applicants representative good evening Planning Commission Brooke Oswald with the ett group I'm representing uh Tom and Carrie Ortiz tonight the owners of the property just going over the context and location Jeff did a an excellent job of going over that but I'll go through it quickly uh this is 395 and huffaker Lane as we come and the the project site as we come in a little bit closer I think what we can look between the two of these is really that context and character I just want to reiterate that of this area as you can see up against 395 we have much denser uh buil pattern and as we move out uh to that County Land uh we're seeing those larger Lots uh those are being rebuilt uh with uh newer homes bigger homes on those we're also seeing almost a green belt along there because of those large setbacks and that's really Des desirable context and and character of that area additionally we're seeing that uh this is in the sphere of influence which means it's not in the City of Reno but it is under the jurisdiction of the City of Reno but this is a great transition area with those 2.5 acres that it's transitioning to those larger County lots too so it's playing good with the neighbor uh project site there as you can see there's a number of structures on there and I think this photo zooming in a little bit more you can see the context of the surrounding neighborhoods of those larger homes and they're being pushed back in and you're almost seeing a clustering happen even though it's not on a tentative map or purposeful they're moving those homes in closer to preserve that outer open space area uh going over this once again this was a variance that was approved in 22 uh 2020 uh it expired as we know 2020 was a really interesting time for us all and life and things going on at that point and so unfortunately they didn't get the extension it expired they do currently have a new building permit uh that came in uh this was flagged that it was um expired now that variance has much had much harder findings and the aec is really a more a more appropriate tool and a great tool specific to this instance to use in this and and uh glad that it's com in with some of our newer code updates um it's that deviation from the front yard setback and locating the primary structure to the rear accessory I think Jeff did a great job of showing the code sections how we were deviate from that but how we actually create a better situation by doing so over to the left you can see the historic uh structures those being 1873 even though they're not on a register any sort of register anything in the City of Reno over 50 years is considered historic and is documented in in a demolition case or something like that and these These Old Farm building is this rural nature really is part of our character and our heritage here in Reno so once again looking at this is a few additional slides looking at this so now you can see the existing structures are there and as Jeff outlined they would most likely have to be demolished to bring in the new home home so that's bringing that large mass of that new home up in the front there now if we look this would be the the second so it would be the removal of those homes and moving the home to the rear and really as you bring that in in the front you can see that that those existing structure start to mass that that larger newer structure in the back this also isn't showing there's a number of uh there's a lot of mature landscape in this area too you're seeing large trees you have a hillside there there's some topography that really starts to screen that and you're not seeing a big drastic change uh from the street view or as you're going down uh Huff Acre Lane uh just to go quickly over the Zone youo master plan Jeff did that um those large lottin neighborhoods really provide that opportunity to preserve the rural character of the existing neighborhoods in the City of Reno in the sphere of influence that's straight from our master plan um once again those masterb policies being contact sensitive really we're we're making a modification for our true code because if we applied code it actually kind of goes against a lot of those larger policies that we have as a city that historic preservation and then as I went over the the natural features and the neighborhood character that is there that this this option really preserves that with that I'll uh available for questions and then the applicants are also here to if you have specific questions related to the historic structures or their intricate value to their family please feel free to ask them thank you thank you bro appreciate it all right we go to the Commissioners for disclosures commissioner villan AA please commissioner Villa no disclosures commissioner Armstong no disclosures commissioner verer read and reviewed the materials and I'm familiar with the site or location commiss Vol same disclosures commissioner rer same disclosures commissioner Dracula I I do believe we got a comment from the NAB did I get that right so one email came in last minute and uh other than that I'm familiar with the area all right with that said we'll open up to public comment anybody online requested speak forms do you have someone no one online no request to speak forms we did receive correspondence that was forwarded to the Planning Commission and entered into the record okay great thank you anybody in the chambers wish to speak on this item seeing none we will close public comment and open it up to the Commissioners for questions of Staff or the applicant's representative commissioner Villa I have a question for staff can you go over the differences between I think you said a guests guest quarters and then an Adu so effectively the the the one difference um is the presence or absence of a kitchen okay so a guest quarters cannot have a full kitchen you you can have a microwave you can have a you know Hot Plate you know that kind of thing you can't have a stove that that's what constitutes a kitchen or a cooking facility and therefore would there make it a full dwelling unit so they're in agreement to remove what a a kitchen in there they in agreement to remove uh the kitchen to make it a guest quarters correct what's what's a policy reason for H I mean for having it not be uh for having it be a guest quarters and not a a what is it ad Adu yeah yeah so it's it's simply the fact there's two things right one is that the zoning does not allow multif family so if you had two dwelling full dwelling units that would be multif family okay um and then the second thing is that adus are not not allowed also and so between an a the prohibition against adus and the prohibition against a second principal dwelling on the property under that zone that automatically precludes having that unit M or that existing residence be maintained as a full residential unit so if I mean we are considering having adus come into the picture at some point in the future this that would potentially I don't know how that's going to play out but that could potentially eliminate the need for them to have to remove a kitchen or an Adu um so is that are there thoughts I guess this is for the applicant but would there be thoughts to hold off until that I mean I guess they can do whatever they want but I figured I mean I'd hate to it doesn't make any sense to me to have just to remove the it does it does feel like a bit of an artificial construct um to require them to do that um it does bring them into compliance with code again this was a condition that came from the variance in 2020 it's exact same condition um and they have agreed to it having said that based on the timing if they did want to hold off and you know wait till the code update um if adus end up being allowed that is something that would be would grant them flexibility okay great thank you commissioner belto um sorry on one is there any way to put a condition or something uh on our approval that would be consistent with commissioner vill noa's concerns that in the future if this were if adus were to be permitted they would automatically get that like that requirement would go away I I think yes you could potentially Wordsmith the existing condition just to add a caveat that that it would go away the the the alternative is um they could apply for a minor modification um you know at that point in time and that's a simple quick administrative process to remove that condition um so in either in either way however you want to approach that we can we can definitely work with that you you say simple and quick I mean are we talking like a phone call or no no it it I just processed one last week it I got it on Monday and it was out the door on Friday so I mean a week or less to to get something like that out the door can we just check with the do you care about what we're discussing or is this no perfect no no offense no it's our you know the home's been in our oh please yeah or I guess to it's fine yeah good evening Carrie Ortiz um the home's been in our family for five plus generations and we really just care about maintaining the historic Integrity so and my husband Tom and I live there now and it's not um I mean it's a really old home it's quaint and cute but no it'll be a guest quarters and if that did come to be where adus are allowed that'd be something new to think about but as of now we're just looking forward to staying there until we build our new home and then we'll remove the small oven we plugged in and so awesome well thank you so much thank you question thank you commissioner v no well uh I was origin going to kind of bring up what commissioner V NOA brought up and then VTO and if we are going to make an a a condition on the condition I would just say write it in and remove the phone call just kind of like um if adus did come into the picture where they're allowed then that just kind of supersedes uh the condition right makes the CL the condition null and void if you will right and it leaves it to the owner to make that decision if they wanted to remove it or not in the end just my thoughts there okay commissioner vmire don't want to forget about you yeah I don't have a question for the applicant or um staff I do have sort of a discussion around policy but it's in line with what the other Commissioners have brought up so I guess when we go to discussion go for it okay well I would say that this is an interesting example of why we should have an Adu ordinance um although I think the alternative equivalency tool is a good you know thing to have to be going through something that seems rather arbitrary uh when a we're talking about a three and a half acre parcel and not allowing a second dwelling that has a stove um I feel like this is an overstep I and and I'm I feel like this is an over step and that the Adu ordinance is really designed to give Property Owners flexibility usually it's a tool for affordability in this case it's a tool for exclusivity um so here we're seeing both ends of the spectrum and so this is why I strongly and emphatically believe in an Adu ordinance for the City of Reno so that we don't have cases like this every single time um a historic property comes up thank you we kind of slid into disc discussion does anybody else have any questions and we can keep discussion going or entertain a motion happy to make a motion but but sure oh perfect uh in the matter of case number LDC 24- 000057 based upon compliance with the applicable findings uh I move to approve the request for alternative equivalent compliance subject to the conditions except that in the event accessory dwelling units are permitted the applicant will no longer be required to modify the existing residence on their property we have a motion commissioner I'm strong second okay we motion is second uh discussion on the addition to the that commissioner VTO made any concerns from fellow Commissioners with that commissioner rer NOP nope okay we have a first and a second all in favor I I any opposed hearing none motion passes unanimously good luck with your project thanks for keeping that property up all right closing item 4.3 moving to item five trucky Meadows Regional planning liaison report was the winner here I didn't attend the last Chucky Meadows uh planning meeting so I don't think I would be the best person to I was present the Le also absent okay I believe that was actually me oh well there we go yeah uh uh we had a presentation on some of the uh can Poli Regional policy recommendations they're uh uh Drafting and really those those recommendations are some that they mention they're going to bring forth before this Chambers I think in September or October is that right uh Mike and so we will have more on that in the coming months that was it great yep thank you closing item five item six staff announcements uh good evening just a few announcements as we mentioned at our last meeting you all know that the ranch Hera Village 7 tened map was appealed um that hearing was postponed and will be heard by the city council on the 31st of this month um so we'll bring you an update at your uh August 7th meeting on that Additionally the EnV energy conditional use permit for the power line Corridor that was appealed by Envy energy in Hines Ranch which is stonate um that appeal will be heard by the Council on August 28th so we'll bring you updates after that as well um I think we've all noticed that commissioner Muno is not with us tonight his term has expired um in speaking with the city clerk's office um they hope to have the appointment on the city council agenda sometime either um most likely on the 31st of this month for a new appointment so we'll have a new commissioner coming on in August um lastly uh development services staff is going to bring back some Department updates and kind of overall status updates to where we're at with code updates and things are occurring in the department we will wait till the new member is appointed so that we have the full board available for those but that'll be coming up most likely in September and when's our next meeting August 7th ours is 7th okay so three weeks out great closing item number six moving on to item number seven commissioner suggestions for future agenda items commissioner valto if in the future there's not going to be another commissioner I'd like to sit closer to commissioner Basera motion granted is that the right answer there well I would comment that that's actually commissioner RM seat so you might have to that's a good point that's a good point all right all right closing item seven moving to item eight public comment this item is for either public comment on any action item or for any general public comment call and crew any voicemails zooms no voicemails request to speak forms or correspondence all right anybody in this empty chambers wish to speak on public comment seeing no humans in the crowd we will close item number eight and move to item number nine for adjournment can I get a motion so move so move all right all in favor sorry I great all right have a good night y'all