Council member Eert absent at this time. Council member Reese here. Council member Anderson here. Mayor Shivy absent at this time. Madame Vice Mayor, you do have a quorum of the Reno City Council. Thank you, Madame Clerk. And we will Do you want to do our public comment first or our proclamations? Let's go ahead and do our proclamations. Sounds good. Um, our first proclamation is to celebrate Arbor Day and we have our parks and wreck team here. And madame vice mayor, just for the record, we do have Mayor Shivi on Zoom. Great. Thank you. Good morning, Mayor. Good morning. Hi, Matt. Morning every urban forester for the record. Um, here to read the proclamation for Arbor Day. Whereas Arbor Day is dedicated to the planting of trees in our community in order to promote a sustainable environment and bolster our quality of life. And whereas national surveys have shown that parks and open spaces are essential to the physical and mental well-being of adults in the United States. And whereas trees are important to the quality of life as they remove carbon dioxide, filter air pollutants, cut costs for heating and cooling, and increase property value while providing other environmental benefits. And whereas the city of Reno has been recognized as a Tree City USA by the National Arbor Day Foundation each year since 1982 and will celebrate its 42nd year as a Tree City USA, the longest a city in the state of Nevada has held such a title. And whereas the city of Reno is committed to planting new trees and expanding its tree canopy through the Relief Reno program by sponsoring a tree planting event at Virginia Lake Park and Robin Hood Park in partnership with Keeping Truckucky Meadows Beautiful. Now therefore, I, Matt Basil, on behalf of Hillary Elvi, mayor of the city of Reno, Nevada, do hereby declare Friday, April 25th, 2025 Arbor Day. and in and for the city of Reno. I encourage all citizens to plant and care for trees in our community and support the city's urban forestry program. Thank you very much. Thank you, Matt. All right. [Music] One two three. Perfect. Um, madame may vice mayor, before we move on, if I could just also make a comment. Yes. Um, I'm the liaison to urban forestry commission have been for going on 11 years and I just want to compliment the work that um, our parks department does. um Matt Basil in particular, our urban forester, and also the urban forestry commission who show up month after month to advocate for trees. Um we've had a variety of people on there over the 11 years, but um they they are true advocates for our city. And apparently just today there was a I've got uh several people sent me this um uh there was an article by in the Wall Street Journal about trees and um it says that um apparently people have sent to me from the Washington Post that we're we're barely keeping even. And in fact, they show we're losing trees and um despite our focus on relief Reno and despite our tree planting events, I know we lost had to cut down a lot of trees recently at Virginia Lake. Is that right, Matt? If if you could just address that and Council Member Ber, we have a very long day today, so I'm wondering if we can keeping in my minutes. I I'm part of this commission, so I just No, I know. We just have other uh things that we need to get to. Thank you. Well, I just wanted Matt if he could say why we're planting at Virginia Lake because trying to get as many people out there, including the council members. So, if you could just tell us, uh, you recently cut down, I think, 50 plus trees. Sure. So, we recently removed 32 trees from Virginia Lake. Okay. Um, trees that are approximately 100 years old and have started to decline and um, fall apart. So, we needed to remove those for safety reasons. Uh we also pruned um 124 trees at Virginia Lake Park over the past month. Um but uh this um on Friday we'll be planting four new trees as well as about 45 trees at Virginia Lake Park on Saturday with the help of volunteers from Keeping Truckucky Meadows Beautiful. Right. All right. Thank you, Matt. I just wanted to get that message out there. Thank you while you're here. Thank you. Good event. Thank you for all the work that you do. And then our second proclamation is uh community development week, housing and neighborhood development. Thank you. Good morning. Corey Fischer, housing manager for the record. Whereas for over 40 years, the city of Reno and its housing and neighborhood development department have administered CDBG program funds to make a positive impact on the city and its residents. It remains committed to creating a sustainable and dignified quality of urban life by leveraging federal dollars to promote fair, safe, and affordable housing, assistance for the unstably housed and homeless, establishing critical infrastructure, making public facility improvements, and delivering quality public services. And whereas the CDBG program is a valuable program that has made significant contributions that benefit low to moderate income individuals and households by supporting these infrastructure initiatives. The members of our community impacted include older adults, people with disabilities, those experiencing chronic or frequent homelessness, and at risk youth. And whereas the CDBG program effectively seeks solutions that expand economic opportunity and social services in our community through private and public partnerships and that address prioritized needs and as identified through community community input. Now therefore, I Corey Fischer on behalf of Hillary L. Shivy, mayor of the city of Reno, do hereby declare April 21st through 25th, 2025 community development week. Great work. Thank you so much, Corey. Do you and your team want to come up and grab a picture? One two three. Perfect. [Applause] So many good things at the city of Reno. And now we'll move into public comment. Yes, madame vice mayor. Our first item today is general public comment. Members of the public may hear, observe, and provide public comment virtually by registering through the following link, which can be found on reno.gov/meings. https colon slash slashl i n ks period ren o period go ov c o u n c i l04-23. It should be noted for those in the a in attendance that comments are to be addressed to the mayor and council as a whole. Comments heard under this item will be limited to three minutes per person and may pertain to matters both on and off the council's agenda. Council may not take action upon any matter not agendaized on today's agenda. When you're 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. For those participating in chambers in accordance with council rules 6.3.11 while in this room, please be respectful. Disruptive behavior from audience members like clapping, yelling, whistling, etc. which impede the meeting, may result in a warning issued by the presiding officer. If the behavior continues, you may be removed from chambers. If you're an attendee in the Zoom meeting, would like to make public comment, please raise your hand at this time. And madame vice mayor, for the record, we do have council member Eert on remotely at 10:10. Our first public commenter today is Terry Brooks, followed by Jerry Myths, followed by Jerry I'm sorry, followed by Jared Areni. Good morning. Welcome. Yeah, good morning. It's me, Terry Brooks again. And today I'd like to share with you my thoughts on retirement and mental activity and what seniors have to go through. When you worked at your job, you had to think about what you were doing. But when you're retired, you don't have to think about what you're no longer doing. You probably looked forward to retiring so you wouldn't have to work anymore. But spending a day with nothing to do could be a bit of a bore. After getting up and eating breakfast, you might want to watch TV. But it doesn't take much mental activity to think about what you see. So you might wind up watching game shows that will inspire you to think right, like Wheel of Fortune or Jeopardy or The Price is Right. It's not only your body that needs exercise, but our brain needs exercise, too. We need to think our way through every day to decide what we ought to do. I'm a retired librarian, so I'm sort of addicted to books. I'm always hungry for more information. So, I'm always reading more books. And after reading a lot, I can't help but take the time to grab a pen and paper and write rhyme after rhyme. There are several local youth senior centers that not only provide physical activity, but they also provide games for a lot of mental activity. And when seniors meet at such places for physical and mental activity, they enjoy being with each other and experience more social activity. When they get together and play games with each other, they not only have a lot of fun, but they learn a lot from each other. Our brains are a lot like trees that are always growing branches. And then those branches wind up growing even more branches. After I get through reading this another one of my rhymes, I think about what I'll write when I'm here in future times. I would like to thank you all for listening to me today and I look forward to coming back when I've learned what I should say. Thank you. Jerry Myths, followed by Jared Areni, followed by Kaylee Brown. yourself. Okay. 6211. We have a Vietnam vet here. Welcome home, son. Good boy. Lord, help me. Well, good morning, city council. My name is Jerry the pizza manif. Um, Hillary, you're getting smaller. Um, Devin, good to see you. Mr. Martinez, nice to see you, sir. Please accept my humblest apologies for my demeanor in the past. Something um has occurred in my life that's helped me turn over a new leaf. Sort of. Um, my son, who loves his dad very much, called me up and said, "Dad, um, I'm bumping you down the priority list. I have a woman that I love." I go, "Oh, is that right?" Um then he took me out to dinner, him and Chelsea, and um at the Atlantis, and in front of all these people in the restaurant, he hands me a t-shirt that says the grandfather. I am now going to become a grandfather. Joe, I I know you're going to watch this. Um, I I'm so proud of you, you and Chelsea. Um, you're I said, "You're the man of the family now." Then he told me, "Dad, go in the corner and do old." I go, "What the hell are you talking about?" Um, but but hearing those words, um it just I had to I had to change my approach in public because my legacy is important. Um, that little girl's name is going to be Maya Grace. This is crazy. Um, I'm I'm so [Laughter] happy. I said I wouldn't get emotional. I don't want you to see me like that. I want you to remember the guy with fire coming out of this rear end. Um, no. Um, I just think that, um, there's still things to be done. You know, my focus has been, my fellow seniors, anything that you can do within your community, your churches, go to the rest homes, bring your kids. They have a story for you. They're lonely. They're depressed. They're forgotten. They're the most accomplished. But we're still here and we're not done yet. There's Brian over there. Anyway, thank you so much for your time. [Music] Jared Aragini, followed by Kaylee Brown, followed by Kim Fleming. Good morning. My name is Jared Arajini. I'm the owner of JAM Entertainment, but today I'm actually here on behalf of the Reno Sparks Chamber of Commerce leadership class. Um, I am a part of the leadership program this particular year and I come with six other people. Would it be okay if we all came together at one time? We'll save you 21 minutes later. So, come on up. Come on up. I'm going to go ahead and let them introduce themselves. Jessica Sales for the record. Hi, Ashley Radkkey for the record. Paige Zelden. Good morning, Shauna Carpenter, and thank you for your commitment to our community. I have my own time. I'll let you talk and then you'll come back. Okay, Joe. Hi, Kaylee Brown for the record. Kim Fleming for the record. Thank you. We just want to say number one, thank you so much for all you guys do to stay up here and really just listen to all this. Props to you all. Uh thank you for what you do to the community both in here and out on the streets. It's an opportunity. We've had to go down to legislature to see some of that in action to come and see this in action and and we're just excited to be a part of the leadership of the Sparks and Reno Chamber to see kind of what's happening on the inside. So from I think from our leadership class to you, thank you for what you do. You probably don't get that very often. Um and I this is my first public comment ever. So to be here and sit and somehow get to be the spokesman, yay me. but uh to be here and to really just kind of sit there and I know that some of them have do have individuals times that they want to relegate. I do have since I have a minute and 30 seconds left and I don't want to maximize it too much. We would love as a leadership class to get a picture with you guys if that's a possibility if that's okay. Of course. Okay. Can I don't know how to do this. Do a selfie. We all come together. Yeah. Come and you tell us. I know you're Madame Mayor. We'll send some We'll send uh Lauren will come up and take the photo. Love that. Thank you so much. We have a minute. We had a minute and 12 seconds. So, one. Oops. Count. One, two, three. Okay. And then I'll do mine. So, you're looking at me. Uh, one, two, three. [Music] Jared, be careful. Uh, 25 years ago about I was in your leadership class cohort and then you end up here someday. So, be careful what you trying to make me a lobbyist. It happens. Kaylee Brown, followed by Kim Fleming, followed by Paige Zoldan. Good morning, city council. Um, again, my name is Kaylee Brown, coming as a representative of the Reno Sparks Chamber of Commerce leadership class. Um, as well as a healthcare professional for the last 13 years in Northern Nevada. Uh, I'm here in strong support of the city of Reno's ADU ordinances. Um, safe, affordable housing isn't just a policy issue, it's a public health priority and a social necessity. In Wo County alone, we face a shortage of over 14,000 affordable housing units. According to the CDC, housing is one of the key social determinants of health, influencing everything from chronic disease to mental well-being. In fact, individuals who struggle with housing and stability are two to three times more likely to experience depression and other serious health conditions. Adus or accessory dwelling units offer a practable, scalable solution. They not only provide flexible living arrangements, but studies have shown they could increase property values by 20% or more while still preserving neighborhood character. And just as importantly, they reduce social isolation. Whether it's seniors aging in place, we had some representation there that warm my heart. Um or young adults just starting out, ADUs keep families and communities well connected, which is something we need now more than ever. Um I'm proud of this ordinance and the work you're doing. The ordinance supports health, equity, and growth. Um, and I hope to participate in helping us all move forward together. Thank you. Kim Fleming, followed by Steven White, followed by David Shakar. Good morning, Mayor She and Council. Uh, my name is Kim Fleming. I work with Waste Management. You're used to working with Kendra, so I'm one of I am one of her counterparts. just want to say thank you so much again for having our leadership class here today. Um, and thank you for all that you do. So, thank you very much. Steven White, followed by David Shakar, followed by Shauna Carpenter. Good morning, Mayor. Good morning, city council members. Are you remembering to take care of the bunnies? Of course. Okay. I got to get on your case, folks. I hope you all read State Assembly Bill 351. You know who's responsible for that? Me. You know who's responsible for all the municipal codes now protect artists here in your city? Me and the mayor. You know who's responsible for the landmark ruling from the Ninth Circuit that defines the first amendment rights of artists? Me. Now, I think I've laid a pretty darn good foundation for rebuilding the fine arts and community participation in the arts, not only here in Nevada, but in and in Reno, but throughout the country. Now, I'm reading number nine and number 10 here. You people are getting ready are actually considering spending $375,000 between two artists to buy two sculptures to plunk down in a couple of plazas. What have you done in the last 20 years to promote art in the park? Have you built any venues in the parks where artists can come down and hang their paintings on a panel? Have you done anything to open up opportunities to to educate people about this constitutional right about this right that's guaranteed by state law to be able to sell their artwork in the public parks? And why not? For $375,000, my god people, you could fund an entire art program for all the kids in your schools. You could build panels and and promote the arts and community participation amongst all your senior citizens and provide opportunities for thousands of artists in your community. Not to mention that these two artists you're getting ready to hand this money over to, one of them's from Seattle, the other one's from New York. They don't even reside here. That's not reflective of the art and culture of the city of Reno. I got an idea for you. Contact the Reno Historical Society over at Bartlett Ranch. They got a beautiful Chisum ice cream wagon all restored along with photographs of that wagon delivering ice cream here in Reno in in 1912, I believe it was. Get that and put it in the plaza. People learn from it. Kids will love it when they come and see it. And they'll they'll go, "Wow, that's part of the art and the the culture of of Reno and part of your western heritage. stick that in the it cost you maybe a couple thousand dollar. How about the historical society just, you know, loan it to you or give it to you, you know, but what are you going to do to start promoting community participation in the arts and providing opportunities for all the artists in your community instead of wasting $375,000 on a couple of sculptures from artists from out of town? God bless you all. Good to see you again, Mayor. Thank you. David Shakar, followed by Ashley Radkkey, followed by Sam Gtle. Good morning, madame mayor, honored city council members, city clerk, and Carl Hall and staff. My name is David Shakar. I'm an independent artist. And uh I just want to thank the city council for making art legal. In April of 2014, Hillary Shivy with uh the previous administration and this big burly mountain man here, uh Steve White through his landmark civil rights of artist case. If there's anybody that's an artist, you need to write down White versus City of Sparks. The actual citation is uh 9th Circuit 2007 500 Febru 953. that's codified in Reno Municipal Code 5.14 and also uh 8.13 among others. Essentially, what that does, it gives the artists the right to exhibit and sell your own self-created artwork that has no utility without payment of a license or permit. One reason why that's so important, there are a few speakers before us today, including uh Corey Fischer and uh this gentleman here that are talking about seniors and other people about uh about helping seniors. If seniors knew more about the fact that all they have to do is go into a public area like uh a park uh uh city square, a sidewalk that they could exhibit and sell their own self-created artwork without payment of a license or permit. Um, I want to tell you a story about a friend of mine that's an artist. Uh, an 89year-old woman named Emma. And she is beset with arthritis. She only has about two hours each day that she could make art. And she uh spent her time making art by doing these uh little polder size uh fabric arts with pictures of flowers and uh bunnies and things like that on it. She didn't think that she could sell them, but she went down a couple weeks ago to the uh Riverwalk and she made 40 bucks selling them. And she was so happy. She said, "Now I could take my girlfriends out to lunch." And the more important thing to that is it gave her hope. It gave her the incentive to be able to continue doing her art. And so I want to thank you, Mayor Shivy, and city council for and Steve White for making art legal. Uh has helped me have a have a much better life. And that's why I have this sign on my back said, "I will draw your caricature now. If you uh if you ever see me drawing, just say uh Viva Art and Reno, I'll give you a free caricature." I love it. Thank you, David, for everything you do. Thank you. Yeah. Ashley Radkkey followed by Sam Gtle followed by Tony Harsh. Good morning, Ashley Radkkey for the red record. Um, I just wanted to take a moment to thank you all for what you do here in Reno. I work down the street at Nevada State Bank. So, don't want to take much of your time, but thank you. All right. Thanks. Sam Gtle, followed by Tony Harsh, followed by Donna Keats. Hi, I'm Sam Gtl and I'm here to talk about housing affordability and what it's really about is sewer tax increases. So, just a brief overlay. Um, I own a property and live in the Midtown and most there's a lot of houses and that's W three, ward two and the university where they're cottages. They're small between 800 and,200 square ft. The rate's going to go up to $800 a year which is $200 a quarter. wasn't that long ago it was 60. So it really does affect everything rentals, ownership, senior citizens, the whole nine yards. And um with that, have there been studies done within uh with in um Edon and others about the effects of these accumulated taxes over for the overall burden so that we don't become California like the a lot of us have moved from the Bay Area years ago. So the other part of it is with the fact that they're being cottages, it's my understanding that they're based on parcels. So a large gorgeous home in South Suburban like a mansion has the same sewer tax is a cottage, an 800 foot cottage in the Midtown. Um the last question, the last statement is to be aware of that a lot of people their sewer tax is twice the price of their um tax on the house. Thank you. Okay. All right. Thanks, Sam. I think um also our city manager is going to get someone to meet with you. Thanks, Sam. Tony Harsh. We're I'm gonna get someone to um come and meet with you. Thank you. Followed by Donna Keats. This am I? Oh, good. Okay. Do you We'll just go with that. Okay. Good morning. My name is Tony Harsh and I did not spa plan on speaking today because you have a very very busy day and I did have an opportunity to speak to many of you. Thank you for returning my phone calls. I did want to be um able to answer any questions on accessory dwelling units because I've been around the park. Um, but I uh was asked to read into the record this letter by John Hester. John Hester, Mercedes Delagar, and myself met with some of your staff, which will be mentioned in the letter, um, to talk about Newan's historical overlay. More importantly, the reason I'm reading this into the record is I think it's just good governing sense. Um we have been the three of us John Mercedes and myself have been in the room when many things have been developed many things have been governed many things have been implemented. So this is from um John and you should have it in your packet but you have a very large packet that required a lot of reading. Honorable mayor and city council for those of you I have not met my name is John Hester. I am a resident of Nuland Heights National Historic District, City of Reno Master Plan Conservation District in the Old Southwest and a retiree from the city of Reno, having served as community development director, redevelopment administrator, and assistant city manager during my 13 years with the city. I am currently the chief operating officer at the bystate Tahoe regional planning agency and have my monthly TRPA governing board meeting this Wednesday and annual retreat on Thursday. Otherwise, I would be in Reno and presenting these comments in person. I think accessory dwelling units, ADUs, are one of the necessary tools in the toolbox to help address the housing issue. In fact, we are working in the Tahoe basin to help get ADUs built consistent with our regional plan and differing Nevada and California state laws. And I know that here in the Nuland Heights, there are existing ADUs. I recognize that this is one of the highest priority implementation actions called for in the city master plan implementation chapter. At the same time, I also think there should be some guidelines that apply as they are built in the city of Reno. The provisions I request that you consider for inclusion in the ADU code are the italicized comments including the master plan goals and policies that support the proposed guidelines. Um, he goes on to point out seven very clearly and I will reserve the rest of my reading of this letter until C1. Thank you. Donna Keats. Good morning. Thank you. For the record, my name is Donna Keats. I've know most of you. Um, I have no idea what's about to come out of my mouth. I have written a very detailed letter to you, which hopefully some of you have seen that outlines what needs to be added to make this ordinance that I'm speaking to the ADU ordinance by the way to make it be palatable. A lot of suggestions, changes. Right now, as you may or may not be aware, after 25 years of moratoriums, passing, not passing, withdrawing retracting different versions, a thousand things in it, a thousand things out of it, we're still here 25 years later. And it's a mystery to me what problem you're actually trying to solve for 25 years that you can't make happen. So my letter and I'll speak to this at the time of the topic outlines things that from my position on the NAB where we had at least 40 people speaking publicly and more written comments. If you're actually reading this information, you will see that there's not a huge amount of support. If you counted the if you actually had data, not just a general summary of all the 158 pages of comments in your packet, but you actually had data. How many people spoke differently? Not don't double credit them. how many people were for, how many people were against, and who were the people who were for. You'll come to find out a lot of them are people who want to bring in package housing and put them in your backyard. So, there are things that would behoove you and the public to examine before you move forward with this because really 25 years of band-aids on a problem that is poorly defined, if defined at all, which I don't think it is. I've been told by staff and heard through the grapevine that several members of council have actually said that well it's the fashion these days everybody's doing ADUs. Is that really a good reason? Because now it turns out that ADUs are starting to fail in other cities and they're starting to recognize that destruction of single family neighborhoods is not necessarily beneficial in the long term. And almost every one of you on this panel, on this council, has said you don't expect it to change anything about the affordability of housing. Because if I put a $300,000 unit in my backyard, it's not going to be cheap. Not going to change anything for affordability. All of you have said it. I can almost quote the pages from the videos and all the meetings that I've attended. Staff has said it. Every staff presenter has said it. So, what exactly are we trying to solve? We have a master plan that wants housing choices. So, there's that. and they mention ADUs. So, there's that. If you deep dive into the master plan, it doesn't put them in every single single family neighborhood. It puts them on the edges. It puts them in transition districts. It doesn't do what you're trying to do. So, you have a total mismatch of why you're trying to do what you're doing, what you think it's going to accomplish, and how to best get it done. So, I've given you seven firm points from everything that I've heard and the 25 years that I've spent looking at ADUs. These are ways you could maybe write an ordinance if you're determined to do it that could be palatable. But right now, what you've got, what's about to be presented to you is an ordinance for accessory structures with ADUs tacked on. And ADUs are not tool sheds and they should not be regulated like tool sheds. So, please keep that in mind when you hear the presentation. Thank you very much. Oh, I had eight nine more seconds I can evaluate. Madame Mayor, with that we have no additional public comment. For the record, we received 12 comments that were general in nature or not directly not directly associated with an item prior to 4 p.m. yesterday, Tuesday, April 22nd. These comments were written correspondents received via our reno.gov online public comment form or by email to our office. Copies of these have been distributed to the Reno City Council and are available to the public on reno.gov/meings. Two letters in opposition and 10 letters of concern. Additionally, we just received public comment registration from Beth Dory. Hello. I'm Beth Dory, but Oh, here we go. There we go. It's my understanding, Beth Dory, for the record. It's my understanding that the mayor may be starting a skincare line with the unfortunate name called spooge. Well, Renoites, I think we're all going to get spooed after the ADU ordinance is ratified. These are my concerns. The ADU survey was bogus. I know that because I personally voted early and often. Does a bogus push survey replace a properly mailed notification for this blanket upzoning? No, it does not. Guest houses are not allowed in many older neighborhoods. Contrary to what Grace has said, my neighborhood, for instance, has active CCNRs from 1937. My CCNRs prohibit extra units. I believe the city will be exposed legally if they start passing out ADU permits without looking into whether the property has CCNRs which run with the land and prohibit them. It took less than 5 minutes for a title officer to provide me with a copy of my CCNRs. This is not a heavy lift. There are over a thousand Airbnbs in Reno. there. Many of these units should and could be used for long-term rentals. And yet, the city has opted not to regul regulate STRs. Why? Maybe because Airbnb recently handed out $32,000 to Nevada politicians, including to Devon, Miguel, and Devon's law partner's wife, who is a state senator. Many of these old streets have street widths that are not compliant with current city and fire code. Per code, a 28 foot street width should only have parking on one side. Um, a street width should be at least 36 feet across if parking is allowed on both sides. Port Street is only 26 ft and the city allows parking on both sides of that street which clearly is a safety issue particularly with this increased density. Prior to increasing the density of these old hoods, the city should bring these old streets up to current city codes. The parking requirement should be enforced and you should not reduce the 6,000 square ft lot size. A recent boundary survey should be required in the building permit application. Without one, you're inviting neighbor wars in which the city could be legally exposed. There are only four code enforcement officers in Reno. You must hire more. In closing, this blanket upzoning will affect many thousands of us, but it will have no impact on any of you on the dis because you chose to live in HOAs, neighborhoods without neighbor or with neighborhood plans. I suspect your property values will increase after this density issue is uh enacted. Thank you, Madame Mayor. We have no additional public comment. All right. I I'll just put some com public comment on the record. Um, first of all, Miss Dory or Sean Mullen, I don't know what you go by. Um, I just, you know, I want to point out that I've asked to meet with you several times. You have not taken me up on that offer. Um, that offer still stands. Always will. I have an open door anytime. So, I want to put that on the record. I also would respectfully ask that you do not dox people online. It's um causing a lot of hardship and fear for our safety. So, please please respect that. And um yes, I am um doing a sunscreen because I'm passionate about advocacy advocacy and skin cancer. So, I am Thank you and I hope you have a great day. All right, Madame Clerk, sending it back to you. Thank you. Moving on to item A4, approval of the agenda. It's me, unless the manager has no changes. Go ahead, city manager. Thank you. I just want to say that uh we're going to hear the agenda in order. How when we get to item C4, we'll be opening the RDA board and hearing RDA item B1 with the council item C4 together. And then items D1 through three are related to the Arlington office master plan and zoning map amendment. They will also be heard together. Finally, we have a labor meeting during lunch today. All right, I'll move to approve. All right. Thank you so much. I have a motion. I have a second. All those in favor say I. I. All those opposed. Motion carries. Okay. All right. We're on item A5, approval of the minutes from March 26th, 2025. All right. May I get a motion? So moved. Second. I have a motion and a second. All those in favor say I. All those opposed. Motion carries. We're moving on to our consent agenda. Okay. I'm going to ask council members to pull any items they wish to. Go ahead, Councilwoman Der. Yeah, sure. I would like to pull item B13 about the River Ranger program and B15 about Valleywood drainage restoration project. What did you said? B13. B13 and B15. Okay. Nothing for me, Madame Mayor. All right, Vice Mayor. Um, item B6. I have a disclosure. Okay. Um, I'll come right back to you. Go ahead, Councilman Martinez. All right. Thank you so much, Councilwoman Anderson. No, our council member door pulled mine, so we're good. Okay. All right. Go right ahead. Uh, Vice Mayor, um, Oh, sorry. Sorry. I didn't realize you were up there. Go ahead. Yeah. Yeah. I don't have anything to pull. Okay. Thanks so much. Move to approve all items other than the ones pulled. Second. I have a motion. I have a second. All those in favor say I. All those opposed. Motion carries unanimously. I'm going to send it back to you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. In the item of um B6, CME, Madame Mayor, fellow city council members, and madame clerk, in the interest of full transparency on item B6, I am disclosing that CME is a current client of my consulting firm, Tailor Made Solutions, on this matter, I have sought guidance from the city attorney's office. I had been advised that I have a substantial and continuing business relationship with CME and therefore a commitment in a private capacity to the interests of CME. Here item B6 seeks approval of a consulting agreement with CME in the amount of $292,989.50. As such, I have been advised that the independence of judgment of a reasonable person in my situation would be materially affected by my current contracts with CME. Accordingly, I will not be participating or voting on this item today. Madame Clerk, please accept this disclosure and lodge it on the record for the meeting pertaining to this agenda item. Okay. Thank you so much. Um, actually, Madame Clerk, I am going to pull items B9 and B10 and actually B3. So, sorry. Can we take a We need to take a motion to reconsider the original vote. I'd like to take a motion to reconsider. A second. I have a second. All those in favor say I. All those opposed? Motion carries. Okay. So, we're going to go with uh Sorry, can you repeat your items? B3, B9, B10, B 6. Did someone pull six? Yeah. Yeah. That's the disclosure. B uh 13, B15. And then perfect. So, if we can have a new motion to approve all the other items. Sure. So, move. So, move. I have a motion. I have a second. All those in favor say I. All those opposed. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you, Madame Clerk. On item B6, are we still there? I'll move to approve item B6 as presented in the staff report. All right, I have a motion. Second. I have a second. All those in favor say I. I. All those opposed. Motion carries. Okay. We're going to head to item B3. An item you pulled. Okay. Do we have anyone? Do we have anyone here for B3? Okay. All right. We're going to head into B9. That'll be Megan. Nine and 10. Actually, we could take them both together. Good morning, Madame Mayor, City Council. Megan Burner, arts and culture manager. For the record, um, you don't have a presentation, correct? I don't. Okay. Um, I I do want to point out I do think Mr. white. We've we've done a lot of work obviously in the arts. Um I do want to point out I think he has a lot of valid comments. Um this is something that I also think that I would like to ask the city manager to go back and look at because I believe and and maybe Carl you could correct me. This is under an ordinance how we allocate art. If we could go back and look at how we do that. Um, I know it probably hasn't been changed and I know the last council, the council before that, I actually think it should be examined um because I would like to see how we can make the arts uh spread around for everyone, but I also would like to examine how much we allocate to the arts. I'm a huge fan of the arts, so I don't want anyone to misconstrue what I'm saying. However, I think we also have to examine what that looks like. uh when it comes to how much we're allocating, especially whenever we're seeing budget uh deficits. Um so I do think that that's something that I would like to request um at a future meeting. And I and I will not be supporting uh this item today. Um I would like to, like I said, bring back the ordinance um because I do think it's something that we should reallocate. and he makes a very good point and I've said this before and people know that I think the money should always stay in our community to our local artists first. Um that's something that I've always had a a big issue with um because we have so much talent here. We and we need to do that for our local artists. So um that that's one thing I also think is really important. And also we haven't done anything to promote arts in the park. We need people on the streets creating. We need our senior folks, our younger folks, everyone that wants to be an artist in this city should be able to create and we should be able to foster that. So, I definitely would love to see an ordinance come back that um is much more palatable, I think, for the entire city. So, and I know you you get this very alive and well, Megan, because we've served uh on arts and culture way before when and uh you say you share the same passion spreading the arts uh locally, too. So, thank you. I appreciate what you do. I think you're amazing. So, this has nothing to do with you. It has to do with previous councils uh that put in this ordinance. So, thanks so much, Madam Mayor. All right. Go right ahead. Council. Yeah, I really appreciate the fact that you pulled this item because during my briefing, I brought up a number of issues and actually at the end of this meeting, I was going to do something similar to you. Um, what I had asked was that when we dealt with the similar topic for the recent Moana pool, my expectation had been that there would be a historic component in the lobby um identifying the previous 130 years of use of the site. And unfortunately, it doesn't fall under the um strict uh definition of what the 2% can be used for. And similarly with these two items, 9 and 10, I brought it up there too. I thought that there should have been um in whether it's in the lobby or the hallway or the common area, a historical exhibit about our Reno Police Department, their their former building, what they've done, what they're famous for, um how proud we are of them, you know, some kind of exhibit that's um relevant to connecting the past to the new building. And um I was explained to me in my briefing that that does not fall under these dollars for 2% for art. And so I was going to ask later that we could expand the ordinance and it would it could be much it could be 2% of the 2% but I think a small portion since arts and culture go together so closely. Now Miss Burner also told me that when they did the call for artists that they included uh that they would one of the things they'd like to see is a reference to the history. Um that didn't happen. So, I just feel like maybe that needs to be a separate item separately on these big public projects, you know, in terms of the history, especially if we're tearing something down, what we're rebuilding, which we did tear down the old pool. We did tear down the or we are tearing down the old public safety center. So, those are my thoughts. I haven't decided whether to vote for this or not, but I want to recognize that Miss Burner went out under the current ordinance and did a a um request for proposals. I think it was RFP qualifications to select the artists. They everyone submitted and I hope we hear how many people submitted um and furtherance of that request which was done under a current ordinance. Um we didn't have a new ordinance. So, while I was disappointed, I have to recognize that we don't have that new ordinance today. So, um, that's where I'm kind of stuck. Um, but I had my own issues and, you know, I was on Arts and Culture Commission for eight years. I totally support our art as well. So, those are just my issues. I love your historical tiein. Yeah. Well, it's it's arts and culture and cultures history. All right. Go ahead, Councilman Ree. Includes history, mayor, uh, and Miss Der for your thoughtful comments. Uh, first thing is clear is that art has intrinsic value and and art is an important placemaking item for our community. And so, um, I have certainly been someone who's been very supportive of the 2% that goes towards the art requirements that are under the public ordinance. I suppose if that were to come back, it would be my preference that it would be increased in some way, even if it's just small enough to account for the fact that everything is more expensive now. Uh both of these uh pieces of art uh are exceptional and although I do have some heartfelt concern about local artists being used, I also know that with some of our public buildings and art that's intended to stay for a hundred or you know more years, it's not always possible and also sometimes people have a connection to here that uh spans space and time. We had one artist who I think was uh doing their master of fine arts at the university but of course had come from somewhere else and we chose that artist on a project. So I I'm not sure I want to have artificial constraints on who the artist can be. I will leave the decision about which artist selected up to our arts and culture commission because I also think it's very difficult when you get to this stage. I I don't think you want my vision for what art is. Everyone has a different vision for what art is. Uh, Miss Berner, you're an artist in your own right and and I believe produce beautiful art. Um, but maybe someone doesn't think that's true. I think that they'd be crazy, but you know, it is what it is. I I sometimes think too, like I've driven past a particular sculpture out south end of Reno, uh, near the freeway that kind of looks like thorns. And sometimes people say, "Well, I don't like it." And then about a week ago, I had someone who was I was in an airport somewhere. Someone said, "I was there in Reno and I really love this piece of art that I saw." and I said, "Well, tell me which one it was." And they described that art. So, it's just one of those things. I think, too, because Burning Man has really become an artist destination across the globe and people associate with here. I I think it's okay that some of our art comes from other places and sometimes it comes out of the desert and is installed here after that's over with. I'll be supportive of both items, B9 and B10. But, I do think the mayor and Miss Stew are on to something in terms of how we re-examine it. Just touch bases back again. It's been so long since we've had it. Uh but I do think there is um certainly support for arts in this community. I think we'd like to see more. Yeah. Um I think you brought up a great point. Art is very subjective, very subjective. So I would say here here's another um caveat that I do think the council should see the projects before. And the reason being is a lot of times we are out in public and people are asking why we made certain decisions. And when we're not part of that process, it's really hard to I guess um explain why we do make some of the certain decisions. Um because everyone thinks that I run the city on a daily level and I don't. Uh thank goodness this woman over here who's amazing has that very tough job of doing so. But it's also really nice to be able to explain why we do some of the things that we do. And so I think it's it is important for the council to look at those before we always move ahead. So that's something I'd also ask in the future. Um and then also I do think because there's a lot of people that don't attend arts and culture meetings, but it gives the public also the opportunity to weigh in and see it. And I I think that that's great to be part of the process for everyone, not just the council, but all of our uh residents that love um art. But it does uh I guess um always evoke a feeling when it comes to art. So, all right. Go ahead, Vice Mayor. Um thank you. I was just gonna I think echo uh Councilman Reese's comments. There was a process in place. We followed the process. Were local artists allowed to participate in this process? And from the staff report, it looks like it went to the Arts and Culture Commission and it was a unanimous vote of support of the of these artists. And I think um for me it's about who's most qualified to do these projects because in some of part some of the parts of my ward um just recently we did a mural on Evelyn Mount. It was phenomenal fantastic involved local people but I want every ward to have that opportunity of the best most qualified art artist coming forward and and bringing their work. So thank you. I I can support these two items. All right, Councilman Martinez. Uh, thanks so much for the opportunity. I I agree with a lot of what has been said. It sounds like the process was followed and folks had the opportunity. It would be nice, I think, to see some folks locally, but if that's the way the process panned out this time, then uh that's where we're at. I don't know if there's any weight given to folks depending on their geographic location in the process. Megan Burner, arts and culture manager for the record. Um, occasionally in certain calls we do. On this call, we did not do that. This was a national call. Got it. Okay. Thank you. All right. Councilwoman Anderson, go ahead. Um, yes. So, um, this is the first I am on the Arts and Culture Commission now, and this has been the first, um, major project like this that I've been able to be a part of from kind of start to finish. And I have been um very impressed by how a lot of the concerns that have been um expressed at this panel, they're organically a part of the people that are stitched into this committee and this commission. Local artists have been it comes up every single time. Um all of the artists for both of these projects that we're considering today were both um wellstudied by the commission. Um, lots of great questions about their past perspectives, what their connections to the local area is. Um, we a lot of questions about whether or not local artists were um had applied or whether or not they were qualified. But um it was very impressive just to hear the um the function, the locality, the passion, and the respect for all the artists that did apply. and I'm really excited about the ability to support these two items today. So, thank you for your work on this and your team. All right. Oh, Councilwoman Eert, go ahead. I didn't have any comments. Thank you. Okay. Thanks so much, Madam Mayor. All right. Go right ahead. Council just uh two follow-ups. One, I wanted to note that for example, the mural that was done on our parking garage, which um you know, I was part of that process. Um they do have a a person that's with located within 30 miles. I don't know if that is considered local or not. Do they have to be in Reno and Sparks? Uh they do they have to be in Wo County? Is it okay if they live in Carson City to be considered local? I don't know. If we do get into that kind of thing, I'd love us to define. Is that a 50 mile radius or something? would might be appropriate. Um the second thing, Megan, could you just tell us about these two pieces and these artists and and what what they're bringing to the table so we have better feel. Yes, absolutely. Megan Burner, arts and culture manager for the record. Um the first item B9 is for art approval of artist John Fleming for the public safety center plaza pro public art project. Um this artist, he actually did the Audi Silverado sculpture. Um he was one of three finalists for this. there were 36 artists that applied to this call. Um, and in his public final presentation, uh, he he did have some ideas for proposal. And I want to be clear that we did not ask for proposals from these artists because we have found that once we get an artist on board, we can get better community engagement and public process and participation in the artwork. And so that's the goal with these is to have a process once the artists are on board to get feedback from stakeholders, from the police department, from the community uh before they finalize those designs. This artist did propose a design loosely um that consisted of incorporating the flow of the river because it's right there by the public safety center into elements that flowed through the plaza. So there's nothing large and upright that people can uh hide behind because it is an entrance to the public safety center. So he was thinking about all of these things and and the site really specifically. Um for item B10, this is approval of artist Mark Regelman for the public safety center Kunley sculpture project. This will be a larger scale project that actually sits behind the fence along Kunley. Um and so it'll be more of a landmark sculpture that people will see as they drive by that side. This artist has vast experience um working with communities. He did not give us a proposal, initial proposal for artwork, but did a large amount of research on the area and the community um and had some ideas to bring forward, but um is planning to engage pretty heavily so that he can develop that project. And there were 51 applicants, yes, for that piece. Great. Thank you. That's very helpful. And I had read the both packets, but I didn't get what you just said. Okay. Go ahead, council or uh Madame Mayor, I'll council Ree approve items uh B 9 and B10. Okay. Thank you so much. I have a motion and a second. All those in favor say I. I. All those opposed. Motion carries. And I am a no on the record, Madam Clerk. Okay. Thank you. All right. Item B13. I pulled this item uh because I think we we haven't heard much about the river ranger project for almost a year and I know they've done a lot in that time and I wanted to uh recognize uh Truckucky Meadows Water Authority their uh grant program from the Truckucky River Fund which is um making this contribution possible. So could you looks like Mr. Landon Miller? Yeah. Hello everyone. Uh my name is Landon Miller, fund development manager for parks and wreck for the record. Uh and yeah, this is done through Treky Meadows Water Authorities Truckucky River Fund uh by the community foundation. Uh this is they have two cycles each year and this was their winter cycle. So there'll be another opportunity for funding. The deadline for that is coming up at the end of um at the end of July. But the grant itself was pretty easy to write. I mean the the the work that the Rangers do each and every day is something that that speaks for itself. So they made my job easy. And uh we're fortunate that the uh that the board was able to recognize that as well. So uh we also have Nathan up here who can answer more specifics, but we're able to grow the program and it's through community partners uh such as the ones uh different financial contributions through grants and whatnot. So, well, two things. Um I was hoping to hear how many rangers we have now um and who who helped us fund them and who we're still maybe waiting for funding options for. And secondly, I just wanted to share I was at Earth Day um just this last weekend at our urban forestry booth which had a tremendous amount of participation, but I was really pleased to meet and spend time with two of our river rangers. They were both river rangers versus park rangers and although one is I guess a supervisor, but um I just wondered if you could fill us in, Nathan. Sure. Happy to do that. Nathan Elliot, parks and recreation director for the record. Uh currently we have four river rangers with a fifth one being recruited and then we have two park rangers that have been in place for uh since 2022. Uh right now uh those those rangers even the park rangers primarily focus on making sure the river corridor which is an amazing asset for our city uh is as clean and as safe as possible. And we are u I think hoping hopefully he keeping to the vision of the river rangers that we are the the first people to see the things happening and very quickly responding and addressing issues as they as they rise up. So um part part of our funding is provided through the Truckucky River Flood Management Authority. They provide 20% of our total program cost which essentially at this point funds a position and a little bit more. Um and then we have that position we're recruiting now is funded through the county's ARPA allocation. And so we'll be hiring that and that'll have about a 16 to 18month uh funding period. So so items like this help us uh put that together and fund the program and continue those positions past the ARP allocation. I did ask what um one of them what he spends his time on. Um a lot of it's on unhoused people in the along the river. So it seemed and we're lucky because he has a law enforcement background. He said he actually thought about applying to RPD, but he thought he'd try this. That blends his love of nature with the policing first before he applied to RPD. So, I I was really impressed with the caliber of people we seem to be recruiting for these jobs. So, well done. It's a It's a very attractive position. Be a fun gig. All right. Any further questions? All right. I'd like to make a motion. Hold on one second. Sorry, Landon. Yeah. Let me give you massive kudos and and I'll tell you why. This one has been I can't even begin to tell you has been so like so hard on me about going after and getting this grant and you got it over the finish line. I am so incredibly grateful. Um I you know I just wanted to praise you because we have had a shot at it a few times and it hasn't come to fruition but you made it happen. So, I just want to praise your work and making this a priority because I do think this is one of those projects that can have a significant difference in how we all interact with the river. It's such a beautiful place. People should have the opportunity to feel safe down there. And, you know, there are things that people come across, whether it's needles or, you know, beer cans, those kinds of things. Unacceptable for the river. We need it to be clean and safe for everyone to enjoy like we all did when we were kids. Um, but I just and it doesn't happen unless you have resources behind it and the financial ability to do so and you made it happen. So, um, you're my MVP this week. So, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks everyone. Are there any more comments? All right, go right ahead. Well, seeing none, I before I make the motion, I also wanted to do a shout out. You started a kids program. It seems like these river rangers are very engaged in it. I met the director, too, at Earth Day. Is that how does that fit in there? Yeah. The junior ranger program. Yeah. Junior and senior ranger program. We're trying to get a multigenerational impact to connect not just, you know, as we make it safe, also activated and get get our our the same way we learned as children, what the the importance of nature and and being around the river is. Uh it it's designed to do that and brings uh brings the kids to all six wards to learn about their parks and their city and how they engage in that. So the uh the guide and the handbook that was put together from with our comm's team won a national award for for uh for programming. So um yeah, good stuff. All right. Well, with that, Madame Mayor, I'd like to make a motion to approve item B13. Second. All right. Thank you. I have a motion and a second. All those in favor say I. I. All those opposed. Motion carries. All right. B15. All right. Madame Mayor, I pulled this item. This is yet another grant from the Treky River Fund and this one's for this Valleywood drainage restoration project. I just wondered if we could hear a little bit about that one. Good morning, U Madame Mayor, council members. Um for the record, John Simpson Utility Services. Um really excited to um that you highlighted this project. Um, council member um, Derer, this project is is located up in North, if I can get the overhead, I can give a vicinity map. Um, this is located up in the northwest area um, up near McQueen High School in one of the Truckucky River tributaries that we have. Um the project area is an area up in the northwest and this tributary where we utilize herbicides to address invasive weeds and white top and other um things in there. And highlighted in blue is a small little area. in that um tributary where we um are looking at doing a kind of a pilot project where we can remove some of these invasive weeds, introduce more native species and uh try that can try to out compete the the white top and other invasive species that are in there. This can ultimately help our um maintenance operations and reducing some of the herbicides and some of the other things that we're doing in this area. Thank you. And that is one of the reasons I pulled this as well is that uh for the newer council members, we started a program, I don't know, years ago, eight years ago, um when we had some complaints from neighbors that when um operations was spraying weeds just like this, that some of the drift was coming into their homes and they had no idea that the spraying was about to go on. And so working then uh with um John Flandsburg, what we were able to do was they um adopted a manual and it called for posting a notice when we would be spraying to put people on alert. Um we also wanted to reduce the amount of spraying. So, as I recall, you bought a piece of equipment that is um first of all, you bought a piece of equipment that was a backpack sprayer so that you could better control where the spray went. And number two, I thought you bought a piece of equipment to mow these weeds or do deal with them some physical way. Could you just mention that? Um that's that's part of maintenance and operations and I and I do believe that they have um got more handsprayers out that they can go in and take care of some of the stuff and they have um new equipment that can go in and mow. I don't have all the details on the equipment that they purchased, but I know that they've made some changes in their Well, it it came along with an initiative that u myself and Mayor Shivi sponsored, which was to have pesticide-free parks, and we have, I believe, 12 of those, and they are all signed. And I once we got into that, we found out, well, not that much is used in parks. Much more is used in spraying giant areas like this, trying to deal with white top and other issues. So we we realize while it's important where people go play to not have pesticides, it's also important in these very large swaths. So thank you for sharing about this project. And Madame Mayor, I don't know if anyone else has comments or questions. Okay. All right. Thank you. Well, with that, I would love to make a motion to approve item B15. Second. Second. I have a motion and a second. All those in favor say I. All those opposed. Motion carries. Back to B3. All right. Back to B3. Um, good morning, Madame Mayor and City Council. Caitlyn Caner, clean and safe manager for the record, and I'm available for any questions. Okay. Um, thank you so much. I just wanted to kind of check in. This is a really important uh program that we have. I think it's one of our most um always needed and how we can support you and how it's going and um because we don't I mean I think people don't realize the magnitude of work that you guys have to do and how important it is. So um just talk a little bit about that for people that may not know about this program and how we can also support you. Yeah. Um so this program is the clean safe program. Um we are responding to encampment sites and public spaces. So that could look like um on the Truckucky River park stitches and so on. We are addressing large encampment sites with debris. Um so this is what this contract is for. Um we also help in providing outreach services to our unhoused neighbors at sites and we're connecting them to services as needed. Okay. Um, were you working with I think at one time weren't we working with other nonprofits? Cynthia? Yes. Yes. Cynthia Esparza, director of community engagement and services. Are you asking about our contractors or just general nonprofits? Just in general. In general, we work with multiple organizations whether it's outreach, the Eddie House, uh, work very closely with Wo County as well. uh keep trucking meadows beautiful often reaches out to us for cleanups and we coordinate with the river rangers just to identify the areas that need support as well. Um Caitlyn um she failed to mention but I will I want to highlight her work. She really oversees um citywide homeless concerns that are submitted by the community and those are the service requests. Um, so while all departments take a part in this, Caitlyn is really the one following up, making sure we're responding and is also supporting with occupied vehicles in partnership with RPD as well. And the last thing, just because it is around the corner, Clean and Safe also visits uh ditches when the water gets turned on, the or ditch, making sure that people are not there, that they are um going to be away from harm should the water get turned on and they're not notified. So there is a really uh important safety component as well. Yeah, definitely. I I really um am grateful for your work. Um and we don't get to see you because I know you're busy working, but um you know, maybe we can get some visuals of what you guys are working on, what you're doing. I don't think people, like I said, understand that we have this team and um I would imagine that you feel like oftenimes you're um you know, I hate to use it, but drowning, right? And so, we just want to be able to support you, but I think we have to continue to expand and really highlight it and want to make sure that these are coming from Reno Direct, right? because I I think there are a lot of people that always say, you know, how do we uh contact the city when we're seeing things like this on our properties? And I really want to highlight that for our community so they have access to clean and safe team when they need it. Maybe talk a little bit just really quickly about um how someone might do that. Um yes, so they can submit service requests at Reno Direct. uh you can call um email uh online and that's how we receive all of our service requests and that's where we know to launch the team for daily operations. Okay, good. And um that's fantastic. I appreciate it. And then um talk about a little bit about the rapid rehousing program too. Yes. So rapid rehousing program, we do that in partnership with housing and neighborhood development. Um our outreach teams are out on the field seven days a week and they're identifying people who could qualify for this program. um if they meet the income level, if they have if they're on the RHA weight list, we will start connecting our our individuals to um the housing coordinator with hand program. Okay, that's fantastic. And meeting people where they are is much more effective. Uh we don't have enough doors in the city to um make it accessible. And I think that that that's a really big downside where we're failing massively. So when you're out there meeting people where they are, we have much better success. So good job, Smart. And if I could interject with this, I do want to highlight that the rapid rehousing program is is full. I know Hand is looking for grant opportunities. Our team is constantly still talking to people about it. The Reno Housing Authority, their weight list is open. Uh again highlighting uh the work that Clean and Safe does through Caitlyn and uh her management with outreach. I believe up to 93 individuals have been signed up for the weight list. So when they move in um up the list, they will be equipped. We're tracking the data as well in the drops app. So information and login account information will all be centralized uh when their name comes up on the list, which is really important. Yeah, that's fantastic. Thank you so much. Thank you. Good work. Can I just add to that? Go ahead. Oh, go ahead. I just want to um city manager Bryant. Thank you. So, it just to reorient everyone, this was a result of a request of this council for $200,000 to pay a portion of the rent of individuals with disability payments. They could not qualify for even some of the lowest rent in our community. So, with this program, we subsidize a portion of their rent. They have been moved directly from these streets and do village at Sage. From there, they wait until they can get on the waiting list for permanent vouchers through RHA. Because this council donated $200,000 to that program, we have 25 people who are inside today as a result of that since July of last year from the street. That's remarkable. That's fantastic. Thank you so much. Um, and also those with disabilities get overlooked so far too often. And we don't have um, like most cities, we don't have complex programs um, for that population. And it's really tragic, you know, and you also never know when you could be one step away from being disabled. You could be in a horrific car accident. It could just happen at a blink of an eye. And so, um, I appreciate your compassion. This is important. So, thank you so much. Thank you. All right. Any questions? Go ahead, Madam Mayor. Um, one thing I've recently, um, as Cynthia knows, had correspondence with her about an area, um, that's just north of Moana at the East End and and Lindbury. And one of the things that became clear to me is that this person in particular, let's say, had reported in a challenge in Torino direct numerous times. But where I feel the one area we might want to look at and and see if we can improve is how we communicate back to those residents that we're coming. We're coming and it might not happen tomorrow or the next week, but we are coming. And this person, I got the sense didn't have that that back, you know, no information back. I'm sure it was sent from Reno Direct over to Clean and Safe perhaps, but they don't know. And so they keep writing and their frustration's building. So, this is just how we communicate back with our residents that are reporting areas that need clean and safe help. Do you have some thoughts? Um yes. Oh yeah. Uh, Caitlyn, there uh the city walks team is also visiting that area. What's that? The city walks team is visiting that area, right? But certainly when a service request is submitted, there is a response that's provided. Um I believe the situation had been reported two weeks ago. Um so the volume is high but we're constantly in contact with the residents as well. Well the one I'm talking about but we don't need to focus on that but just so you know it had been reported for about six weeks on and off I mean six months so there was a set of people moved in then those moved out then another set of people moved in those moved out. So the person's frustration was really about, you know, people living in RVs along the section never getting the services that you can provide. And so that's why their level of frustration grows. But I don't want to focus specifically on them. What I'm trying to say is just that I am not aware of how the communication flows back to people that make a a Reno direct request and then it gets forwarded over to you. Do we get the info back to them? you know what is that process that's what I'm trying to say we do so when a service request is open there is a response that is provided and as the uh service request is addressed and before it officially closes there is a message that goes out as well right but in the meantime because you are so short staffed right uh again we endeavor to improve that process we will continue to do the outreach that can be done um when it comes to a couple of the service requests the volume is quite significant ificant, right? Um, and I also know that there are some areas where an an issue is addressed uh during the day and then after hours comes back, you may have vehicles come back. So those areas just based on the volume of service request are identified as part of citywalks and the team visits these areas frequently. maybe on some of these and I I thought you came up with great ideas for the one we're talking about, but more of a systemic um long-term solution. You recommended red curbing um signage and other things that might help get that across so if you're not there 24 hours a day, people can still be informed. All right. Thank you. Of course. I'm happy to make a motion on this, but I think um I think you pulled Madame Mayor. Councilwoman Aber. No, I didn't have anything. All right. Thanks so much. Okay. Go ahead, Councilwoman Dor. Yeah. Well, I'd love to make a motion uh to approve item B3, which is uh up to 75 750,000 over 5 years for uh approval of a contract with Qualcomm USA LLC for this program. Second. Okay, I have a motion and a second. All those in favor say I. I. All those opposed. Motion carries. Thank you. All right. Thank you so much. Good work, you guys. Thank you. And you survived. Were you nervous? No. You did great. You did great. Okay. Uh, Madame Clerk. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Moving on to item C1. All right. Uh, do we have any public comment on this item? We do have public comment on this item. Jory Benjamin, followed by Donna Keats, followed by Tony Harsh. Right. Come on up. Good morning and thank you for your time. I'm Jory Benjamin and um a person purchasing a home with a backyard years ago would have never foreseen or imagined the future of what's coming. A twostory structure looming next door to them. An ADU does change the neighborhood aesthetics, especially on the small lots that are proposed. Um, you there's lots of information pro and against ADUs. I would just hope that um you move slowly in approving any language here for the ADUs. It has an effect. Um, a a solution to ADUs would be just building onto your home on the smaller lots especially. You can can accomplish um privacy and you don't have to reszone the whole city so that we have access accessory dwellings. They're expensive to build. They're um some of them unsightly. I've seen California I I'm sure I'm Oh, no. No. I'm just kidding. I've seen You're not that from there. No, I'm seeing what they've done in California to neighborhoods there and um some that have taken back the the rights, some small communities that have have rejected uh building ADU. So, I just I hope you you know, it's a beautiful city. Let's maybe there's a place for them here, but let's talk more about it, not just throw it up against the wall. Appreciate your time. Good comments. Thank you. Donna Keats, followed by Tony Harsh, followed by Kyla Bailey. Good morning, Donna Keats. Again, um I guess I should clarify for you guys who don't know this. I actually read code for a living. So when I'm coming at you with all this stuff about code, only I read environmental code and water law, which seems to me to be significantly more complex than this. So when I'm coming at you with do this in your code, do that in your code, it's not completely from a technically illiterate point of view. So I'm trying my goal is to have you write something if you're determined to write it, which I hope you're not, but if you are, there are a lot of ways to make it better and you're not getting that information. And today you're supposed to give a direction to staff to say, "What do you want in here? What size lots do you want? What size standards do you want?" Well, how would you know, right? because you haven't gone through all the guardrail items, so you don't actually know what the problems are. So, I'm here to point a few of them out to you. Okay, put those on the right here. Okay. Okay. Thanks. I I guess this is how it goes. All right. So, I guess it goes this way. I don't know. This way. There you go. Okay. We're going to do this one first because this one really disturbs me. It's never been talked about in 25 years. Duplexes versus ADUs. Title 18 attached ADUs, which are not really addressed by this proposed ordinance. So far, how are they different than duplexes? Well, the answer is they're not. When I asked Grace that question, she said, "Oh, well, they're not." So, I looked up the definition. Oh, they're not. And this regulation doesn't put any kind of Well, it's not a regulation that addresses dup duplexes. So, more to the point, absolutely no single family zoning district allows duplexes by right. So now we're going to do ADUs attached and they're going to be allowed by right. To me that seems like a code conflict that really requires some resolution before you move forward with this. This is just one of the many things that we're not getting into the nitty-gritty about. But right here, you're going to legalize something that's illegal in a different part of the code. And then what happens? We'll do a text amendment that nobody will know about. We'll change some definitions and then we'll resolve this legal problem that you have. My suggestion here, I have many as you might expect. I'll give you some. If you look at just this top part of this code conflict part right here, I have some specific suggestions. You need to do something about attached ADUs, right? So, you can make the front door not visible from the same street, which is used to be in the code, but they took it out because it was too hard for the developers. You can make subordinate in size, which it's not so stated, anywhere. You can make them have the same water line and sewer line unlike the detached ones. You can lower the stepback thresholds to the regular 12 feet before it keeps going up and up and up and bothering all the neighbors. There's a lot of things you can do that have not been discussed, aren't on the table, and you don't know about them. So, on that score, I'd like to bring up another thing about garage over ADUs and privacy protections. You guys had a lot of discussions about garage over ADUs and conversion of an existing tool shed to an ADU, which is crazy. Anyway, this is I've written all this down. You have Thank you, Donna. Our next public comment is Tony Harsh, followed by Kyla Bailey, followed by Garrett Gordon. Well, there we go. Um, I cannot poss Tony Harsh for the record. I cannot possibly get through John's um letter, but you do have it in your packet. And I want to note that when John Mercedes and um Megan Brener and Melissa happy and we did talk to John did talk to Angela Fuj um even I was saying John I don't know that we can do this you know because he had guidelines he had suggestions that were elegant solutions and very functional um and he would just go, but it's pointed out in code. You can just look at city master plan implementation. You can look at your city master plan. And then I love this one talking about a tree canopy, which I think Naomi would enjoy. Um, he referenced GP7.7. I'm just saying that this man has taken so much time and energy to look at our existing code and find solutions for you to get to an elegant and functional solution. And I'm just encouraging you to look in your packet, look to his um letter. And I'm just going to finalize by saying I appreciate that you brought up the issue about the river. So, a little bit of a chitchat. Um, way back when it was actually illegal to go into the river and we had to change our code so that we could enjoy our river park. And so, I just enjoyed hearing about the uh river rangers. I certainly have been on enough river cleanup, have spent that time. So, thank you very much. Take a look at what John spent so much time on. You do have something that could work very well, but it takes a lot of time and energy. Thank you. Kyla Bailey, followed by Garrett Gordon, followed by Marggo Piskovich. I'm trying to gather all my stuff. Good morning, guys. I am Kayla Bailey. I'm the chair of the political action committee for the Sierra Nevada realtors and I've been a real estate agent for just under a decade in our beautiful city of Reno. Um I am also a lifetime Reno resident. So love this city. I um am so appreciative of the opportunity to speak with you guys this morning on item C1 regarding the accessory dwelling units in the city of Reno. Sierra Nevada Realtors stands in favor of the development and utilization of AUDs within the city limits. We believe that in aiding homeowners by opening opportunities for AUDs, it will not only expand the housing inventory, it will also increase a homeowner's ability to build equity and wealth over time through sustained home ownership. Studies from across the US have indicated that AUDs typically increase a property's value by around 30%. So that's also really good news. SNR views the increase in expanding ADU options as much needed positive step towards alleviate alleviating housing pressures faced by our Reno residents. We know we need alternatives for our workforce and these changes offer affordable alternatives to conventional single family residences or apartments. Further, this change also works in favor of so many scenarios we're seeing across the country. There's parents that are renting back to their adult children who are still trying to find a career. And then there's adults that are moving back in to take care of their aging parents and sometimes aging parents are moving back in with their adult children. These are the types of changes that we need in order to see our community thrive. So, I appreciate the opportunity and I thank you uh for allowing me to speak with you this morning and we look forward to working with you guys on bringing these housing solutions to our community. Thank you. Good morning. That's a tough act to follow. Uh for the record, Garrett Gordon. Today I'm representing the Sierra Nevada Realtors uh on behalf of their almost 3,500 members in our community. Just want to say uh also with me um in addition to Kayla is our CEO, April Lee um who's in the audience. Many of you know her. Um gosh, what a great day. What's what an exciting day. Just want to uh thank Grace and her team um for not moving this forward in a vacuum. I mean, for the last couple months, her and her team have done a great job of going to every single NAB, soliciting input, making tweaks, going to the planning commission and really uh uh incorporating as many comments from this community as possible. I'm going to touch base on a few of the specifics and give you on behalf of the realtors and their 3500 members what we kind of think a good direction would be. Uh number one, parking. I know the planning commission recommended no need for a parking requirement for each ADU. We respectfully disagree. We think one parking space per ADU would in fact make sense to make sure that our local streets are not oversaturated with on street parking. Two, a minimum lot size. God, what a great opportunity and tool we have um for our affordable housing crisis. We think there should be no minimum lot size. Let's allow these so long as they meet setbacks, so long as they meet building code requirements to go anywhere on any lot and also in any zoning district. Let's open it up and allow for, as you heard Kayla say, uh many different scenarios, many different families could use this option. So, let's allow it in any residential zoning district subject to setbacks. Um, we do not agree that zero setback should be allowed. We think putting these right on a property line adjacent to a neighbor is probably too much. So, let's comply with the setbacks for that zoning district, but allow them in any zoning district. And also, um, no minimum lot size. Um, and finally, um, we just want to say thank you again to Grace um, and her team and we are happy to continue to participate in this process and thank you for the opportunity to speak today. Appreciate it. Marggo Piskovich followed by Jack Hawkins followed by Audrey Dea Cruz. Good morning. Good morning. I just wanted to bring to your attention that we did this in May of 24 and it was not accepted by a single family resident and homeowners who were present. I just wanted to let you know a few things. This is my neighborhood which luckily I'm like a lot of you. I have CCNRs and you guys have homeowners and other things that you you know you can be stopped from. This is the list of all of my neighbors who said no. And with nobody knew about this thing at all. They don't know about it today. the city does nothing to advance any information to people and somehow we're a closed door for everybody. I am really concerned because what we have right now is we need notice that is required to every homeowner. Everybody that has a home, not apartments, not the other what we're talking about multi multif family. Everybody needs to have information about this. Nobody does. And right now it's just we do it by right. Whatever you want to do, you can do. And you know it's no big deal. It is a big deal. And it is a big deal to homeowners. And most people buy a home and hope that they can live in it for the rest of their life. Most people don't get a house, buy it, get a house, buy it, get a house, buy it. And I think that we need to do is have notice to every human being that has this type of house and that they have some input into it. Obviously, if you have CCNRs or you have what I have in my neighborhood, that's a declaration of restrictions. um that's been that has been allowed and we have had it since the 70s. Um I think that's fine, but the bottom line is a lot of you live in places where you don't have to worry because you live in homeowners associations. And so the bottom line is where is this going to go and how is it going to go? This thing is needs to be studied by individuals who have a lot of information about this and it's not just saying, "Oh, California does it." Well, I don't care. I don't live in California and I never have and I don't want to and I don't want to look like California. So, the bottom line is I think we have to do something that says people get information. Anybody with a multi-y home gets information and they don't get it. And people in the city of Reno, I asked 10 people, they have no clue. So, thank you very much. Anybody have a question? Thanks. Thanks, Margot. Jack Hawkins, followed by Audrey Dela Cruz, followed by Molly Manukian. Good morning, Madame Mayor. Jack, it's so nice to see you. Nice to see you. Thank you for everything you do. Oh, well, thanks. I This never gets easy for me. My arms are sweating like you're fine. Just take your time. I'd rather climb a 30,000 ft mountain, but um Isn't that the truth? Uh I'm here uh representing myself. Um, I'm also an architect in the community and I'm also a member of the American Institute of Architects and I'm here to support the ADU. Uh, that's the amendment that's or the ordinance that's been proposed. Thank you, Grace. I think the planning department has done an ex excellent job. They have listened to a lot of different members of the community, a lot of different professional organizations. Um, so I think it's we've beat this one to death. I think for 15 years we've had a moratorum on ADUs somewhere in there. I was on a committee about eight years ago that we studied and came up with a proposal for ADUs. So I think it's time uh to move this thing forward. Um I'm not going to get into specifics, but basically and I think you've heard the same thing. ADUs just are they're not a solution to our housing problems. They are just a supplemental help to our housing problems. and um you know everything from uh different family situations. They can help families to live multi-generational. They can help with um college students who maybe don't or can't afford an apartment, but just alternative ways to live, which we are in desperate need of. So, I support what uh Grace and the planning department have come up with and I hope you push this thing forward. I think it's been way too long. So, thanks so much for your time. Thank you so much, Jack. Audrey Dela Cruz, followed by Molly Manukian. Hi. Thank you. Um, my name is Audrey Dela Cruz. Um, I'm a local business owner, property owner, architect, and parent. Um, and resident of Ward 2. Um, and I'm here to speak on behalf of the American Institute of Architects, uh, in favor of the proposed, uh, draft to allow accessory dwelling units, um, or ADUs. Um, I think ADUs can help address many issues important to our community. They can provide housing. Um, and as much as housing costs are driven by supply, um, they are an element that can help increase that supply and hopefully reduce costs. Um they're also they also promote walkable, dense, vibrant neighborhoods. Um which are in alignment with reimagine Reno's guiding principles. Um I would say principles 2, four, and five. Um ADUs can also promote housing promote housing affordability. And of course, this does, you know, depend on how much you have to spend to build the ADU. Um housing costs are high. Building costs are high right now, but they won't always be high. In a few years, it might only cost $100 a square foot to build something or 200. Or if you're a property owner who's handy and you can hire an electrical electrician and a plumber, but do the framing yourself. There's all kinds of ways you could build an ADU more affordably than say $400 a square foot, which is, you know, what a uh a $300,000 ADU would actually cost, right? Um per square foot. So, um, ADUs can also provide families with opportunities for multigenerational f multigenerational housing. Uh, maybe that's an in-law quarters or a place for college age children to live affordably. Um, and they can help cover mortgage costs for property owners. Um, and increase their property values. Uh, ADUs promote can promote sustainability um, by being, you know, efficient small places to live rather than large residences. um they can reduce the use of green field sites um and sprawl and lower our gas emissions from vehicles that are driving from these sprawling neighborhoods. Um so specifically um in the draft language I would you know have some suggestions mainly that the lot size limitation be lowered. Um I think in the language the the ADUs are proposed to be only allowed on lots of 9,000 square ft. Um, and I think lowering that to seven or 5,000 square feet into the SF8 and SF zoning um, designations would make sense. You know, keeping in mind obviously that any ADU is going to have to meet the parking setback and all those other requirements in the code. Um, on a personal note, um, I just this is maybe not on behalf of the AIA but of myself. I just think this issue is a convergence of two nice principles. Take care of each other. make room for each other and get the government out of the way, right? Let property owners do what they want with their property um to this extent. So, um thanks for your for allowing me the time Molly Manukian. [Music] Hello. Good morning. Barely morning. Um my name is Molly Manukian. I'm here to uh discuss my concerns and my opposition to the ADU proposed ordinance. And I would submit that before you start talking about sizes and setbacks and things like that, you have a fundamental decision to make. And the fundamental decision that each of you has to make is whether or not you are prepared to do away with single familyzoned neighborhoods in the entire city. because that is exactly what this ordinance contemplates. It will do away with all middle class single familyzoned neighborhoods. So that is fundamentally what you have to decide. If you're going to do that, you need to say you're going to do it and you need to put your name on it and only then would you go into the details of this particular ordinance. And what we know um and the good news is is that each of you can learn from the jurisdictions that have already done this and you can learn that in fact jurisdictions are pulling away from this idea because it is destroying middle-class neighborhoods. Most of the time this topic is build and it is marketed as a granny unit, a granny flat, right? And we all love granny's and we all want them to come home and live among their family and that's understandable. But in reality in 2025 that is not what's taking place. Granny units are not being built. What are being built are what are more commonly known in other jurisdiction as granny towers or ADU towers and granny's don't live there. What has happened in other jurisdictions is that the existing middle class housing stock that is the housing that we hope to be available for firsttime buyers is being bought up by private equity investors. And those private equity investors are improving those properties to such an extent and increasing the land value of that particular lot to the point where it is never again available for a firsttime homeowner. It's never again available for people who live in neighborhoods like Mr. Reese and I grew up in. There are no more opportunities on that lot for a homeowner to buy. You'll hear that a lot of people want granny's and other neighbors and people to move in close to them or family members. They can do that by an addition. Very talented architects can build additions that allow for privacy and still don't require an actual reasoning of the entire city. This group of council people are certainly clever enough and smart enough to strike a balance without reszoning the middle class. You have to decide are you going to are you going to stick and stand with outofstate investors or are you going to stand by your middle class? And that's that's really a fundamental decision and it has to be made first. Thanks Molly. Thank you Beth Dory. Beth Dory, for the record, I think some of my points were lost. So, I'm going to put my Oops. I underlined the high notes so that you can see that. And I think a little background, I walk the walk. I have 50 tenants. I Many of my homes are rented for less than market value. Yeah, they are. How many of you are landlords? 50 tenants depend on me for a roof over their head. And I'm concerned about what Reno is going to be doing with this blanket upzoning. I've just about had it. So, why don't you look at this for a second? I have two minutes. I think I'm done. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Who was the last public commenter? Did you say Sean Mullins or what was the name? We the one right before Miss Dory. Molly Manukian. No, the one after Miss Manukian. Beth Dory was the only one. Okay. I thought it was Sean Mullins. Okay. Thank you. With that, we have no additional public comment. For the record, we did receive 24 comments directly associated with this agenda item prior to 4 p.m. yesterday, April 22nd. The comments were written correspondents received via our reno.gov online public comment form or by emails to our office. six letters in favor, 14 letters in opposition, and four letters of concern. And those can be accessed by the city council and public on reno.govme. You guys ready? Good morning, council members. I'm Grace Mackadin, senior management analyst here to discuss the draft ordinance for accessory dwelling units or ADUs. So, before we get into the draft, I would like to discuss what an ADU is. Generally, it's known as a secondary housing unit that shares a lot with a larger primary home. This image on the right shows some different iterations of what an ADU might look like. It can be attached, detached, a conversion of a garage or basement. It might be incorporated into the um principal structure. So, there's many different ways that we might see an ADU. So, let's discuss what we've already done because it's a lot. And I'd like to preface we've been talking about ADU since I think before I was born. So, this is just recent history of ADUs since you've initiated the recent text amendment. So, in November of 2023, council initiated a text amendment related to ADUs. In January 2024, staff conducted a survey to see generally how the community felt about ADUs and any concerns that they may have. In March of 2024, staff came back to council to discuss the results of that survey, which were generally favorable towards ADUs. Council directed staff to come back to council to discuss some potential standards of ADUs. In July of 2024, staff was given direction on those potential regulations and given the go-ahad to draft an ordinance. Earlier this year, we did some public outreach on the proposed draft. And just last month, we went to planning commission for feedback. So, the survey was conducted in January of last year and was responded to by over 2,000 people, which is a huge response rate. Of those 2,000 people, uh, 1,361 people were generally in support of ADUs. Following that survey and based on feedback from this council, staff created a draft ordinance. Just a reminder, these standards we are about to discuss are in draft form. This can still be changed. That's why we are here today to get feedback. We will also discuss the feedback we have already seen from the community. So, the draft ordinance that is in front of you today has six basic components. allowed zoning districts, lot size, number of ADUs per lot, dimensional standards, parking, and design. We'll go into each of those standards in detail. So, the first standard we looked at while drafting this ordinance is where should they be allowed? Because they're generally accessory to a single family home, it made sense to us to allow them everywhere a single family home is allowed. When we looked at other jurisdictions, this seemed consistent with what best practices are. We did not seem to get any specific feedback on that regulation. All of these zoning districts you see on this slide are the zoning districts where single family homes are allowed. And I would like to point out with the exception of what Donna had brought up to you with the relationship between duplexes where those are allowed and where the ADUs potentially could be allowed. The next standard we looked at was lot size. City council directed staff to have a minimum lot size of 9,000 ft. This came from pre previous ordinances proposed and they thought it would be a good place to start. Lot size is the number one concern that I have seen while doing public outreach. Many people would like to see this lot size reduced so we can see them in more infill locations. And since no one really knows what 9,000 ft looks like. I mean we see it on paper, but what does it look like in our community? I wanted to provide some well-known neighborhoods so we can see what 9,000 ft looks like and where these ADUs might be permitted. Here's a neighborhood we might all recognize on the corner of California and Arlington. You can see here that most of the lots actually fall under 9,000 ft. The only lot that exceeds 9,000 ft is commercial in nature. So, if the ordinance passes as is, you would probably not see ADUs in this neighborhood. Here's another neighborhood north of Plum on with Marsh on the left hand side of your screen. This neighborhood does have some larger lots that may accommodate ADUs. So if the ordinance passed as is today, you might see ADUs in this type of a neighborhood. Last example, this neighborhood is just north of the university. Again, this neighborhood has kind of a mix of lots but larger lots. So this might be an area that you would see ADUs. And this is a map of all the parcels in the city that are residentially zoned. In the green are all the lots that are over 9,000 ft² and in the red is all the lots that are under 9,000 ft². I would like to note I think this map was c circulated and there was some misinformation around this map. All this map is intended to do is tell you the lot sizes of homes in Reno. Just because it's green does not mean an ADU would be built there. So hopefully this gives you a better better idea of where we see these 9,000 and above square foot lots. The next standard we looked at is how many ADUs should we allow per lot. We thought one was a good place to start. There are some communities that allow for multiple ADUs per lot. Um to Molly's point, I think some of those communities are reigning it back. Um but generally we see best practices of one ADU per lot seems fairly um appropriate for most communities. As far as other dimen dimensional standards, we thought it made sense to follow other accessory structure standards that exist in code today. This includes things like setbacks, lot coverage, height, and location. So now I wanted to point out that you can build an accessory structure known as as a guest quarters with a bedroom bathroom. The only thing you cannot have is a full kitchen and it cannot be rented out. The one exception that council asked for in regards to the ADU's dimensional standards is no zero foot setback. And so we put that in code. If you built an ADU, you cannot build it on the lot line, which other accessory structures are allowed to do. Next, we looked at parking and design. When we conducted the survey, parking was a concern. So we required one dedicated off- streetet parking space per ADU. As for design, council directed staff not to require too stringent of design standards. So the only standard accessory structures design standards would apply. And this includes things like compatible materials, architectural features, and a similar roof pitch. We did have some mixed feedback regarding parking and design standards. Some wanted more parking, they wanted more regulations for design, and some wanted us to just remove them altogether. Through this process and through all of our processes, we always look at other jurisdictions and what they do and what their best practices are. But we specifically always look at our neighboring jurisdictions like Wo County and Sparks. Both Sparks and Wo County do allow for ADUs. The county sees on average about seven per year and SA Spark sees on average about one per year. of those ADUs and ADUs built in other jurisdictions. Staff is seeing that they are primarily built by homeowners for family to stay, additional rental income and aging in place. And this is based on what we've asked Sparks in Wo County as to who's building these and also based on what we've asked from other jurisdictions. This might be a small impact on neighborhoods, but it can make a big indiv impact on individuals and families. I would now like to touch on the robust public outreach we have done because we have done a lot of public outreach. We've been talking about ADUs for about three years and trying to get feedback. We went to the NABS and this is just postdraft. We went to the NABS. We held three virtual stakeholder meetings. We promoted these meetings on local news outlets, press releases, email blast, social media, and then we went to the March 19th planning commission for feedback. I would like to point out that I had a handful of people reach out to me that said they felt uncomfortable providing their feedback. Um there's this is a contentious issue, but I think you know unfortunately we'd like to foster an environment where everyone can participate maybe. Yeah, there we go. During the March 16th planning commission meeting, there was discussion around lot size, parking, and design standards. There was some disagreement amongst the commissioners around removing the minimum parking requirements and design standards, but generally there seemed to be some agreement around removing the minimum lot size. All of the feedback we've received on this draft is included in your packet and I combined them into a spreadsheet so hopefully it's easier to look at. To summarize what we talked about today, I'd like to go through each standard included in this ordinance and then the feedback we received on it. For the allowed zoning districts, we didn't see a ton of feedback on the standards. We did did see some concerns and requests to carve out some specific neighborhoods. For lot size, many thought that the standard of 9,000 ft was too low large and should either be lowered or removed. For the number of ADUs per lot, one ADU seemed to be fine with most people. For dimensional standards, we saw some concern over set step setbacks in height, although I don't think a lot of people understand that other accessory structures can be built to those standards today. Parking and design. We saw some push back from both sides. Some people thought we should loosen the parking and design standards and encourage more ADUs and then some thought we should require more parking and more specific design requirements. Short-term rentals were also brought up as a concern from a lot of people. I'd just like to note we currently do not regulate short-term rentals and so we're looking for feedback on that standard. So, where are we at right now? We're getting feedback from this council on this draft. We will then go make any necessary changes that this council proposes or recommends. We will go back to planning commission and then we are hoping for an adoption of of this of any any ordinance um in summer of this year. So what are we looking for today? Today we are looking for feedback and specific changes or modifications that this council would like to see to be made in this draft prior to adoption. So there's two different options for a recommended motion on your screen. If you don't want us to make any changes to the draft ordinance, we will move this draft that you're seeing today to planning commission for a formal recommendation. If you would like to see changes, you can use the second motion and specify with changes that you would like to see. And that's my presentation. Okay. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Okay. Um, so we're going to bring it back to the body for discussion. Um, there's one thing that I I feel like we made a big mistake here, Grace. So, um, and I hope the council feels the same way. I think we really should be looking at the short-term rentals before we even look at an ADU ordinance. I um those are really problematic. I know other cities are doing like you know 28 day stays those things um because that is actually where we're actually seeing a lot of the problem in most cities too and all the research that I've done because it's not regulated you know they tend to be you know people use them for other other things like parties and those kinds of things and looking at the long-term stay because if we're really doing ADUs um you know for families and aging parents um and I would think I I would hope everyone would have um sympathy for certainly what that looks like, right? Um but I think you have to be careful because they can be highly abused. So I'm really disappointed that we're not doing a short-term rental ordinance before we get into the ADU portion. So that's sort of um how I feel about it. And then also, you know, all neighborhoods are different. like um I think someone talked about Newand's you know some of those ADUs you'll see in the back there um down sort of a a alleyway where you know a lot of other neighborhoods don't have alleyways right so it's interesting that means that they would with the parking becomes a challenge right and so not all neighborhoods are created equal but I do think we should have stepped back and addressed the um the Airbnb or what do we call those temporary what do we call them short-term rentals? The STRs. Yeah, the short-term rentals that we um probably should have done that first. Um so that we're coming into this I think addressing some of those fears that are very real for people. So anyway, um I'm going to send it down to Councilwoman Der and then I'll go to Councilman Ree. Yeah. Um I've got a lot of thoughts on this. First, I want to compliment you on the work, Grace. I don't think you made it to every NAB, but you made it to my NAB. And I know that I had at least 40 uh or plus people there who most of whom, by the way, were not supportive. Um, and they submitted comments. But what I wanted to say is that from the beginning, I have been one of the most supportive of moving ADUs forward. This started back in 2016 uh when I said I'm I'm supportive and I was very um moved by the issues with families. um children, granny's, etc. Um having extended family. I also want to say that there's some misinformation out there that somehow this won't apply to the council uh because perhaps we have CCNRs or live in HOAs. But I want to say that I happen to live in a neighborhood which is one of the very few in Reno which already does since the 40s allow ADUs. Now it does limit those. It says how big they can be. The setbacks are 35 ft. the size 1,200 square feet and what I want to make sure so I want to I want to go on the record as saying I'm supportive I think the things you've addressed so far you've done well I think there's a few more things we have to address and I'm in complete support of what the mayor said about SDRs I've thought it from the beginning that we really had to get a handle on that because that has been destabilizing neighborhoods a lot of the complaints we get are about those I think the point made was made that we have over over a thousand I didn't catch the total number, but it's quite a few um STRs in some form or fashion. There's a few things I would like to see us add to this ordinance. Those things are things like um we're dealing with STRs, potentially deed restrictions. So, one of the greatest fears that I've heard is that other communities who did adopt this back when we first talked about it, 2016 time frame, they are now rethinking. And I think we need to learn not just from best practice across the nation, but what's not working and make sure we incorporate that into our ordinance. So we have some guard rails. Um I think deed restrictions could help us. So one of the greatest fears is that investors uh Reno is bigger has more housing stock than Sparks or Wo County. We have by far bigger and if it goes wrong here it will influence the entire region. So, I want to make sure that we do not um feed into that investor-driven um appetite. Um I think a great point was made about taking a um excess attainable home and making it unattainable because you've now added a second unit. Um and so that may be only one or two in a neighborhood, but ultimately I've heard of whole neighborhoods being taken over and we don't I don't think we want that. Um so I want to make sure we address that. look at what other cities have done who have had challenges and let's build some safeguards into our ordinance that includes height and one more thing and this was before I even read Donna's comments. I was going to come here to say I think we should have separate sections that deal with attached and detached because the impacts are very different. Attached um units have to follow, you know, existing ordinances that relate to those. Detached are something new and something special. We have sheds, but these are not sheds. So, to me, I think we have to be a little more fine grained and deal with the attached and detached separate. I'll have more, but thank you for the opportunity to comment and appreciate the comments on the historical overlay. That's been something I've really been struggling with as well. All right, Councilman Ree. Thank you, uh, Miss Magnan. Excellent presentation. Thank you for the hard work that's gone into it. A couple of things and and I may have to get to some of them in the second pass. Uh the first thing is there's been unfortunately a considerable amount of disinformation. I think you touched on that. There's been folks who post on Next Door on under pseudonyms that um own lots of property in the area but want to fly under the radar and claim that they're being sort of the voice of reason. And what's happened is it's caused people to have fear about something which I think is not necessarily um something to be feared. Um, I think you made some very good points about how um, actually one of the other public commentators made a good point about the expense of building an ADU. It's not that every lot is all of a sudden going to become ADU heaven. Uh, it's that people will make choices about maybe they have home equity in their home. They'll use it to take it out so that their grandparent or their uh, you know, young adult uh, who's moving out of the house could live there. I I just don't think that there's going to be 10,000 applications. you represent in the presentation that uh Sparks has one a year. Um and Wo County has, you know, nine or so. Um so I'm just not sure that there's going to be a massive rush to build them. Uh which also means anecdotally I'm not sure that there are investors swooping up whole neighborhoods in Northern Nevada in order to to build a bunch of small ADUs. I just think those are like part of the fear element that I think is unfortunate. Um, I want to go back to the short-term rental question and really take us back to when we uh last were with um questions about, you know, we have only a limited number of planning staff. We had maybe 10 options about things that we wanted to consider and I think we prioritized short-term rentals below the ADU ordinance because we believe that Wo County would be the one who would regulate short-term rentals. H how did we arrive at our decision some three years ago? And I'm just trying to dust off the memory banks about why we didn't but why we uncoupled them and then also why um we've made it so that they aren't uh lock step together. Can you recall some of those discussions? From my understanding at the time we were also about to go forward with a business license update and so there was some discussion of where this regulation might live. Is it in the business license code or is it in the planning code? From other jurisdictions it looks like it depends on what you're regulating. Um, also we didn't want this to only be an ADU problem. So, we thought if we're regulating short-term rentals, we should regulate them separate from ADUs. Um, but I mean definitely up to the this council, but I think that's where we landed 3 years ago. And what is does the county regulate them at this point? Because I think at the time the county was going through their own decisionmaking process about regulating them. Are they now at the point where they regulate them? They do. And because the county also includes Tahoe, it's a little different. Um, so it kind of depends on the area. They have recently done a couple of amendments just because the regulating them proved to be difficult. Um, so they do currently regulate them. Okay. Thank you. Regulate them in. Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Grace, for the presentation. Um, and thank you for all the work that you and your team have done on this. Um, I'm just I'm going to kind of go through the summary of ordinance and feedback in a very logical way for my perspective. But before I start, I would just say I I think all of our colleagues up here are very thoughtful. It doesn't matter where we live. We are all making decisions and it impacts us all no matter what. I happen to live in a condo apartment building. So, this may not impact me directly, but it impacts me because of what I do for the city of Reno and for my constituents. So, um, for me and what I've heard going through the public comment and the outreach and the planning commission, this is those are all the things I'm taking into account when I give my feedback. Zoning districts, I I think um, you have it right. I don't have any comments on that. lot size. I would say 9,000 is probably a little bit too big. I don't know what the right one is, but again, based on the planning commission recommendation, what I've heard from public comment, maybe it's somewhere around 6 or 7,000. Um, number I would like to stay with one per lot right now. Um, dimensional standards, uh, I like that we have no zero setbacks, so I'm good with that. parking. I'll have a question on that design. I I like what's in the ordinance as um same as other accessory structures. The one concern I have is the aesthetics of that. So, I don't want I want to foster beautiful neighborhoods. So, I don't know if you can put some consideration in that as as far as what I'm saying if there's something that isn't pleasing to the neighborhood. And I don't know necessarily what pleasing is that we're not creating the same thing double. um if there's a rundown structure and I think code might be able to help that just without even addressing it. Short-term rentals, I think we need to have um a policy discussion on that. I do not I'm not in favor of stopping this process, the ADU process, putting this on hold and then addressing short-term rentals just because of where we are in that. But I think that we definitely need to have that discussion. And then my question on parking is when you say one space per ADU, how are we going to monitor? I mean I I'm looking at some of the neighborhoods and there's on street parking everywhere. How would we designate that? So they would have to be off street. So when an ADU comes in for a building permit, we would say similar to any any structure that requires parking, we ask them to de demonstrate where their parking on site is going to be. So, it's not that they have to designate one on street, it's that they have to provide for one on their lot. Okay. Okay. Um, that's what I have for now. Thank you so much, Councilman Martinez. Go ahead. Thanks so much, Madam Mayor, and thank you, uh, Grace, and your team for all that you have done to kind of collect all the information, make sure we're moving in the right direction. And I know there were, you know, whispers of this happening in a vacuum and information not getting spread out to every member of our community, but it it sounds like you've gotten a lot of information from your surveys. Um, and a lot of uh us up here on the DAS, I know have had conversations with our communities uh to try to gather more of that information. And I know while I was uh knocking doors last year and checking in with community members, they were mostly in favor of ADUs happening in some sense. And so I think for me uh I'm generally supportive of the ADU process moving forward after this. I do agree that we have to have a conversation about short-term rentals and uh I'm a little bit mixed on that because I do hear from small new families that may want the ability to invest and produce some income um on their on their land. But I understand the concerns from the Gator community and want to think about that more in a context. But I I don't think that that policy discussion should impede the ability for um the ADU process to continue moving along. Um I think the lot size I am agree in agreement with the planning commission as well. Uh it seems uh too large of a lot size to accommodate all of the folks in war II that have been telling me directly that they're in support of these ADUs. So it just feels like we're cutting out a whole community that wants to be able to have the ability to do this. So if there is the appetite on the dice for us to lower that with maintaining the dimensional standards, I think that will help uh bring folks along on that. The number of ADUs I agree with. I think one makes sense. Um, and then the parking as well to make sure that we don't have uh too much on street parking um makes sense to me as well and kind of moving that forward. Um, and making sure that we allow uh the ability for folks to be safe as they're driving or walking through our city um is important. And then the only other thing I'll address is, you know, somebody looks like they took the map that you had brought up. I don't know if you have that map you could pull up where it was like green and red and had Yeah. made some images on there and I just want to thank that person for getting my skin color right uh when they made their image. So, thank you so much. Sorry, I'm just trying to take it all in. Go ahead, Councilwoman Anderson. Hello. Thank you so much for all of your team's work on this. I've gone back and and reviewed planning commission meetings and some of the other NABs. We haven't had the opportunity to have you in front of the W six NAB yet because W six hasn't had their first NAB yet for a variety of different challenges, but we're working on that. So, I have been working, you know, meeting with people in the community about this. a lot of passionate, very well- educated people about, you know, things that are very important to them and important to the integrity of a neighborhood and to the value of their property. And what is surprising to me um is that one argument for and one argument against is usually about property value. And what I'm finding is the big ideological difference is um a lot of people in the community don't trust each other to be good neighbors. A lot of people in the community don't trust that if somebody's going to come in and put this significant investment into the property, the real estate that they own to put that piece of real estate to work for them right now. They don't trust that they're going to consider their neighbors. And that's unfortunate. And I would like all of us in this community to take a look at are we good neighbors and where are our opportunities to be better neighbors with each other. Um I bring this up because one of the meetings that um I was privileged to have, one of the um very passionate members of our community showed me a photo of what she thought was a horrifying situation. How could a neighbor build this tall thing right next to B neighbor with short house impacting the yard, impacting this and that? And I said, "Oh my goodness, do you know those people?" And she said, "No." I said, "Oh, so you don't even know if there's a problem here?" She said, "No." Like, "So, you're just afraid that possibly these two don't get along and didn't have a conversation about how this extra investment was going to affect this person's property." So, I say all this in the spirit of being a good neighbor and considering that a lot of people want their properties, like what Councilman um Martinez was mentioning, they want their properties to work for them right now. Whether it's being able to not put my grandma in a nursing home for $7,500 a month, if I can have her in my backyard, and by the way, I can in my neighborhood. and I'm excited to put a granny in my yard. Um that is something that I'm going to be really thoughtful about and it is also my investment in my neighborhood and as a good neighbor. And I would just say that um with that spirit in the next amount of time when I come around I'll talk about my my different feedback on the different um areas of this ordinance. But I just want to thank the members of this community whether or not you agree with how we move forward with this ordinance. Thank you for your passionate, educated, well thoughtful input in the process. All right. Um, Councilwoman Eert, you still there? Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Um, I did have my hand up, too. I don't know if you're able to see it. Um, I just want to say I agree with the mayor's comments about needing to have a short-term rental um, solution in place before we move forward with ADUs. Um, I think it's important that we have some um, clear um, guidelines and and things like that for short-term rentals first. Um, but I also want to agree with um, uh, some commenters regarding parking. I think it's really important that we make sure that there's enough parking um, before we start adding ADUs. And I I mentioned it a few times. I I live in a neighborhood where there's not enough parking. We have um, adult children living with parents longer. So, there's a lot of cars in my neighborhood and there's trash days where my trash cans get pulled up on the sidewalk so somebody could park and my trash doesn't get picked up. So, that's kind of like a thorn in my side. But, I use that um example just to illustrate like how important parking is even just with like the little frustrations of of my trash not getting picked up. Like, it's so important that the community have places to park. I know year ago, maybe two years ago, the city um made a uh a neighborhood uh require parking permits uh because it the city recognized there was a problem in this area with people parking too long in a spot or um not living there and parking there. So, I just think that we need to be consistent with um requiring some type of parking for these um ADUs if we move forward with it. Um and I also agree with the the larger lot size. I know that I've had some people reach out to me specifically to say, "Well, you know, my lot's not necessarily that big, but my house is really tiny. I should be able to put another house on." And I just I worry about um places kind of getting overcrowded because it is a small lot. Are you going to build up? Are we going to have a loss of privacy in backyards? Um, and um, I also agree that this would effectively be a change in zoning that we would kind of lose all of our single family um, uh, neighborhoods if we just kind of allow them everywhere. So, those are my comments for now. Um, I don't want to take up everybody's time, but those are my thoughts on it. Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much. Okay, back at you, Councilwoman Der. Go ahead. Sure. Um, so I wanted to go on. So I want to re recap. I like what you've done so far and I'd support all of the things. I don't have to go through them individually. Here's some things I think we would should consider adding. We should consider adding that there's a requirement to check your CCNRs and provide notice that you have an affidavit of some kind that they're allowed. Um, we should um incorporate some a deed restriction. I don't know what that would say, but I want to uh make sure that the ADUs are in fact built for what we all think they're for. And I understand at some point that property could get sold. So perhaps it's a requirement that um the owner of the property live in one of these units, whether the smaller or the bigger, I don't really care, but um so that we can help retain. Now, some people say, "Well, that's a fear-mongering or whatever." What I want to do is learn from others. We don't have to repeat the history. come back here in 3 years having to amend this ordinance in a crisis mode because something an unintended consequence. I think if we can think ahead and anticipate a problem, we should address it. Um uh on STRs, I'm not saying we have to stop this, but what I do think we should do is have at least a um parallel conversation so we know is is are the county regulations going to be in effect in Reno? Do we need something different than what the county is doing? So could I'm going to come back to Oh, you're nodding. Sorry, I now realize what you had asked. They don't regulate short-term rentals in the city of Reno. So in Reno, it's unregulated. Correct. They do they only regulate and un uninccorporated. So we have a wild land. We have no regulation on short-term rentals. They can do whatever they can do unless someone complains. Right. So that's why I think it's important and that was a misinformation I think that I had that somehow the county was regulating. Okay. Um, I think that this is something hasn't been mentioned. There's a lot of ADUs that have been put in place illegally like a kitchen later. And I think the people in the real estate business know this. And I think there should be a process to legalize those. They that they should be required to come into compliance with give give a certain amount of time, two years, I I don't care what it is, a grandfather period where they're out there, but they have to come into compliance. If they don't have parking, let's say, like they have it, but they don't have a place to park and they're just using the public parking. Maybe they have to create parking or they don't get that ADU for Okay. Um, subordinate in size. I don't see where that's mentioned. That's important. Lower stepbacks. So, these are things that are for the ones that are attached to the house. Okay. I just want to make sure that we regulate those one way, very similar to how we already regulate single family homes. And that for the detached ones, we have the separate things that deal with setbacks and stepbacks. And then um people have brought up size a lot. I just one thing I want to mention, maybe it matters about percent of coverage. So, you know, I'm comfortable to start with 9,000 square feet, but perhaps to Miss Eird's point, can we allow them to cover 90% of their lot with housing and leave no room for grass, trees, etc. And then finally, I'm going to make this point. I truly think we've already dealt with upzoning. We we had a proposal from in title 18 that said we would allow duplexes everywhere. We would allow quadruplexes everywhere. This council did not support that. And I don't want to just sort of backdoor into it. We actually decided not to move forward with it. If we are going to move forward to it, I do believe in put giving pe um property owners notice that we are changing your zoning. we're changing your zoning. So that's I firmly believe that. So thank you. All right, Councilman Ree. Go ahead, Miss Mcin. Would there answers you want to provide? There was a lot of air and so I don't know if you you look like you had some answers to provide. Yes, thank you. I would like to just point out that we do have a lot coverage requirement for um most zoning districts. It's around 40% of your lot. So they would still have to meet that lot coverage requirement. And then um as for the short-term rental or ordinance, we could, you know, initiate a short-term rental ordinance separate from this. Um we could also put this on pause and initiate a short-term rental ordinance. I think that was the only responses. Um so for my questions, uh I wanted to focus on the things that you set out for us to have questions about. Um so the answer for me on allowed zoning districts is consistent with what you've proposed. Lot sizes. I um have some sympathy to uh Mr. Martinez's points about lowering the lot size. So, it looks like today it's 9,000, but staff might be amendable to 5,000 or or like I don't understand entirely the impact between 9 and five. And you had these great pictures that showed you neighborhoods and at nine there was like one uh house in a cluster. What would it be at the five or the lower ends? Does it just make it uh triple the amount or double the amount? What what is what happens as you lower the lot size? So, each area has different lot sizes. So, it's hard to kind of capture how many more would be impacted. Um but for example, the Wells Avenue area specifically, which council member Martinez um during his NAB, this came up as a point of concern. Those lots are around 6,000 ft. Quite small. When we went to planning commission, they were comfortable with removing the lot size requirement because we have things like lot um lot coverage, setbacks, other things that would protect um and in your professional opinion, which is the trade-off? Is it lot size or coverage and setbacks? What do they get you to the same place? What we're seeing in other communities, um, those that had adopted an ordinance a long time ago usually have a lot size require or minimum and it ranges from anywhere from 5 to 10,000 square ft. Now, they're coming back with amendments to remove that lot size requirement and just go off of lot coverage and setbacks because in form it kind of does cover them. Um, so in my professional opinion, I think that we could do both. I would be comfortable with both. Um, if we think that we can get more support with a a minimum lot size of five or six thousand, I think that that's sufficient. Okay. As to the number of ADUs on a parcel, one is where the current draft is. And so the alternative is like having three and they just go vertical is what you're saying. What we're seeing in places like San Diego, they allowed for as many ADUs as you could fit on a lot. And they found that that might have been a little too far. Um, most jurisdictions only allow for one per lot. And then as far as dimensional standards, I don't have concerns. Parking one seems to be good. I don't know if that's overparked or not. Design standards, I'm consistent with what you identified in the staff report. And I do believe short-term rental should have to come at a different and uncoupled thing. I have a question for the city attorney's office, but madame mayor, I'm a few seconds over. Go ahead. Well, I I want to understand this question that Miss Der posited about deed restrictions. I I don't know how the city council would fiat deed restrictions in existing deeds or conveyances. That seems like not a legal thing to do. Yeah, just as a for the record, John Shipman, City Attorney's Office. as a as a general comment. And again, we if we're talking about a specific circumstance, we can look into it specifically, but deed restrictions um tend to be private um restrictions that are put in place that property owners that are adjacent to each other or within the same community would exercise their right to veto certain types of uses and whatnot. um that in general is not the type of thing that the city would ever um administer or enforce. So um that so it's kind of a separate by you know um land use restriction framework that the city has no part in and so it shouldn't impact that. Yeah. So I just want to make sure I had not missed something. I mean I I think the theory the intention is well placed by Miss Stewart concerned about how they would use don't know legally how we can do that from the dis. Yeah. Um if I just may give a 10-second response. I know they've done it in Truckucky. So they've they've done it other places. I I am hoping to come back with a one minute summary, but I know Miss Manukian has a lot of experience uh with deed restrictions. She's an attorney herself. Um and I don't want to call her up here. It's not my turn. So, when my turn comes, maybe I'll uh lean into asking her that question, too. All right. Go ahead, Vice Mayor. Um, Councilman Martinez, anything currently? I think I'm good. I said everything I needed. Councilwoman Anderson. Yes. I just wanted to clarify my comments before. Um, I am in full support of a short-term rental ordinance worked on at, you know, parallel or separately than this. Um, when I was making my comments about people being able to use their property to work for them right now, um, it wasn't for short-term rental or not. I just want to make sure that that was clear. It was more for living with multi-generational family members. Um, okay. So, back to the details. I am in support of looking at either eliminating or lowering the lot size. I think that people can be more creative than we than we sometimes expect them to be. So, if we can get to the design standards through the coverage and the setbacks, I'm in support of that. um one space on the parking I think is it's important for neighborhood integrity and the ability for the city to be able to really assess as we move along as ADUs become more um popular. We'll be able to really um assess how it's affecting neighborhoods and maybe make adjustments in the future. um design if we can make sure that we're staying within neighborhood standards um a lot like if you were doing a remodel now um that I'm in support of that and then like I said whatever we want to work on from a short-term rental um or ordinance I think that's a really smart and important thing that or work that we should be doing. So thank you for your work on this. All right, Councilwoman Eert. Yeah, thank you. Um, something else that I forgot to mention earlier was, you know, public notice. Um, I think it's really important that we require a public notice. Um, if an ADU is going to go in my neighbor's yard, I think I should have a right to know before it happens. Um, so I I'd like to have something like that in place. Um, I know we require um big yellow public notice signs. Um, we mail postcards out. Um, I think that we should also, um, notify neighbors if, um, somebody is, um, intending to put in an ADU. Um, just, you know, earlier, uh, Council Member Der mentioned that they send out notices for spraying for weeds. Um, I would say that building a um, ADU next to somebody's house is a greater impact long term. So, I think we need to to make sure that that's that's something that we require as well. And I I also had a question about um it's kind of a specific scenario, but what if some business comes along and and specializes in you know, building ADUs, but also renting them out. I know that there is a a project um just outside my word in county land that it's new houses, but they're only for rent. They're not for sale. So, what would we do if there was a large business that built all these ADUs or took over the renting and leasing of these ADUs? Would we require any kind of business license or what would happen in that scenario? If a business came in and bought up a block of homes and wanted to rent them out, I think business licenses requirement is I it's more than I think one or two homes if you have as a rental, you have to uh apply for a business license. So, it would be the same as if they rented out single family homes. So, the ADUs wouldn't be treated differently. I'm not sure if that answers your question. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Um yeah, I think that's it for now. Thank you. Okay, council. Okay. Um, I just want to say that um I like I I'm just trying to summarize. I like the direction we're going. I want to make sure we have guard rails. We've we have gotten so much important public comment. I've read it all. Okay, it took a long time and thank you for providing me that extra spreadsheet, too. Um, I was particularly impressed by comment that I got from John Hester, who was our former planning director at the city for years, plus he was our assistant city manager. I was impressed by Molly Manuki and all of these folks, Donna Keats. Um, they've spent a lot of time with very practical ideas. Tony Harsh is another one who sent me along notes. What I would love to do as we wrap this up is to um have have a way that we could have a working group of actual residents that live in these neighborhoods and they come back with some proposals. I I think most of them understand where we're going come back with some proposals to put those guard rails so that you don't have to create all this on your own. And even if they meet for 30 days or 60 days, I I really don't care what it is. But um maybe they could come back and summarize what we've heard and what are some good guard rails, things that are missing, you know, so you don't have to do a lot more research and here's some natural things that other cities have put or whatever it is. And if we want to lower the size, let's beef up the information about lock coverage and design and setbacks. Let's understand that better. um if we're going to lower size, you know, I'm fine to get started where it is, but I'm I'm amendable to what some of my colleagues are saying, and I hope they're amendable to some of the things I'm saying. You know, this is a give and take. We're we're all coming from different experiences. So, um is that a possibility that we could take a moment pe lots of people just said no, right? I I'm not talking about those folks. I'm talking about people who put a lot of thought into their comments and have ideas about how to strengthen this ordinance. And I would love to get that incorporated into the ordinance. Yes. Is that a question? Can I answer? Can we do that? Yes. So, we have about when we did the survey, we had about a thousand people register. Um, and so we could send out an email to see who who might be interested. Um, I don't I wouldn't want to just go handpick people obviously. Um, and then I would like to respond. I think Donna had some good points and so we have some specific design standards uh that are required for guest quarters. Um, when I came in, I think it was March of last year, we had proposed to include those. So, things like the front door can't be visible from both the primary house and the ADU. Um, I think it was council member Breus at the time who recommended we get rid of those standards. So, we could add those back in um to I mean, these are guest quarters, right, in one way or another. And so, they shouldn't have less re less guidelines, you know, more like a shed and less like a guest quarter. They should be more like a guest quarter. So that was staff's recommendation at the time and that would be my recommendation now. A good way to beef up those design standards. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Okay. So, one of the things I do want to point out and I think it looks very very different than when we started to approach ADUs and and um the landscape. And we would be foolish to think that um we are not. We are becoming a world of halves and have nots. And we really are. And now more than ever, people are struggling. They're going to struggle even more with our economy. People are scared. Um and I think the financial look picture looks very different for a lot of people. I met with a a family whose daughter is um you know she's severely disabled and she wants to try to live independently and they came up with a solution for the daughter to possibly move into an ADU if they were allowed to build one. Um, and then obviously many of us at this age, and some of you are much younger, so I I won't out you there, um, are taking par care of our elderly parents. I would do anything if I could, um, have an ADU and and be there to take care of my mom. Um, and then I also think going back to the financial picture, people are really, really frightened and families matter, community matters. Now, there are some people in this community that might won't tell you that that doesn't affect them because they have a large portfolio of maybe rental properties or homes that they own. Is that Are you waving at me? I No. Okay. I I didn't know. I thought you wanted to speak. Um and let me tell you a little bit about that. Most of us are lucky to own one home. one was lucky like beyond lucky not 20 25 30 right so maybe that person cannot understand the financial the real financial struggle right and so this is an opportunity for families to stay together it's an opportunity for people financially to actually have a better life I think Miguel you mentioned that really important and I'm also going to say you know who's not com you You know, it's it's funny to me because I want to just point out something here. In 2015, do you know what the medium home price was here in Reno? So, let's just say so it was 289. Okay. That was 10 years ago. 10 years ago, I think we've all been How long have you been sitting here, Naomi? Yeah. 11 years. 11 years. Okay. So, 10 years ago though, primarily 10 and a half years I've been here. Okay. Yeah. All right. Do you know what the medium home price is today? I think it's 650. Yes, it sure is. Do the math. No, I know, right? So, home prices have gone up significantly, pricing people out of the market, but it's worked in favor for those that have large large portfolios or investors or those things like that. And so we have to consider those people that want a better life to live with their families um to take advantage of the things that might make a difference in their quality of life. And I just wanted to point that out because everyone because whenever you sit there and you tell everyone else and criticize them for wanting one now, everyone's got a different reason. And I don't want to I don't want to judge that, right? And some stories are really, really, really compelling. Really compelling. But someone that has a large portfolio with um an increase of over a 100% in value could not possibly understand what it would be like to have your child living next to you or your elderly mother or your brother who has disabilities, struggles, those types of things. And so I want to say thank you for doing a good job. I am concerned about parking issues, especially like in Newand's. I don't like that. That is is not all neighborhoods look alike. Um I am generally supportive of this concept for sure. So the parking I think absolutely has to stay in. and design. I do think um we see it all the time in neighborhoods like especially in the old southwest you can have um beautiful charming neighborhoods and then someone goes and builds a very very very modern structure that's overwhelming and large and then it kind of makes the neighborhood and the other neighbors um step back and it just doesn't conform. Um, so I want to look at those and you know the height and I know the the roofs were an issue but anyway I just want to tell you I'm very very supportive but I think that um it's it's disheartening to see um when people don't understand what other people's struggles might be and the very reason why you might want one of these in um close proximity of your own home to take care of a loved one or what that looks like. So, I want to say thank you for being thoughtful. Okay, Madame Mayor, for moving forward. We I think we are. I just wanted to make sure. Do you guys want to put anything in place? No. Okay. Yeah. I just wonder we we we have all said different things, right? We've honed in on a particular issue. Maybe we like most of what um Grace has done. We want a little tweak. Um we want something added. Is it possible that direction today could be to um take back because we've just given you another round of input, but it's based on what we've heard now. Before it was what we thought. Now it's what we've heard. And I wonder if we could come back with an updated um ordinance that incorporates what the different issues that we've identified and that we could all kind of get around and support. Like I don't want to say well today let let's lower it to 6,000 but let's uh do STRs but let's also you know reduce the height. I mean just picking and choosing these very small things I don't think is going to get us to unan sorry cut you off. Are are just want to make sure that we're clear. Are you asking uh to come back with a first introduction of an ordinance? No because it has to still go to planning commission and all that. She laid out a process, but what I'm asking is that she come up with a final draft. This affects everyone in the city. And I think that I it would be disingenuous for me to just say do these three things and I'm good. Um I'd love to see it in writing and that's just how I I feel before I feel like I can vote. I'm not quite ready for first introduction because again we have to it has to have further review. It has to go to planning commission etc. So that's, you know, I'm just trying to get the best ordinance we can when it comes back to us. Go ahead, Councilman Ree. Well, Miss Mcin, can you um put the slide back up, which were the draft choices here? Yeah. So, as I understand it, if I am inclined to vote for the first of those choices, which says I move to staff to draft ordinances for the planning commission formal recommendation, then that goes to the planning commission who may or may not tweak it. I and I need an affirmative yes or no on that part. Yes. So, what we would do is we would take it to planning commission. I wouldn't tweak what they say. I would just say here's what planning commission thinks we should tweak or edit, which then will come back to us. Correct. Right. So I I think from my uh point of view, we're at the point, right? We we can make a decision today without saying, "Let's go out another 30 days, find some people who claim to be experts and want to have an opinion." I think those people have made very good comments, but we have a process that allows the planning commissioners who have been appointed by this body to mold through those things. You certainly provided professional in input and advice. I too am not ready to say every single jot and tit of what I believe would be in the final ordinance is ready to go, but I think we can get there through the process you've laid out. Is that a fair way to characterize it? Yes. Okay. So then that would be my recommendation, Madame Mayor, and I'll move to staff to move the draft ordinance forward to planning commission for formal recommendation. Okay. Thank you so much. I did if you use that first one, there will be no changes made. So just the second one with the feedback we've heard today if you would like me to make changes. And so that's why I asked the question which I did very specifically. So my question is um without going to the second one you're saying it will come back exactly how it is. The planning commission may make no input to it. They can make input but I wouldn't make those changes be I would just say here's what the planning commission says. Yeah. And so what I'm saying is I think it's important for the planning commission to have some role in it. Right. There are some very great and smart people there if they believe in their heart of hearts because you told me that they were having some wrestling disputes among their own body about lot sizes and so it came up to us without like a hard and fast lot size. So because it sounds like they have a different vision for it then it's going to come back to us and if our vision matches with theirs then we're ready for ordinance adoptions in that direction. I understand. Okay. So my motion remains the same madam mayor. Okay. The one thing that I do um if and we can vote on your motion, but I do want to see at the same time bringing back the STR. I think it's actually pretty easy. Um I don't think it would be difficult uh because I I think we all have um an idea of the purpose of what we're doing here with ADUs. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Were you a meanable to I'll second for discussion, Madam Mayor? Um I just don't think they're not unrelated concept. Madam Mayor, you set our agenda for this body and I will trust you to bring the short-term rental or uh ordinance back as you deem it appropriate. Okay, perfect. Um and I think you'll have broad support and consensus. I it's a complicated issue and having lived through some incline village uh experience in life, uh short-term rentals get people very passionate on both sides, too. So, I don't know how long it'll take us to get to a place, but it should be at this dest. Okay, perfect. Then I would just say city manager since this this is under your purview that when we bring this back I would like um the STR discussion on there. Okay. Just for clarity uh we see the ADU and the short-term rentals as two separate things. We can bring them back simultaneously not conjoined. Correct. Thank you. Exactly. Okay. Um can I just ask a question of clarification? And this is probably just me being confused, but didn't the planning commission just bring us their concerns based on the same presentation that you gave us and that's what we were discussing to send back to them, our response to the concerns because I know that they were concerned about zoning districts and lot sizes and parking. So that I'm that's my only hesitation to not supporting your motion is I'm I just want to make sure that we're actually doing what we're doing to respond to the planning commission. So what the way that I envision it um Mr. And seriously, correct me if I'm wrong, is that if we were to go at the second reading of the the motion, then staff would go back, make some recommendations, and then bring that motion back in front of the count the planning commission, and that is when they would say, "Awesome, they addressed all of our concerns or and these other things." And then that would come back to us. Is that I'm trying to bridge the gap between two things. Miss Derer would like some additional opportunities for input which I think could happen at the planning commission and the planning commission could say hey we stand by zero um uh allowed sizing for lot sizes right and here's why and they would forward us a recommendation right now the recommendation is our staffs at 9,000 amendable to five am I characterizing that right correct okay and so I'm just saying if we adopt staff's recommendation as our guiding principle It leaves open the opportunity for planning commission to change it and recommend and planning commission could change it on the things that Miss Derer is concerned about. Uh it could change it on the lot sizes and then it comes back to us. But but please tell us whether we are right in that. Both of those are right. I think that's where it's hard. Um planning commission had a discussion. They provided what they were concerned about. Um if you would like to provide policy direction of we agree with these three things, we would like for sure these to be in the ordinance. Um then planning commission will again provide a a formal recommendation. So both of those things can be true. You can say we'll move forward this ordinance and then planning commission will formally tell us what they don't like about it. Um or we can move forward some minor tweaks and changes that you would like to see by the end result. The area for me which is the most concerning is the lot size. And I've heard arguments on the dis about it. All the other ones seem to be the compromise of a variety of discussion points. Correct. Right. And even Miss Der's excellent points are uh are taken into account in the design standards. Right. And so that's why I'm just trying to say how do we move it forward? What is the best way? I think the planning commission probably has to watch our discussion here uh about what we've said. It appears that the one like key lynchpin thing that we're waffling have arguments for and against is the lot size one. And I think that they may have a better opportunity to review that question than we do today, right, with maps and understanding the implications as you did and broke it out. That's sort of where I am, Miss Anderson. I'm comfortable. I appreciate the disc the additional discussion on it. Thank you. I have a comment on the motion. Go ahead. Yeah. What what I don't understand about the motion is that we have heard from the people in the room and that I don't know if that has been incorporated. You could say yes, we've considered it all but we rejected it all. So we did not make any changes from the initial until now for and so I feel like unless we acknowledge all the people that have commented and we have all weighed in on those comments and we've given some additional thoughts and direction unless we update the ordinance. I I feel like we've lost this entire process, you know, like they have to go make their comment again to the planning commission hope that they hear them this time. I would rather you brought it back to us for a reason and you said this is styled that we should weigh in and give our thoughts on this based on what we heard. Well, I sat through several hours at my NAB heard, you know, over 40 comments. I've received more from you from the other NABS and the other meetings you've had. I want to respond to those things and put in some guard rails. I don't know why we shouldn't take the opportunity to do our job, you know, which is to move this along, add our thoughts, have the planning commission evaluate those thoughts, and give us a final set of thoughts. I I don't know why we wouldn't take, you know, why we'd miss that opportunity, right? I don't really understand that. So, I would rather you see hear what we said. This is complicated. and having two shots at the apple. The one we did before, now the one that's informed by our um residents, that is not a bad thing. We're we're talking about changing all the zoning. Councilman Ree, are you willing to modify your motion? Because I do think you have validity there, Councilwoman Der, in the sense of putting some of those comments in and I think, am I correct? When you go to planning commission, they will um hear the concerns of the council and take those into consideration. Correct. That's what we're doing here. It's why we're doing um this discussion. So, I want to just be clear that any concerns up here are shared with the planning commission. Then they can weigh in to make um those decisions. So, maybe we don't have to modify the motion. But I always feel like that's the process anyway whenever you come to council and then take it back. So, Am I missing something? Nope. And maybe here's what I do. I have listened to all of the comments today. I've also listened to all of the public comments at the NABS and so forth. Um, I can take a shot at what I think we would like to see with the additional guard rails, the lot size from what I've heard from the public and this body. I can bring the planning commission both drafts. I can bring this body both drafts um as well as any comments we receive after the fact. So, I can modify it to what I've heard today and before today um and see what planning commission's recommendation is at that point. That's a nice idea. Madame Mayor, so that I may I want to be clear. What I'm trying to do is make sure that Miss Der's concerns, which are valid, are heard, right? Um but I also think um it is sometimes dangerous to believe that only the people in this room are the ones that have an opinion, right? You have I think if I can count people that are here, I can probably count it on two hands, right? But as elected officials, we're tasked with representing the entirety of a community, not just the ones who have um sort of the sophistication or own 25 rental properties or who are against it. In fact, some of the opinions in this room, I don't share those opinions. Uh it's great that they come and they uh voice their concerns. It's what we need in a functioning democracy is to have uh push and pull. We have people who are opposed to issues and people who support them. But just because they're in the room, I don't think they gain greater input into the system. Uh and in fact, some of them are here because they're uh people who don't like the system, they masquerade as other people online and spread disinformation about the system, right? Some people have good intentions and some have bad. And I think because we're elected by a broader range of the community, we have to be willing to listen to those voices, too. That's why if it goes back to planning, those people have another opportunity to have input. We want more input, not less. Yeah. Um, and I also I don't I mean I think you were just making a general statement, Councilwoman. Correct. I I'm I'm a I appreciate what Grace just offered is to make an enhanced draft that took in what she heard from us. Might have 6,000, might have something else. Uh it might address some of these points and concerns we brought up. and she can have it side by side with the original draft and then she's providing additional information to the planning commission to say, "Look, this is what this might look like." Exactly. Do you like it? Instead of them having to create it out of whole cloth. Yeah. I I like it. I just was wondering was there something that I wasn't seeing in the process that we usually Well, yeah. I felt like we were missing an opportunity to do what she's offered, which is to take into account why have this workshop if nothing will change. I wouldn't have read 150 comments to Mr. Reese's point. These aren't people in the room. These are people that sent in their comments that I read before I wrote my thoughts. So that's the whole point of this. I wouldn't have done that if all we're doing is saying pass it on to planning commission unless I thought you wanted our input. So madam mayor, my motion includes that, right? Take a draft ordinance to the planning commission. A draft. That's what I understood. So I want to just make sure that she was getting what she is that the old draft a newer draft is you said a draft. I'm I'm not sure what that means. What I understand I will take the feedback I've heard today create a draft and try to strike a balance between what the majority of of my feedback has been. Fantastic. Okay. I like that. All right. So I have a motion from Councilman Ree. Second I believe from you. All those in favor say I. I. All those opposed. Motion uh carries unanimously. and Councilwoman um Eert I She said I did you say I Okay, she did. All right, motion carries unanimously. And we are going to take actually a 30 minute break. I we have a labor meeting and I need you guys to um get up and um eat. But Madame Clerk, go ahead. So we'll reconvene at 1:30. Um public comment right now. Do you have any public comment? No. Okay. All right. Thank you. I see Donna standing right here. Well, that's up to you. The the comment period for that item has closed. So, unless you're going to open a new item, there's no public comment open at this time. Okay. U maybe you can put it on the record. I don't know how how can we accommodate how can we accommodate, Donna? [Music] Okay. You just did. You did it. All right, Brian. Hi. How are you? Vice Mayor, anytime you want to start and I'm not here, you always you go ahead. I wouldn't be offended ever. Okay. Okay. So, just pop in. Brandy, you too. You'll be fine. Just fine. Okay. All right, Madam Clerk, I'm going to send it to you to lead us into um this next item. Awesome. Thanks, Madam Mayor. Update. We're reconvening at 206. And for the record, all members are present. We do still have Council Member Eert online. So, we're opening item C2, which is the downtown update. All right. All right, madam clerk, do you have any public comment on this item? We do not have any public comment on this item and have not received any correspondence. Okay, thank you so much. Brian, take it away. Good afternoon, Madam Mayor, council members. Brian McCarl, revitalization manager. I am here to give the monthly downtown report for the months of January and February. This the downtown update kind of hits every item on the city's strategic plan in terms of safety downtown, the economy um arts culture infrastructure, uh, clean and safe. And just a reminder that we've decided that the downtown business improvement district boundary is where we collect all of our data for these metrics. And the three key strategic focus areas are strengthening the economic conditions in the downtown area, uh improving the built and natural environment, and enhancing how people experience our downtown. The numbers uh January and February are a bit of a slow month, but uh there are things positive things to report. I will note that we had four new businesses open recently in the downtown core. Those are I will read those are. Um Tahoe Airworks is is the most notable one with the now largest outdoor pat rooftop patio in downtown or in Reno I think to get all together. The Sierra Nevada bakery opened uh right across from the courthouse. King Sushi opened up on First Street and Chrome Coffee moved into the old um hub on Pine Street. Yeah. So those are the four new businesses that opened. Uh and I'll also note that we have seen a lot of engagement from developers uh looking into downtown infill sites. We have had a lot of conversations with either owners of properties and developers uh talking about how they can apply for tiff financing, how they can work with the city. Uh they're very interested in the sewer conversation that was recently had. And um we met with the owner of the riverboat uh Pacific Development for the the ones who did ballpark apartments over here. They're interested in doing their next project in Reno. So they they met with us uh as well as um activity at the montage, that north side of the Montage. And as I noticed, the the biggest uh announcement, new business, and new improvement to a property was Tall Airworks. That was the old Record Street Brewing. Uh they've been doing great. They also opened the Alpine at that location a few months earlier, and it has been going great. It's brought a lot of life back to that area. um they do have events and activities and have been activating that rooftop now that the weather's getting nice. Moving on to the built environment in the area, uh most of our restore projects finished uh by the end of the year. Uh birdies finished their improvements and opened. If you didn't notice, the horseshoe sign got repainted. All new light bulbs uh were improved. Sleeve Brewing uh repainted their building and added some outdoor seating. and Black Rabbit Me and Lead Dog uh redid their parking lots, resealed it, and did some improvements on their building. So, those are some of the last closeouts for the restore program. We have about four projects that are left. They got extensions, but those improvements are being done, so we'll report on those in the next few months. Also to note on that um parking t parking tickets issued have gone up quite considerably in the last month or so uh pro proactive code enforcements are doing really well. I'll also notice that amongst um m service requests as well as code enforcement request and river range requests they're hitting about 100% of response uh and closeouts for a lot of those activities. I'll also note that if you didn't see them, um, they've been up for a few months now, but the downtown Reno Riverwalk got new trash cans. This is part of the ARPA funded, uh, Truckucky River improvements that are also with the new lighting, the trash cans, and the painting of a lot of the, uh, amenities and railings throughout the downtown core. So, those are up um, through from Broadhead Park all the way to Boost Street. have been placed. The downtown Reno Partnership continues to uh hit their metrics. Um they have I believe decreased the number of pressure washing but have augmented and increase other maintenance in other areas. I think with M there was a discussion on sort of uh remmanaging how a lot of the maintenance gets done down there. Um I will go on the next one and I'll notice that in February how people experienced downtown in February the number of unhoused accepting social services uh jumped quite considerably to 46%. Um, I'm don't have data points around that, but I do believe it is due to uh the nighttime ambassadors that the DRP is offering, the new security ambassadors the DRP is offering, some of the clean and safe activities and four street um intentional uh uh attention that's been getting down there as well as uh the addition of all the river rangers that have been placed throughout the area. And so I'm assuming they're um interacting with more of the unhoused population and they're getting more of them to accept services. The big one for how people experienced downtown in the last month and I'll go to the next slide was the Western Lights Festival. Uh I believe right after the event you called Rachel McIntyre who's our activation coordinator up to to thank her and all her work she did on that event. Um, as the numbers kept coming in, we're close to 70,000 people who came down to experience that event over the 3 days. That doesn't include children because children's don't have cell phones. So, we can't track the cell phone data to show that we even had more. So, that could have possibly been more. As well as the data coming out that um we think about 70% came um night after night or more than one night. So, not only did they come down to experience once, they came down to experience it twice. Uh, and meetings are already underway to talk about how this event is put on for next year. So, quick and quick and easy. That's the downtown update for January and February. And I'm happy to answer any questions. Okay, Brian. Thanks. Nice job. Appreciate it. Couple things. You know, this is like the area where I'm like I get super feisty and passionate about. Right. So, uh, let's talk about properties that, um, I've seen for a long time that are very problematic. And one that I do think is I think it's a health hazard. I think um it's also problematic for the entire neighborhood obviously um for the other properties down there. And someone sent me pictures of the windows falling out of it when we had uh the uh wind couple weeks ago. Remember that is um the sundowner. And I've reached out to Mr. Ring. We've had a couple of conversations and now he does not want to call me back. I um would like him to show up at our next downtown update so he could address the council and tell us what he is planning on doing and why that property is just going into further decay. It's dilapidated. I don't know what code um you know what's happening in code over there. Uh but I don't think it's fair for those residents to continue to live like that. Not to mention it was obviously dangerous if we have glass falling onto people. I did not hear that. Yeah. Um I did bring that up to Miss Turney, so she does know about it. So, which is good. Um but I am very concerned about how that and the one that concerns me too is the um bird, what do we call that? All along the side. Birdies. Yeah. The birdies on the side. Yeah. How bad that is. Um, that's got to be a health hazard. Do is there anything you can the the new birdies mini golf? Okay. No, the bird poop. Okay. Um, on the side of that building on the sundowner, sure. Has got to be a health hazard. So, Madame Mayor Ashley attorney, assistant city manager for the record. Um, to your point, we have multiple code cases currently open on that property. That is public record. Uh, they are going through their due process right now. However, we have issued multiple administrative citations on that building uh citing multiple issues of violation with compliance of the downtown standards. So, we will continue to enforce until compliance is reached on that property. Uh we do have a lot of concerns though. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. And I guess maybe for um Carl or some, you know, ordinance where we have more teeth to hold these properties accountable. Um, I don't know what we can do, but you're really good at, you know, looking at something like that where we just have a way if they're not working with us, then how can we get them to the table to act, I guess. I don't know what it looks like, but maybe help us in some way with an ordinance. I don't know. Well, if they fail to comply with um hearing officer after they've been cited, we can sign them for a misdemeanor and go from there. Okay. Okay. So, as a matter of fact, we just had one of those cases uh come forward last week. So, Okay. Thanks, Carl. So, that and the other property I want to bring up are um there's one I think uh the own it um and I've reached out to Yaya. we were playing phone tag and so hopefully um we can get in touch with him because I want to know why um the paint on the building isn't that something in code that they have to comply with. How do we get them there? So we have Thank you for the question, Madame Mayor. Um Ashley, attorney assistant city manager for the record. Um due to the leadership of this council, you've dedicated a downtown code enforcement officer for the first time in 20 years. So it's part of why you're starting to see some changes downtown. Uh they have been proactively opening cases on every block along the downtown core, going block by block, meeting with business owners first to let them know where the violations are, giving them an opportunity to come into compliance before we move into the enforcement actions. U so a lot of what you're seeing right now is through our required due process by state law. Some things may look like they're not changing. However, we have a lot of cases open. Uh, for example, I believe we have five buildings in the downtown area that you should expect to see repainted in June. They were given an extension based off of the weather. However, they've provided us copies of their contractors and invoices. So, we do anticipate more compliance in the coming months. U, I'll look into that property in particular, but I do know we have an open case. Uh, we've not reached compliance yet, so we are hopeful. And if they don't come into compliance, there are administrative fines associated with those that are enforced equally across all businesses. Okay. So, I just I guess cuz people always say, you know, why has it looked like this for so long? And I, you know, I don't have anything to tell them other than it looks like we allow it to be like that. And so what you're saying is we continue to use enforcement, but they'll just continue to drag on. That is correct. Code enforcement is a bit limited based off of state law of where our enforcement activities start and end. Uh we have the ability to enforce with administrative citations that are capped by state law at $1,000 per commercial property. U where our process is is we go forward to attempt to get compliance after a certain period based off of the response of the owner. Um our primary opportunity is to place a lean on the property for all of the fines that currently are outstanding. that would require the property owner to come into compliance if they need to refinance their loan or if they plan to sell a property, but that's only if they refinance or or sell a property. So, let's say they hold on to it for 10 years, that could longer, which is a lot of what you're saying, 20, 30 years, which happens all the time, they don't have to come in compliance. So, that's what I'm talking about. Are there ways in which we can do something to include more teeth um into how we enforce some of these properties? So, we can work with the city attorney's office to see if he can find some other creative opportunities that we can bring forward to this. Carl's a good attorney, so he'll do it. Madame Mayor. Yes. Go ahead. Yeah. I just wanted to get clarification from Miss Tney. Um, was that $1,000 in toto or $1,000 a day? It's $1,000 on the case. And so, so we start at 100, we go to 250, we go to 500, we go to a,000. And then each finding after that is $1,000. Uh we do have each finding each time there's a separate finding. Each time that there the case remains open, there's a two-eek compliance period. So every two weeks they're being cited. So it's not $1,000 a day, but every two weeks we could issue another finding. Correct. So one of the suggestions I have and I'll just share it was one I had 10 years ago, but maybe it's timely for our attorneys. Maybe the use of a consent order where they need to come into compliance and pay a fine or a reduced fine as long as they come into compliance with a certain set out um method or or time frame for coming into compliance. I found those when I had a previous job worked really well instead of just sending fines there. There's actually an agreement you have to sign. Okay, just an idea of a different I mean since the mayor is asking what else can we do? I don't think I understand the nuance, but I'm happy to talk to your client so I can understand. Yeah, it worked really well for us. I got a lot of compliance on things that would not have complied if we just kept sending them $1,000 fine every two weeks or something. But but $1,000 fine every two weeks is a lot more than we're doing now. If they've been having the same problem for five years, and we are doing that now. Okay. So, we're in that position. Now, again, as this council knows, we did not have the dedicated resource until this fiscal year. So, we were largely complaint driven in the downtown area. Um, people often it's hard to complain about a building when no one's in it. And so, now that we are seeing vacancy rates drop, we're seeing larger increase of foot traffic and new residential units. And then this dedicated resource is why we're starting to see that shift. So, we have open cases on pretty much every block in the downtown area. And we are working closely with owners to get that compliance that we're looking for because the goal is not money, the goal is compliance. uh we want to clean up downtown that's consistent with this council's leadership and direction. So, we've been continuing to work towards that with the limited tools that we have. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate it. Okay. Go ahead, Council Member Reese, and then I'll go to Vice Mayor. Okay. Thank you so much, Mr. Micardo. I I guess I have a couple of questions. One is about the Western Lights for 2026. Uh could you just give us an update in the future once the team has gotten the ability to think about how they see it going in the future? Obviously for an inaugural year it was like a incredible success beyond anyone's wildest imagination. So I'm excited to see what uh your team uh and Miss McIntyre can come up with for next year. Just it doesn't have to be in a formal setting. I'm just saying I'm interested. Uh the second thing is the restore program. Something I have not totally understood is that um sometimes businesses received a grant. I don't is that what we called it? A grant and then the business closed. Uh what happens there? I I did the work that was supposed to be done get done? Did they never get the money? I think the one that I'm thinking of most frequently is the Kraken Grill on wells. So, what happens there? Yep. Um, thank you for the question, Brian McCarter, rev revitalization manager. So, in that scenario, um, when we give a grant, it is really to improve the building. Our first priority is seeing improvements done to the building and removing any blight or increasing the vibrancy around that area somewhat independent of a business operating at that site. Um and so with Kraken Grill specifically, they did receive a grant. Uh they had to do there was roof leaking, there were plumbing issues, the place was in complete disarray. They did those improvements and when before we reimburse them for the improvements, they have to give receipts from their contractor. And that's ultimately I was going to say, what is the check against someone using it and just going to Mexico with it, right? They show that the improvements were done and that we get receipts from the actual contractor and then we reimburse them based on that. Love that. Thank you so much. Let me ask um about some specific things I've been observing. One is the West Street Plaza. Looks like they got some upgrades and improvements recently, so I haven't heard much about that other than what I saw on social media. Looked very cool. Some kind of eggshaped rocks for people to sit on and hang out in. Um I I would like at some point in time an update about Locomotion Plaza. Some money that we've directed at it I think is going to come to pass that it'll have some new amenities on it. Uh the Believe Plaza, we're going to send some different things and programming there this year. I guess what I'm saying is as it relates to these three plazas, um it would be good for us to just get a general sense and an update about what's happening and and maybe what the programming is in the next couple of months because I imagine it's about ready to just kind of meteorically go uh forward. So those three plazas and then um I I don't know if it's it may be beyond our scope to talk about today, but city center, I haven't heard much about that. um Kimton site I see in the news again as going into some litigation or some kind of default sale. So part of what our goal is in these updates is just to know um kind of a central place for us all to understand what is going on in the downtown environment and what help policywise you need from us. I I can't make anything change about the Kempton site. Obviously, we don't do that from this dis maybe not even the city center, but this is a general inquiry for me and and I do try to follow the vice mayor's lead because she has really been making incredible efforts to uh revitalize downtown, too. So, those are my thoughts. Awesome. All right. Thank you so much. Um, go ahead, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Thank you for the update. I am extremely excited and grateful to everybody's work and appreciate all of the efforts. I mean, it's really a labor of love and it's take everybody here, everybody in this building and outside sources to be where we are. I think Western Lights was fantastic. Um, I would just encourage you to highlight as much as you can all of the events that are coming to downtown in the next couple of months. There's a lot of great things and I think people we cannot overcommunicate that enough. I mean people said they didn't know Western Lights was going on and we really talked about that. So whatever you're doing, triple the efforts if you can to let people know. Um I am really excited. I've I've been to Reno Tahoe Ale Works numerous times and if you haven't had an opportunity to sit on the rooftop with your family, it's familyfriendly. It is changing the dynamics of that area. And if you go just a little further east, Reno Bar and Grill has just opened. That is fantastic, too. Um there's just a lot of good things happening around around the area, which um again, I'm very thankful for. Two things that I'm going to say that we might be able to work on a little bit. I am getting um complaints from constituents at the Ace Motel. I I know that's uh we have some new owners there, but we we might need to work with DRP and um the some of the residents across the street are having having some challenges. Um the other part is there's good and bad at Barbara Bennett Park. It has transformed considerably and I don't know if Nathan's still here, but it is it is night and day. I was I there's people playing basketball, there's families there, there's picnics going on. There is one thing that is happening on Saturday mornings and that is we have some community folks that are coming and helping the unhoused and they are providing a lot of food, clothing, materials and then they leave. Um so this creates a sort of an environment where people linger around. that is the only time on Saturday mornings at around 10:00 and then for the rest of the afternoon and the river rangers have been really great in this space but um I don't know if there's if we offer if we can provide services or we I know this is a time and resource management thing too if if there's another thing that we can couple with that group so that we're offering permanent resources so we're we're being a little bit more successful in helping people on the road. But overall, I'm I'm very grateful, very pleased. And uh West Street Plaza is phenomenal. If you haven't seen it, I'm so so so excited. So excited. May 2nd, right? Uh May 2nd. So yeah. So we're I mean this is it's challenging because we're looking back two months from February, January, and February. However, uh the furniture got installed today. So, Westry Plaza, the pebbles are in, the murals are done, the furniture, the umbrellas, every the uh aderonda chairs are all installed. They look great. The ribbon cutting will be May 2nd. That was the first week I started in this job two years ago. It was please fix West Street Plaza. It's a very hard space to to deal with. Um but the it's a week away. So, it's phenomenal. It is. I mean, it brings a If I could cry, it would bring a tear to my eyes. There will be uh and and not only at that opening, there will be food trucks activations, musical buskers uh activating in that plaza for the full weekend after that. So, it's going to be awesome. But guess where else we need that? Virginia Street. Parks. We have those parklets. Parklets, outside seating, outside seating. Yep. We have a ton of activations planned for downtown as well. One at a time, right? Yeah. Okay. Um Councilman Martinez. Yes. like to say it's awesome to see the board representatives so excited about all these changes. So it looks like you're doing great progress and just giving a huge shout out to the downtown Reno partnership, the Reno Police Department, our maintenance and operation team and as as well as our code enforcement under the leadership of assistant city manager attorney. It looks like things are getting done. There's more proactive cases happening within that region. So, a huge shout out to our code enforcement officers for helping us revitalize and enhance the experience downtown. Thank you. All right, Councilwoman Anderson. Um, I also wanted to just thank you for the work that you've been doing, especially with the restore program. Um, I wanted to know, was Lake Tahoe Ale Works, were they a recipient of one of those grants? They were not. They weren't, and they still did all of that investment. I have to echo what Miss Taylor said. I took my husband down on a date night a couple of weeks ago and this man has a lot of experience hanging out and working in that area. It is pristine. It is so amazing the investment there and then the other restore projects that are in and around it. If we can activate that area, I was very impressed and my biggest, you know, my husband was just bowled over by what has changed there. So incredibly well done. and I am so grateful for your efforts. Thank you. All right, Councilwoman Eert. Is she on? No. Okay, she's not here right now. Sorry, Madame Mayor. She is, but for some we can see it talking. There we go. Hi. Hi. Can you hear me? Yeah, now we can. Go ahead. Okay. Okay. Um, I had some questions about the Western Lights Festival. Was that something that we paid for with ARPA funds or how did how did that work out? Yeah. Uh, thank you for the question. So, that was a mix of ARPA placemaking funds due to the Truckucky River placemaking study. It was part of our uh two-year activation plan. It was also uh some dedicated funds on activating our plazas and our activation program as well as uh we set an intentional budget out to stimulate an event in the new year that would bring people downtown and that manifested into Western Lights. Uh and so it was a bit of three different funding buckets. It was ARPA, uh it was um some of the uh special events room tax budget as well as economic development. Okay. Um and mention the placemaking study. I know that the Gal report said that there's 70% vacancy on Virginia Street. Um has that improved? Are we looking back to that placemaking study and seeing the areas where we've improved? That is a a great question. Um some of the spaces received re restore funds. Obviously, Virginia Street and getting the what you're referencing is that the placemaking study said 72% of Virginia Street is dead, vacant, or inactive facades. And that sort of was the impetus to do the restore program. Uh we've had a few applicants, not only business owners, but property owners take us up on that. That was how we supported Junkie moving into downtown. That's how we supported the horseshoe sign getting redone. Uh there are two other um storefronts that are getting finished. Uh, one of those is a sushi place further further down Virginia Street. Um, and we have the Reno Mart location as well that's getting renovated. Um, vacancy is still still high, but the restore program was designed to address that. Great. And then is Junkies still downtown? Junkies is no longer downtown. They've uh reconsolidated to their uh Reno Public Market building. Okay. Thank you. I have anything else right now? Okay, going back to you, Councilwoman Door. Anything? Uh, I don't want to take up more time. Just I mean, I've heard everything. I appreciate the update and uh we're moving forward and exciting. I haven't had the chance to visit some of the new areas, but I'm going to be looking for that. So, thanks. All right. Okay. Anything else? No. Okay, Brian, I think you did a a fantastic job. I do want to just um actually advocate for small businesses. Do you know how hard it is to make a small business work? Not to mention with the competitiveness of, you know, big big online retailers. I don't need to mention, but I am because it's really really hard to make it. And I appreciate you um investing and thinking of the small businesses. They really need it. And you know, when it doesn't work out with that restore money, um that should really highlight how hard it is and then someone takes their investment to get into a project that's, you know, the restore money is very small compared to what they got into business for and put their heart and soul into it and then when they closed because they couldn't make it, it's really devastating. And we're trying to do obviously everything we can, but it just it hurts every ounce of my body when I see businesses try to get into business whether they're funded or not. Like a lot go into business not being funded and praying that it works. So, I'm glad that we stay their partner. We need to do that because it is the one of the toughest things you'll ever do. And not to mention, it creates jobs and it's so good for our community to have local businesses that are open that we can all enjoy and walk through those doors because we've lost we're going to lose a lot of that continue to see uh with online competition. So, thank you. We have more ideas. You'll be hearing about them in the next Okay. Love that. We love the ideas and keep them coming. But I just wanted to shout out to you guys because um I think there have been people that were critical of funding small business and I I can't even begin to tell you it's one of the most stressful things you will ever do and trying to create jobs and those you know and like I said with the competition with the big guys eating the little guys. I just wanted to thank you and recognize you guys for for doing that. Thank you. All right. Do we just need to accept it or not? I move to accept staff's monthly downtown update report. Madam Mayor, I have a motion. Second. I have a second. All those in favor say I. I. All those opposed? Motion carries. All right. Good job. Moving on, Madam Clerk. Moving on to item C3, which is an update for the 83rd legislation. Nick Chaconei, the the famous ever so famous, what do we call you now? Like I don't know, legislative stealth. I don't know. Anyway, it's good to see you to see you. Really nice to see you. Okay, floor is yours. Afternoon, mayor, council. Nick Sakone, government affairs manager out of the Office of Policy and Strategy. I'm giving you my second update uh since the legislative session has started. Uh so uh alignment with strategic plan. As I go through legislation, as we go through legislation, I secure feedback and I also look at how that aligns with our strategic plan and the platform adopted by council on January 22nd. So today's day 80. What does that mean? It's uh 2/3 through the legislature. So we got 40 more days left. Uh the next major milestones will be May 1st. That's the economic forum update. Uh I think that we'll kind of have a better idea of what kind of money asks or appropriation asks will continue to exist or um after we hear that update, but that's next week. And then May se 16th will be the second house committee passage deadline. Uh so major themes with local impacts, housing and homelessness, land use and planning, public safety and criminal justice, and then workers comp and employee benefits. And then I'll go through some of the other bills that you had asked about. Uh AB62 expands the state tax credits for affordable housing. That's been referred to Ways and Means. We supported that bill in its policy committee. Uh and we'll continue to monitor that. AB 103 is the bill that will now change the name of the Reno Housing Authority to the Truckucky Meadows Regional Housing Authority. Uh and it changes the board composition. Uh we took no position on that bill, but it is headed out to the Senate. It was uh supported unanimously in the assembly. AB366 makes changes to the supportive housing grant fund. Uh basically it just makes it so that the funds don't um go back to the state general fund if they are not all expended for um various projects. Uh we supported that. Uh AB475 is $7 million of rental assistance for the city of Reno. Uh just one update for that. uh the rural uh housing authority had asked for some funds and they took a little sliver of Reno's um um portion as well as Clark County's portion, but they took that proportionally based on how much each of us were getting. So they took 28% of what we were getting and 72% of what Clark County was getting uh to kind of fund that. They they made sure that they uh adjusted for the proportionality there. Uh AB540 is the governor's housing attainability and access accessibility act. Uh that includes some money for rental assistance as well as money to reimburse local governments when they wave fees for affordable housing projects. SB28 allows for creation of a tiff district uh for affordable housing projects. Uh that is moving on through the assembly. Uh originally we had supported that bill when it was in the senate still. Uh it had expanded what we could wave fees for uh with respect to affordable housing. So waving the sewer connection fees, it would have allowed us to wave those fees for um housing projects. They're up to 128 120% AMI. That has all been taken out though, but it does um it is still in the governor's housing bill. So it exists in another vehicle. SB51 was the account for help, which would have allowed local governments to apply uh for funding for waved fees. Again, that is in the governor's h housing bill. Uh waved fees for affordable housing, I should say. Uh, and that will be in the governor's housing bill. So, we'll continue to monitor that throughout the process. Uh, SB283 is another rental assistance bill that would give $6 million in rental assistance to the city of Reno. And then SB289, affordable housing authorization for local governments. Uh, this was really meant to tackle rental uh, uh, rent control and uh, that bill died and did not carry forward through the process. AB96 requires local governments to have heat mitigation elements in their master plan. Uh we supported that bill after there was an amendment to the the implementation date. AB131 originally was a prescriptive ADU uh ordinance requirement for local governments. That's been completely overhauled to just say that if um someone is providing uh their ADU for affordable housing, they can ask for a rebate on their uh property taxes. Uh and they also could accept housing vouchers. That's how they would say that it is being used for affordable housing. Um AB185, that's the bill that requires HOAs to allow for child care facilities. That bill initially would have required the city to pass a new ordinance. They completely removed that section of the bill. Uh so I recommend we change from our position from opposed initially when uh it had that language in there to support based on the feedback I had gotten from council. AB241 requires cities to pass an ordinance that allows for mixeduse residential on commercially zoned properties. Uh we're continuing to work with the bill sponsor on that one. that is the majority leader Howard's bill in the assembly. I think we're almost there. Um just to make sure that the city council still retains its authority to kind of make those local uh land use decisions. Uh but we will continue to work with her. AB396 is another prescriptive ADU ordinance bill. Uh that uh is quite apt given uh the conversation that happened today, but it would nullify many of the conversations related to uh different setbacks. It would require that cities allow for multiple ADUs on one property. Um so as it is written, we definitely recommend we oppose. We'll continue to see if we can work on it. But um as we're having that conversation with our community, this bill is um kind of making it difficult to have that conversation with the community given that it might nullify anything that we we change in this year. SB48 was originally the city of Las Vegas's bill that made changes to master plans and zoning just for Southern Nevada. uh they graciously gave us their bill. The entirety of the original bill has been deleted and that bill is now just a co-terminus planning commissioner's bill for the city of Reno. It is clean. It is just that. Uh there's one other thing in there that just changes the reporting date uh that we sended information to the Chucky Meadows Regional Planning Agency um from a calendar year to a fiscal year just to align with the rest of our data policies. SP 303 removes the immunity shield for recreational activities on city property. Um, this is as a result of the city of Henderson winning taking a case to this Nevada Supreme Court and using the existing immunity shield that is in uh NRS and they they presided they won that case. It's referred to as the Abbott case and now uh the sponsors of the bill are trying to change the law so that that would no longer apply for cases like that. Uh but we do recommend we oppose given that it would have a significant impact on our parks if there was potentially some cracks or something that we did not know about uh and someone injured themselves. Alo would open up the city to substantial liability. AB 102 enabling language to allow Northern Nevada Public Health to license EMS personnel. This is how they do it at Southern Nevada Health District. Uh that's been referred to Ways and Means. The state had put a fiscal note on it. Uh and so we'll see how that moves through the process. AB168 changes to allow bikes to yield at stop signs instead of stop. Um this is based on the fact that some bikers are um locked into their pedals and it is difficult for them to stop at a stop sign. Uh originally that bill included ebikes and e- scooters. They took both of those out especially given the prevalence of bird scooters downtown. We thought that was important. Uh other law enforcement agencies had kind of backed off the issue and we recommend we're neutral given the sponsor worked with us on those two things. AB281 requires that the court not consider prior sealed records when considering a petition for a new record sealing. Uh we recommend we oppose because there could be a pattern of behavior that the judge is not able to look at and fully understand if you're not able to reference those previous uh records that have been sealed. AB 402 and I apologize I made a mistake on here. That's been referred to ways and means but that's a pilot program for uh automatic traffic enforcement and work zones. Uh we supported that bill. They added some language that made it a little bit easier for us to implement if we if we so choose, but it's not a requirement. It would be something that the city council could decide upon. SB 199 originally prohibited entirely the use of AI for um police reports. Now, it just puts guard rails in there. I think at this point we can say that we're neutral and we'll continue to work with the sponsor in the interim. But um as the platform states, we'll kind of work with the state uh to look at what kind of guard rails we need when it comes to AI and uh as it relates to and impacts bias and um other factors. SB 208 increases uh the allowed ending fund balance for the E911 search charge that is moving on to the assembly. We supported that bill. Senate Bill 319 is Senator Daly's fire bill. That bill has been changed to a study on the uh impacts or the potential impacts of a regionalized fire district. And so we'll continue to monitor that, but it is headed to the assembly. SB415 was the largest I would say um most comprehensive automated traffic enforcement bill. That bill had a very extensive hearing, multiple hours. there was um an opportunity for both the supporters of the bill as well as opposition to give a full presentation kind of talk through their issues. Um that bill ended up uh not moving forward through the process. It not did not get through its committee. AB93 expands workers compensation for hard and lung to marshals and fire investigators. That's in ways and means as it has an impact to the state. Uh we don't have a position necessarily on any of these, but I did want to let you know uh given that they will have uh financial impacts to the city. AB42 originally would have given the mental stress statute um provisions to um any employee of a law enforcement agency. Uh they narrowed it down to crime scene investigators. And just for context, and I don't get me wrong, I'm not an expert on this issue, but I can tell you that the initial uh fiscal impact would have been a million dollars. Now it's about $100,000 given the amount of employees that are impacted. Now SB170 expands required testing for annual exams for all firefighters. that is in finance. AB61 was Sparks' toll road bill. That bill has died. It did not move forward. Uh AB80 was the sidewalk vendor bill that uh had been amended to exclude Northern Nevada based on the work we had done um in years past. Uh and that will no longer be moving through the process. AB 197 uh imposes civil penalties for failing to redact nonprofit information from public records. This has always been a tough one because we're in a catch22 of having to release the record versus having to keep that information confidential. Uh we were able to finally work with the sponsor and get uh an agreement that the local government or the employee would have to know or um should have known that they were accidentally revealing that information so it couldn't be, you know, caught up in a string of a public record. That's quite extensive. Um I think that's the best that we're going to be able to get with this one. Uh but we do appreciate the sponsor adding that additional language. Assembly bill 256 uh just creates a regional rail transit working group. And then SB 145 was the appropriation to the theater contingent upon matching funds. Uh and as with all of the appropriations, I won't have any update on those until after the economic forum and having a better understanding of where the state's budget's at. And that is my presentation. All right, Nick. Great job. Okay, I'm gonna um go over to my left. Go ahead, Councilman Ree. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I wanted to ask specifically about SB48. Um so, this is the coterminus bill as you describe it now. So, let me ask a question just so I'm clear. Can a uh or is there a residency requirement for someone to serve on the planning commission? Must they live inside of the boundaries of a particular ward? Not as far as I'm aware. Uh, one thing I will say is the bill is written in such a way that the city could adopt an ordinance. It's not actually telling us in state law that we would have to have co-termous plan commissioners. So, you would have the ability to craft the ordinance as you. So, rather than um put it in etched in stone, so to speak, they're just saying, hey, cities of our size would have the power to create their own uh ordinance which would govern it. That is correct. Uh that was to address uh maybe Wo County and Sparks having differing views on this. So, we just said, "Okay, well, if you don't want to, then you have to adopt an order." Perfect sense. It's kind of one of those things where you just try to be as uh sort of surgically as you can. I I also think it's uh unique, too, because I wonder what happens when a uh the ward redrawing happened, which meant that someone who was once in one ward is now in another ward, which in my mind somewhat leaves the word that they left out of the conversation. So perhaps that's just something that would happen when we come back to if if it should pass then it comes back to this body for us to draft an ordinance. Perhaps that'll be one of the questions I would have about at that time. But thank you for the update of course. Um I I did notice today some alarming economic news out of the state. Uh which means that I'm not sure any of what you put up there which had fiscal notes or do not will now change. You know, I heard you say, for example, that one bill would give $6 million to the city of Reno for uh housing related uh issues, and I can't remember the bill number now, but uh oh yeah, SB283. Um I do worry that the economic forecast is getting worse, not better. And so this has implications for all of us and local government, too. The one thing I'd just add is uh speaking with Assembly Member uh Monroe Mareno who is chair of Ways and Means and also the sponsor of uh AB475, she was very clear that uh given whatever economic downturn might happen or given the state might not have as many funds as they had initially planned, uh this was one of her number one priorities. So making sure that people are staying housed. Uh, so while I can't speak to all of them, I do think that she feels pretty confident that she's gonna fight that fight for us to make sure we can keep up. Well, she's quite a tremendous leader in Carson. So, I I trust your view of it. Um, generally speaking, everything is going well in Carson for you. You feel you have your needs met and you're getting the support you need. This has been an excellent session. Okay. Thank you so much. Go ahead, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Thank you, Nick, for um everything that you're doing. And I will I just want to brag for a minute. Um we get on all of our other boards, we get updates from from various lobbyists. And I always have to say, let me send you something of the way that we get our information at the city of Reno. So, you are really an exemplary example what what we need to be doing. Two questions. I think AB475 and SB283. Um, I think it's important to to acknowledge that the reason why Reno or the reason why I think Reno should be the recipient of these funds is because we are doing the work. And as an example, over the weekend, I had a constituent that needed to be housed immediately. And some of the other jurisdictions were we couldn't do this or you need to talk to this or we provide this or whatever. And Reno was the only one that was able to say yes, we can get there with our emergency rental assistance. So what is the difference between those two bills? The number one difference would be the sponsors, right? Uh in AB475, it only gives to the city of Reno and Clark County and the Rural Housing Authority. Um it also, that one is interesting. It has a 10% admin fee cap, which I don't think is necessarily a problem, but it is specific to that one. SB283. Uh that gives $6 million to Reno, 3 million to Sparks, and I want to say I can't remember. I think it's 12 million to Clark County. Uh but that would be the big difference. AB475 really acknowledges that the city of Reno is the regional provider. Uh and I was very proud to have the city of Sparks as well as Wo County come and testify in support of that bill as opposed to having kind of that fight over who gets the funding. Is it safe to say that one of those or an iteration of both of them will move forward? We're not going to get 13 million. I mean, I'd love to get 13 million, but Oh, they they will consolidate it. Okay, they'll consolidate. And then the other question I had is on the um Reno Housing Authority bill, the makeup of the board. We got an update at RHA yesterday that that will come back to the jurisdictions for some sort of resolution that we would have to pass at this body moving forward. And I guess I'll just look for more updates or more information on that as we move forward through that process. Sure, I'm more than happy to keep you apprised. Um, yeah, and it'll continue moving through the process, but currently just to get it on the record, it's two from Reno, two from Sparks, and two from Wo County. Uh, and then one tenant of the RHA. Uh, but it'll be up to this body who they decide to appoint. Okay. Thank you so much and appreciate your work again. Thanks, Nick. Yeah. Um, oh, were you ahead? Okay. Um I too was had questions about these two bills and whether 7 million and 6 million 13 million you you do think they'll get consolidated. Uh I I think they'll get consolidated or only one bill will move forward. I don't think that $13 million. That's correct. And then I was a little confused when you spoke about I didn't get whether it was SB475 the 7 million. You said that we had to take a little bit of a haircut, but you said 28% and 72%, but what I think you meant was whatever amount they gave them, they took 28% of that from us and 72% of that from not 72% of Clark Countyy's. Okay. So, did it start out as like 8 million or 8 and a half n? Oh, it started off as 7 million and now it's actually 6.7 million. They took 210,000. Okay. 210. Okay. And then um there was um let's see there was another let me just roll through this. So on SB28 which was the creation of a tiff district for affordable housing. I thought affordable housing is already a legitimate ask under the RDAs. I'm going to be honest with you. I cannot speak to that portion of the bill just given that uh we already have those two RDAs and we wouldn't implement another tax increment financing system as far as I understand given that those two exist and uh cover a large. Well, we already have Grant Sierra saying they want to ask for affordable housing. We've had inclination from Jacob saying they want to ask for affordable housing under under the RDAs. And so this is really tailored. This is a city of Las Vegas bill. Oh. Um it it was tailored for them. uh they like us are landlocked. They're running out of land. They don't have any land to build. So they're trying to build up. They're trying to build more transitoriented development. And so this was another tool in their toolbox that they wanted to use. So this is really about them, not us. It it applies statewide if we wanted to use that power. If a future city council wanted to use that power. Okay. And then there was something else I wanted to ask you about. Um property tax exemption for AT. So on AB131, if you have an ADU, of which we have no legal ADUs right now, but if you did, you could get a property tax exemption if it was for affordable housing. So that means you'd have to prove something like that you are providing it for affordable housing. Yeah, I would see like maybe a covenant on there or them showing us that someone used a housing voucher to um restriction. Yeah, something like that. Uhhuh. Okay. And then um I think that was my questions. Uh oh, on the planning commissioners today I was understood that we could appoint anyone whether they're in or out of our ward. Is that correct? That is correct. That's correct. Right. So okay, but this one changed that. This would just change it that the term would be terminous. Okay. All right. Thanks. All right. Go ahead, Miguel. Thanks so much. Congressman Martinez, take it away. Thank you. Thanks, Nick, for the update and presentation. I had a question about AB96. Just wondering if you can go into some of those elements um for heat mitigation. Just wondering if you can kind of go through some of the details in there for us. Well, this is one of those things where it's nice when they don't provide too many details in state law so we can kind of figure that out and have that conversation with our community. Uh but it it would address things like uh tree canopy, shade structures, those kind of things, adding that heat mitigation element into our master plan. Um but again, that's a conversation that when we're talking about the specifics, that'd be a conversation the city council makes or uh has. So it's just allowing us or kind of propelling us to include some I think propelling is the right word because we could already do it if we wanted to. Yeah. But okay. And then the last one is on uh SB 319, Senator Dy's fire bill. Uh wondering if you can give me more details on the study that was approved, like who's paying for it, what's ideally going to come out of that study. Yeah, so as the bill is written, it would incl. Um it's not super prescriptive in how that conversation kind of unfolds, but it is looking at like how do we have better fire services in the region. Okay, that's all I had. Thank you so much. Yeah, that's it for me. Yeah. Hi. Yeah. Um thanks for uh all the updates. I had a question also about the fire um consolidation one. Are the um fire unions involved in this conversation at all? Are they providing any kind of input or supporting this? Uh when the bill was presented uh maybe about a month ago, uh the fire unions had supported the bill as it was written. Okay. And the um potential uh changes about um ADUs, does that look like it's going to go through? like we're spending a lot of time talking about ADUs and I don't know if it's going to be relevant. Um that's a very hard conversation to kind of have. Uh I'm not sure where it'll continue to move through. I will tell you that it uh it passed through the assembly AB 396. Uh and now it has to go through the Senate go through uh its committee hearing through all of its processing. That bill specifically was a partisan vote. Um it was all Democrats voting for it and all Republicans voting against it. Okay. Um, I don't I can't tell you 100% how it'll end up uh by the end of session. Things change quickly. Um, but currently it passed the major deadline. So, it'll continue moving through the process. So, is that something that would trump whatever it is that we're we put together like that is correct and that is the exact testimony that I gave on the record saying that we're having this conversation with our community and we don't need a state law um in order to tell us to have that conversation with the community. Okay. All right. Thank you. You are free to go. You have one more. Okay. Go ahead. The um heat mitigation um is there funds associated with that? No, it just it's just an element in our master plan. So, no funds associated with that. Okay. And you said no details yet. That's for us to decide what the details are. There's a few details in there. Like I said, tree canopy, shade structures, but it's not super prescriptive other than telling us we would have to include that element in our master plan. Okay, thank you. Okay, just for good measure, we will accept your report. How's that? Thank you very much. Can I get a I don't know if we have to make a motion. Motion to accept the report. All right, I have a motion and a second. All those in favor say I. I opposed. Motion carries unanimously. Okay, next up RDA. Oh, we are doing RDA. Okay. Okay, here we go. Um madame clerk. We will now open the RDA and please um lead us in roll call. Any public comment? Thank you. We're opening the redevelopment agency board for Wednesday, April 23rd. Vice Mayor Taylor here. Council member Door here. Martinez. Eert here. Reese. Anderson here. Shivy, yes. Madame Mayor, you do have a quorum of the redevelopment agency board. Okay. Our first item is opening public comment. Um, we have none registered and have not received any correspondence on item A3. So, we can close that out. Okay. Moving on to item A4, approval of the agenda. All right. Thank you so much. I have a motion. Second. I have a second. All those in favor say I. I. All those opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Item A5. Move to approve both minutes. I have a motion. I have a second. All those in favor say I. I. All those opposed. Motion carries unanimously. Okay. Um I think this is you, Brian. Awesome. Thank you all. Brian Mardell, revitalization manager. Uh before you today is the resolution. Um, sorry Brian, we need to open the public hearing before we can the presentation. Sorry, madame clerk. I will now open the public hearing. Was uh correspondence um correspondence received? Was proper notice given? Any correspondence received? Thank you. Uh Madame Mayor, proper notice was given on this item. We have not received any correspondence. Okay. Thank you so much. Sorry, I was drawing a blank. What are we doing? Madame Clerk, as a point of order, are we opening B1 and C4 together? That is correct. So, we're opening item B1 on the redevelopment agency board as well as item C4 on the Reno City Council agenda. Thank you so much. Thank you. Okay, thank you for that clarification. And so the council item before you is the resolution uh to adopt that it or to determine that is in the best interest of the city to dispose of this property and the redevelopment agency item before you is to um have the redevelopment agency quickly their interest in this property so it can be properly sold. Um, I have a presentation that is sort of catered around selling the property, but um, because we're in redevelopment right now, I believe you take that item first, but if you'd like, I can give the the presentation on the property. All right. Anyone would like to see the presentation? Nope. Okay. Thank you so much. Next. Thank you. Excellent. Okay, that's it. Do Yeah. Do you want to make a motion on the redevelopment agency item to quick claim the mot interest in this? Can you put the motion up? You know, I'm sorry. There is one thing I do want to include when we're talking about um these properties. I think that it is important to um whoever we're negotiating with or contract with that they come before the council so that we can find out what what they want to do, the longevity, all these things. you know, I just it would be nice um you know, to know who is buying the properties. I mean, I know in this instance, but as we move forward on other ones, Brian, if you could ask them, the council, it's it's no different than when we do business licenses and those types of things. In case someone has questions, you probably cannot answer a lot of those questions because it's not you. So, that would probably be less stressful for you, too. Correct. All right. Thanks. And as a point of order, madame uh clerk, are we needing to first uh approve the resolution on B1 or approve Charlie 4? What is the proper order? I'm actually going to give that to legal one. Oh, okay. B1. Madame Mayor, I move to adopt the resolution. All right. Thank you so much. I have a motion. I have a second. All those in favor say I. I. All those opposed. Motion carries. Okay. On item Charlie 4. Now the resolution. Does it have to be read? Uh I think it No, it doesn't. Okay. All right. Uh then you are making a motion to approve. I did. Okay. Thank you. I have a second. All those in favor say I. I. All those opposed. Motion carries unanimously. Okay. What else? We are now Madame Clerk. Councilwoman, I'm so sorry. If you're okay, we'll go ahead and close out um our redevelopment agency. So, we're on item C1, which is redevelopment agency board comments. Okay. Thank you so much. Any comments from uh any of you the board? Seeing that there are none, we will close it out. Perfect. Okay, we're on item D1, which is closing public comment. We have none registered, so I'm looking for a motion to adjurnn the redevelopment agency board. All right, we have a motion to adjurnn. Second. I have a second. All those in favor say I. I. All those opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Anything else? I'm up for one more. Oh, you're okay. We're on item we're back to our um Reno City Council agenda for a while. Item C5. Council members. Uh this is the resolution fixing the time, date, and location to do the bid assessment. This is something that has been done every year over the last seven years. Um, so I'll request if you do require a presentation on this item. Other than that is just studying the date a month from now to to hear the assessment role and any hardships and complaints. Okay, Madame Mayor, unless anyone has any, I'll move to adopt. All right, I have a motion. Second. Have a second. All those I had a question. Go ahead. Sorry. Uh, just say discussion. Okay. Just for discussion. Um, is there community input on this at all or is it something that we just set? Um, there's no community input. This is just setting the date time for the assessment hearing. Okay. Okay. What happens after today is we notice everyone within the business improvement district of what their potential assessment amount would be. Uh and then they can um a month from now come in uh provide any complaints or they have the opportunity to file a hardship which is if they have an income ratio according to HUD they can be eligible for a hardship which would wave their assessment for 5 years. Okay. And do you send out postcards or how how Yep, we do send out mailings uh those are prepared to go out tomorrow. Okay. Uh to the property owners. Okay. So not the people that live there. We often get tenants uh on that note, we often get tenants who um see the notice, feel that they can't make the assessment payment or want to file hardships, but because they're not the property owners or the ones paying the assessment, they are they're not the entity that is uh responsible for that assessment amount. All right. Thank you. Okay. All right. I have a motion and a second. All those in favor say I. I. All those opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much. I guess you can now go home. Okay. Back at you, um, Madame Clerk. Thank you, Madam Mayor. We're moving on to item D1. Okay. Uh, let's see. Let uh, the record reflect that the council is now opening the public hearing on items D1 through D3. Uh, madame clerk, was proper notice given and any correspondence received? Madame Mayor, proper notice was given and no correspondence was received on items D1 through D3. Okay, then I'm going to send it over to the one and only Carl Hall. He hates it when I do that. Your face gets all red, Carl. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Ordinance introduction bill number 7297 for possible action case number LDC 25-000038 Arlington Office MPA and ZMA ordinance to amend title 18 chapter 18.02 02 of the Reno Municipal Code entitled zoning reszoning or plus or minus 0.31 acre parcel located on the east side of South Arlington Avenue plus or minus 260 ft north of its intersection with West Plum Lane within the Plumis neighborhood residential core planning area overlay PL from single family five units per acre SF5 to professional office PO together with matters which pertain to or necessarily connected there with W two. All right. Or two, I'm sending it to you, Councilwoman Der. Thank you. So, would our planning staff mind just giving us a very brief with the map tell us what we're doing here? And um I I I'll leave it at that. Just Okay. Give us not the full presentation, just a brief Yep. Okay. So, yeah. So, the zone change and master plan amendment and zone change that's that is proposed on this site uh near Plum and Arlington. Uh it is proposed to go from uh as we oh let's see hold on just a second. There are some additional office buildings right here on the on the slide there shown by the arrows. Again it's proposed to go from single family to suburban mixed use. Um that would then allow a zone change from SF5 to professional office. Um the as you can see it's surrounded by similar zoning and similar uh master plan land use designations. So, it's a very straightforward request in terms of extending uh the uh master plan and land use uh zoning designations to allow a development of a small office building. Right. So, so I'm uh I've been generally supportive. I wondered if um the people in yellow that are single family homes today have I'm sure they were noticed. Did we hear from them? Um so not only were they noticed for the um process that we have here, but they were also noticed for the master plan amendment. Yeah. Uh and there was a neighborhood meeting that was held. The applicant um is here today. I was at the meeting as well. Um there was one couple who showed up um and they also showed up to the NAB meeting, right? Um but uh that was the the only public involvement that we had and they after learning about what was being proposed they uh seemed to have no issues and as I recall that they were going to put in some kind of screening between this office new professional office and these residents. Is that right? So whether it's fence or tree or ID. So I when a development plan comes forward there will be a requirement for a minor site plan review and those types of issues would be addressed at that point in time. We can't necessarily look at that at the zone change level but yes it's a in in all likelihood that kind of an issue would be addressed with the minor site. I think it's a good location. You know it's right at a major intersection Arlington and Plum. There's other office buildings. I just want to make sure that, you know, it's always difficult when things change that we provide enough screening or buffering, you know, so people can still enjoy their home. Sure. And we can still have progress in terms of commercial development. So anyway, I am comfortable and I'm ready to make a motion. Yeah. And what's that? Right. So my question though is we have three items and do you want me to take them separately? I guess attorney. Yes, please. Yeah. Jeeoff, do you have a motion screen for them? Okay. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Um, so for this one, which is item D1, um, and I guess I'll read the case. LDC25-000038. Based on compliance with the applicable findings, I move to uphold the recommendations of the planning commission to approve. All right. Thank you so much. I have a motion and a second. All those in favor say I. I. All those opposed. Motion carries unanimously. All right. Give me um another motion. Do you have them recommend a motion? Okay. the same one. No, it's so the master plan amendment is the first one and that would be the next item on the agenda, I believe, Carl. Yeah, that D2 D2 would be for the master plan amendment and then D3 for the zoning map amendment. Yeah, I know. I'm just checking making sure. So um in the case of LDC25-000038 based upon compliance with applicable findings on this one I move to uphold the recommendation of the planning commission and this is for the master plan amendment. Okay second mot sorry council member door if you can read the second one where it says um adopt resolution number that's actually the one the motion we're looking for. So, it's not this motion. It's the second line on there that says master plan amendment. Do you want me to fill in the the number? If you just say the resolution. Oh, okay. I move to adopt resolution the resolution subject to conformance review by the regional planning commission. All right. I have a motion. I have a second. All those in favor say I. I. All those opposed. And then on the zoning map amendment, I move to refer the bill for a second reading and adoption. All right. Thank you. I have a motion and a second. All those in favor say I. I. All those opposed. Motion carries. Unanimously. Okay. Okay. Okay. Madam clerk. Madame Mayor, we're moving on to item D4. Okay. At this time, madam clerk, uh, let the record reflect that the council is opening the public hearing on item D4. Do you have any, um, well, was proper notice given and any correspondence received? Madame Mayor, proper notice was given and no correspondence was received on item D4. Okay. Thank you so much. I'm going to send it back over to Carl Hall. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Ordinance introduction bill number 7298 case number LDC 25-000043 Earl Worooster and Corbett zone change ordinance to amend title 18 chapter 18.02 02 of the Reno Municipal Code entitled zoning reszoning a plus or minus 43.13 acre site located at the northeast corner of East Plum Lane and Harvard Way and together and another portion north of Villanova Drive plus or minus 132 ft east of its intersection with Harvard Way from single family residential 8 units per acre SFA to public facility PF together with matters which pertain to or necessarily connected there with W three. Okay, W three. sending it over to you. Unless anybody has any questions, I'm ready to motion. Please give me a motion. Okay. I move to up the recommendation of the planning commission by approving the zoning map amendment and referring to second reading for adoption by ordinance. Okay. Thank you. So, I have a motion. I have a second. All those in favor say I. I. All those opposed. Motion carries unanimously. All right, Madame Mayor. Um we're going to move all the way down to our H items. We have item H1, city council comments. Okay. Thank you. At this time, I'm going to ask council members any comments? Councilwoman Der. Yep. Um, and earlier we discussed um the use of the 2% for art and um I I just want to go on record that I've been very supportive of the 2% for art and as you point out, Mayor Civie, that was adopted, let's say, over 15 years ago. Um I think it is time just to take a look at it. I would like um it also to be eligible those funds with no other changes, but other people may have other changes to also be able to be used for historical um exhibits. Um and that could include plaques. It could include a whole display in a building, whatever it is. Um and so I know we need to bring back an ordinance, but I just wanted to go on record as what my interest is. Sounds like the mayor had a little slightly different interest, but that's fine. and she'll speak for herself. But the second thing is that we've been we made a a code change back I want to say it was I don't actually know the date but it was when we updated title 18 and I think it was January 2025 and one of the things that we did was we said that drive-throughs are okay in neighborhood commercial. So, this is a brand new thing. Before, drive-throughs are not allowed in neighborhood commercial. They're allowed in commercial. They're allowed in all kind of other places, but not in neighborhood commercial, which is usually, you know, more tightly controlled. Um, this has led already to some some really challenging times. And I would like to revisit just that one section of Title 18, um, which is, um, I don't think drive-throughs should be in neighborhood commercial. So far it's caused nothing but problems. Um so I'd love love love to revisit that when when you know it need not be we could bring it on its own or it could be part of something else and there probably are some other things but but that is just one thing I would like to get addressed. Okay. Okay. Thanks. All right. Any other council comments? Just one. Madam Mayor, go right ahead. I want to make sure that everyone is aware that on Saturday there's quite a few events going on. Arbor Day celebration this day. Uh Saturday the 25th 26th 26th 26th. Um and I'll invite you all to the Plumis Tennis Center for their grand opening and a tennis and pickle ball day. Awesome. 9 to noon. I was over there uh earlier this week doing some media availability for the event. And I will tell you I arrived at 9:00 am on a Tuesday. There were 200 people using our public facility playing pickle ball. 9:00 am. Gorgeous day. The facility is immaculate. All the courts for the first time in 35 years have been resurfaced. One whole side has lights now. Um the operator there is just doing an incredible job. And I called uh the parks director, Mr. Ult afterwards and just said, "Hey, home run. Everybody who touched the project did a great job." But just goes to show those public private partnerships, especially in that space, can be successful. And really Nate and his team and Carrie and her team made that project a reality. So come out and see it because it's gonna be pretty spectacular. But I would say thank you for championing it. If you had not, it would not have happened. So I appreciate that. And um it's not even in your word. So thank you. I appreciate that. Um and then going back to um Did did you say Yeah, I had a comment too. Go ahead. Um also this Saturday there's a community cleanup in W four. So, there's no um e-waste or has has or hazardous waste um for this one, but there is a community cleanup on Saturday at um O'Brien Middle School um from 8 to 10. Tell tell people what that means exactly. Oh, I'm sorry. 9 to 12. Um so, if you have um stuff, you're doing some spring cleaning and you want to throw it away and maybe it's too big for your trash can. Yeah. take it take it to um the dumpsters there and they'll take care of it for free. So, can you bring electronics? No. Yeah, this one we can't have electronics or um like old paint, things like that. But, you know, if you've been cleaning up um your yard and you have a ton of leaves or um you know, got a new mattress and you want to toss a mattress or got a new c whatever. I mean, it's You mean got a old mattress? Yeah. Yeah, I know. You can um you know dump anything you want there basically. So good spring brain cleaning. Yeah. Exactly. Go ahead. I'm sorry I left out two two others. Um since we're doing announcements um I wanted to reannounce that we're having a tree planting and in respect for Arbor Day. Um we heard earlier that some 32 trees were taken out of Virginia Lake because they were getting old and uh had a threat of falling. And so we'll be planting a whole bunch of new trees. Um I mentioned earlier there was an article in Washington Post showing that Reno is not keeping up. Um I don't know how they came to their conclusions, but several people sent me that article today. So I'm encouraging everyone to come same times 9 to 12. It'll probably be really 9 to 11. We're working with uh keep trucking Meadows Beautiful. So there's a sign up with them. Um I'd love any other council members to come. This Virginia Lake is the allegedly is the third most utilized park out of some our 87 some parks and uh it's a great opportunity to get your hands dirty. Um the second thing about trees that I I wanted to ask their city manager to do, I recently read uh that the Arlington Bridge, which I've totally supported getting that replaced, they're going to they're planning to take down quite a few old trees. And um uh Miss Taylor reminded me of this. this as an award ward, but I I think it was something around 20 trees. They're older. I didn't know if we have formally approved that project yet or it's still coming on an ass soon to to be agenda. Do do you know if we've approved the contracts? It's all through RTC. I'm not really sure. They're starting in May, so I presume it has all been approved. Yeah. So, I'm just hoping we can just still I'm sure fine-tuning's okay, but if it's possible to save any of those trees, they're part of what makes that area special. You know, Wingfield Park, both sides of the road. So, if you could just maybe have some staff give me an update on that, that would be helpful. Thank you, Naomi. Where was where was this at Arlington Bridge, the tree? Oh, at Virginia Lake. I apologize if I didn't mention Yeah. Okay. Go ahead. Um, I just wanted to give some kudos to our police department. Um, several council meetings back. We talked about some very, very dangerous conditions traffic-wise on McCarron and other areas in town. I know Miss Eert, you have brought to the attention of RPD, the um ebikes that you know the young it sounds like it's mostly the middle school kids that are kind of causing a lot of um commotion and very very unsafe conditions in um some of the neighborhoods with their ebikes. And it's becoming a a a very grave concern, especially in the areas where you have a lot of um new drivers, people that aren't really really great at navigating a whole bunch of, you know, um misfits on bikes and otherwise. So, I just wanted to say that um very recently the RPD implemented a program where in extreme cases of recklessness, they can share and publicly shame people that have been extremely irresponsible in traffic situations in our neighborhoods. And I shared that for the first time on social media with great interest to see what the response was going to be. And I will tell you that the community is thrilled. Yeah. Thrilled about that program. Yeah. So, I just it came on pretty quick um based on that request and I'm really really excited about it. So, thank you. Love it. And I going back to your praise for RPD. Um I don't know if you've been on McCarron, but they are out in full force and I love that and they have done a phenomenal job. And it's it's funny because people come and they're like, "Mayor, we support this. We support this." And then they get caught for speeding. Yes. So anyway, um I think don't think I haven't thought about that multiple times with my own driving. I know. I know. But anyway, thank you for recognizing them and Reno's finest over here. Miss Anderson, where do we get those reports? How did how I when I I complimented you for posting that on your post, but I wasn't sure where you got it, the information? Uh just Reno PD social media. Oh, Reno PD social. So you amplified something they posted. Gotcha. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Um, last but not least, anyone else? I had one more thing. I'm so sorry. Go ahead. Um, I just wanted to uh acknowledge um a little girl who um died tragically in the Cold Springs area earlier this month. Um she was a victim of abuse and it's a horrible situation. Um so I just want to share my support for that community. Um I know the belief sign is going to turn blue this Friday. um and to recognize National Child Abuse Prevention Month. Um I'm I'm happy to have the support for this, but it's so sad that we have to do it. But I just wanted to acknowledge that little girl and hope that people remember her um and just share my support for that community right now. Very sad. I think I have a proclamation coming to you as well. Yeah. Um, okay. Last but not least, I would love to ask uh Jackie uh city manager Jackie Bryant um update on Barbara Bennett Park because I um it has not been great obviously and we were going to repave it. So, that's one. And you might not have the answer now, but just asking for an update. I I I will get you a better update, but it's in the works. Fine. I just wanted to tell you. And then um the other thing I would like to bring back for an agenda item and I think it's really important and this is really about safety um on a couple fronts would be uh city licensing for nonprofits and it doesn't have to be a lot of money and this is not about money but this is about safety. We need to know where every business is located in the city of Reno in case they should need help. And also for zoning purposes, we have put things next to um nonprofits that were not allowed to be zoned there. So this is not about making money. I know we have seen some emails that people were getting very um I guess heightened excitement um over this. But I think um even if it's a very very nominal fee, we should know exactly uh what who's doing business in the city of Reno, whether you're a nonprofit or not. Um, you know, some people might want to fly out under the radar, but I believe 99% of them are all good and should also get the same protections that the people with businesses l business license do. Um, and that means uh if you're not on the city's radar, then how do we know you'll get police services or um you know uh fire services? Who knows? So this really for me is I think we need to know exactly where everyone's located so that we can provide services. Okay, we'll do Okay. So sorry, one more thing. You just reminded me I had a presentation at my NAB last week um from uh an organization that coordinated with local churches to um provide warming centers um for a few months. It was extremely successful. there was I think they said 20 people that got connected to services for the first time. So these were people that we didn't have, you know, um on the list before, but now they're they've um received services. And I just wanted to um thank uh RISE for their work in doing that. And I'm sorry I can't remember all the churches right now that also helped participate by providing a space. Um, but I did want to ask if it would be possible to um coordinate with RISE. I know they said that there was kind of a disconnect with um services that there's like a portal or something that city of Reno and county can use and I wanted to know if that's something that we can share with with something like that. Yes, absolutely. Okay. Thank you. All right. Thanks so much. Okay. Madame Mayor, were you going to also mention about the STRs? Do do we have to mention that here? You already got that. Yeah. Okay. Gotcha. All right. Um, we are going to adjourn right now. We will back be back at six o'clock. Is there anything I'm forgetting, Madam Clerk? Okay. You guys go um maybe eat a little bit of something, but get it get out of here and get some fresh air. We're not doing dinner. We're not doing dinner. Um, that only triggers if we have two and tonight we only have one. So, everyone eat. Okay. Thanks. See you soon. Madame Vice Mayor, if you're ready to reconvene this meeting, we can get going. Yeah. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Um, let reconvening at 602. And for the record, Council Member Martinez, Mayor Shivi, and Council Member Der are absent at reconvene. Okay. Let the record reflect the council's opening the public hearing on items um see here. I one hold on just a second here. This item was continued from the January 26 22nd 2025 city council meeting when council heard the appeal and continued it for 90 days. Council directed the appellant to work with the applicant to work with the appellant and the surrounding community members to discuss possible solutions to the appellent's concerns. In terms of format for tonight's hearing, the applicant will have 10 minutes to provide a presentation with an update of any project changes. Following the applicant's presentation, the appellant will have 10 minutes for a follow-up presentation. Madame clerk, was proper notice given and any correspondence received? Proper notice was given and we did receive correspondence on this item. I'm sorry, my computer's still loading. Um, we received 73 comments, one in support of the project, 67 in opposition of the project, and five letters of concern. And again, those have been distributed to the Reno City Council. Okay. Thank you. I'll bring it back to the council for disclosures. Um, starting with council member Eert. Council member Reese. Nothing, Madam Vice Mayor. Okay. Is council member Martinez online? Okay. Um, at this time we will ask for a presentation from the applicant, Mr. Derling. Welcome. Thank you for being here. Thank you very much. Um, council for the record, Andy Derling with Wood Rogers representing the applicant. with me also tonight, Garrett Gordon, uh as well as Joe Ryan with Thompson Thrift, the applicant. Uh we do have a presentation for you to to talk about the the activities that have gone on um since the continuence on uh January 22nd. Just as a reminder, and I won't spend a lot of time on this because I know we spent a lot of time at the last meeting. Um just the overview of the project, 273 multif family units proposed in two buildings. Um uh on-site amenities. It's your typical very, you know, class A, um multif family project. And just highlighting here, you know, we spent a lot of time at the last meeting and and we'll we'll highlight it again here, but this project as compared to what's currently on the books, what's approved is is much less intense. Um it conforms with the codes and standards, which is um you know, indicated in staff's recommend recommendation for approval and ultimately planning commission's unanimous approval. Again, just kind of re you know, reminding everyone of the comparison here of what's allowed in the general commercial zoning district. um what's approved, what we can build currently, uh and what's being proposed now. Ultimately, the proposal um results in 146 fewer units than what code would allow and 41 fewer units uh than what's currently approved. Um the building height um is on par with what's currently approved. About 50 foot four-story buildings are currently approved. Um these are still fourstory buildings. one um side of one building um is 55 ft in in height but comparable. Um code allows you to go up to 65 ft and five stories. So we're obviously under that. Um the front setbacks much more than what code requires and and in particular this um current proposed plan compared to the approved plan has a much more substantial setback to the buildings and then parking is provided in excess of code. So just want to give you a chronology of kind of activities we had going on. So at uh January 22nd uh council hearing uh you all continued it for 90 days for us to work with the appellant. We did that. That initiated on the 24th of January uh with a call with councilwoman Dur. Um she designated herself as a facilitator between the parties and um had a next step to meet with the appellants um on the 28th of January. Um councilwoman Dur called the applicant, looped in the appellants. Um they came up with a plan. Uh they the appellants asked for the grading plan to be provided to them uh and a prov and agreed to provide written comments prior to um February 3rd in anticipation of a virtual meeting with the whole team on February uh February 6th. On January 31st uh we emailed them the the appellants a grading plan which satisfied that request. On the third we received February 3rd we received from the appellent um two email documents, one written comments and then some architectural examples. Uh most of the written comments were relative to um uh aesthetic design uh and massing of the buildings. We reviewed those and considered the revisions to the buildings. Uh the meeting on the 6th, it was a virtual meeting. That's our first meeting. Uh we agre agreed to revise the building elevations and also provide north, south, and east, west, east, west crosssections to help demonstrate the building height. Uh and scheduled a second follow-up meeting that occurred on uh the 13th of February. Um we shared revised building uh renderings, new bu building renderings and site cross-sections. Uh those building renderings were generated in a week. Uh and and really, you know, did add quite a bit about $60,000 in additional construction and design costs to the to the project. Uh and we scheduled a third meeting. At the third meeting, the appellant provided on February 18th another long list about 13 different items of new and additional revisions that were requested. Um the applicant deemed those excessive. Um and that was kind of the end of the the more you know mutual meetings. Um past that the appellant uh uh the applicant Joe Ryan with Thompson Thrift and Council Member Der have had multiple conversations phone phone call conversations since then. So just to kind of go through one by one of the different requests that we received from the appellant and how we address them. Uh first and foremost the architectural design modifications. There were comments about roof line, more architecture, massing, um colors that they'd be lighter instead of the darker colors that were previously proposed. Uh as well as balconies being opened up. And so I'm happy to report this is a major change that we did make. Um so these were the the kind of a befores and afters. Um now it's a much brighter uh if you note, you know, the the balconies in particular much more opened up. Here's a view from McCarron. Another view. Um, one of the other things was a decrease in density was requested from the appellant. We did consider that, but it's not been included. Uh, as mentioned, this is a reduction from the 314 approved units um that could be built currently down to 273. Zoning allows 419 units, and honestly, any further reduction would render the project economically infeasible. Uh, there's a request to decrease the building height. That's not been included. Uh, as we stated already, proposed building height is less than zoning code allows. Um, it's comparable in height, as we demonstrated in our presentation at the January 22nd meeting. It is incomparable in height to the former use of the old tennis club, um, to the approved project, which already could be built there, as well as the adjacent commercial buildings to the east and west of us. We also have ample setback, more setback than the approved project, uh, and the mature trees are being um, saved as well. This were the these are the cross-sections that were shared with the appellant. um east west um on the top of your screen or I'm sorry north to south um cross-section looking west on the top of your screen there so you can see kind of the ample setbacks the left side of that is the existing apartment complex to the south of us McCarron on the right side and then homes that are on the uh north side of McCarron there and then on the bottom there is the east west crosssection looking towards McCarron uh they asked us to um uh consider an access to McCarron uh we to consider that it wasn't included. In addition to grade um challenges there um with the new grading plan on this uh access to McCarron would not meet NDOT's design standards for driveway spacing. And just highlighting on the right side there, these are that's the design standards for intersection spacing and driveway spacing. So, uh your attention kind of to the right side there of limited access. Um if we wanted a left in, which it no longer exists, it would be 990 ft. And just even for a ride in right-in out access uh it is required to be a minimum of 660 feet from the nearest uh adjacent intersections. So because of that it's not supported by the city's RTC's or end DOT's design requirements. Here's looking at that you know obviously 660 ft. There's a just over a,000 ft between Lakeside and Plumis there and about 535 ft to that existing um uh ride in right out that was part of the tennis club. Uh they asked us to restrict access onto Lakeside. we considered that but it's not been included. Um the existing driveway there is not actually owned by us. It's um owned by the adjacent multif family development to the south and we have an access easement to to get to it. Uh and that is not something that city staff required um of having any restrictions there. Uh they requested our grading plan, elevations, renderings, and cross-sections. We provided all of that to them. They then asked for regrading of the site to lower it. Um that's just not possible. Um we obviously still need to drain the site. Water has to get off of it. Um there are there is 30 ft of fall from uh west to east across this site. Um and it's not conducive really for additional cut. Um we've already stepped the one building to be able to make up a lot of that grade to going across the site. Um there was question about the design of of the future McCarron widening. Uh we did meet with RTC as part of this as well. Uh RTC improvement plans for the McCarron winering or widening are kind of about a 15% design stage. very very rudimentary at this point. Uh they have plans to advance those to 30% design by this summer. Um so we will stay in contact with them and revise plans accordingly um prior to the building permit. Um they also asked if traffic impact fees could be earmarked um for those future McCarron improvements. Um we asked that of RTC um and essentially they said no. Uh there's no way to earmark them at this point. uh we would be paying or the applicant would be paying about 900,000 in regional road impact fee credit or fees as part of this um that would just go to uh that benefit district. So with that uh this will conclude our presentation just to highlight you know this is less intense than the currently approved project. It does conform with all of the codes and standards not just for the city but for NDOT. Um staff has recommended approval. Planning commission had a unanimous approval. Uh we did consider the appellants concerns. We tried to work with them in good faith. Uh and we made changes where feasible. Um and just to end, you know, I know you have a lot of legal findings to make tonight. Garrett, uh Gordon is here to be able to walk you through any of those uh if if time permits. So with that, we would end our presentation and be happy to uh answer any questions from the council. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Derling. Okay. At this time, uh Madame Clerk, I believe we will give 10 minutes to the appellent. That's correct. Terry Robert. Is that not Oh, there we go. Thank you. For the record, I'm Terry Rupert. Uh, I am the HOA vice president at Lakeidge Villas. I'm sorry. Oh, Terry, just pull that mic up a little bit closer to you. There you go. Perfect. Okay. And they're going to turn them up. For the record, I'm Terry Rupert. I'm the vice president of the HOA at Lakeidge Villas and I'm a property owner. Although I met the criteria to appeal this project, I represent residents in surrounding communities and speak for many drivers on McCarron Boulevard who do not qualify to have a voice. Therefore, on behalf of Reno residents concerned about public safety, traffic accidents, fire evacuation protocols, lack of funding and timeline for widening of McCarron Boulevard, and the incompatible scale and mass of proposed buildings. I share specifics of our opposition to this project. I would like to share with you some pictures of the site in the Lacage Villas development. So, uh, this would be the north and this is Lacage Villas here. Terry, when you're talking, you do need to speak into the mic so people can hear you. Okay. Thank you. Uh, and over here is, uh, where the proposed project is. As you can see, uh, Lageville is will be severely impacted by this project in terms of traffic, noise, loss of green space etc. Uh this shows up close the green space, the mature trees and the um retaining walls that will be in jeopardy when uh McCarron is widened. Here it is from the inside. Uh our development is unique in that we have a lot of trees and green space and this is all in jeopardy. Um here is the south side and this is the area here where the traffic study is recommending a sidewalk and also with the widening of McCarron all of this area is in question uh exactly how it's going to play out. I spoke with Dale Dale Keller today from RTC. He confirmed that this map uh that I received in late March is the most current preliminary map of the widening of McCarron. He also confirmed that there is currently no funding for this project. This traffic study done in October 2024 by Headway states the 2050 RTP lists the widening of South McCarron from four lanes to six between Lakeside Drive and Manzanita Lane as a regional improvement project for the 2031 to 2050 time frame. this improvement was included in the future year analysis which I wondered about because we don't have a firm time frame. So I wasn't sure how that could be included in the future year analysis. This time frame is consistent with what the Lakeside Villas HOA was told by NDOT. We were also told that the already approved project would trigger the need for the widening of McCarron Boulevard. Lacage Villas has open space and because of this we fear we will bear uh an unequal burden of the widening of McCarron Boulevard when this does happen. And if you look at this map again this is Lacage Villas. You can see the black lines are indicating uh where the widening would go to and you can see that our project would be greatly impacted and the developer also I feel needs to know how this project is going to play out. Um it's not a final plan. Details on timing, design and funding are unknown. How can the Thompson Thrift Project be approved without clarity on such a major change? This picture shows um the original plan and that was just thrown the res revised plan and from the Thompson Thrift website comparable projects. The Concord project. Um, this one is in Sarasota, Florida. Looks very similar uh to the projects the project going to be built here in in Reno, leading us to believe the current design for the proposed project was not developed for this site specifically. The traffic study states the widening of McCarron was included in future year analysis. With the widening uh time frame and funding so uncertain, I question this information. I was not permitted to speak with the city engineer assigned to the project. He stated he was not allowed to speak with me. The same traffic study uses 7 to 9:00 a.m. and 4 to 6:00 p p.m. as peak traffic times, but Huffacre Elementary School runs 9:30 a.m. to 3:30. These hours were ignored despite the project being within the onem walk zone. This project will likely house some families. Does children's safety not matter? This is a picture of the traffic congestion outside of Huffacre Elementary at 3:30 the dismissal time. Street parking is also a concern for us. This project has 429 bedrooms. The number of cars has to be an estimate, not a firm number, which is why we have many concerns. This map uh shows from Wo County site shows the high fire risk zones that's in the red. I have circled the project. This is McCarron. I'm sorry I didn't copy well. Ridge View and Plumis. In past fires, evacuations were delayed. Some fled by bike. This development would add congestion right at that choke point on Plumis between Ridge View and McCarron. As this is the main point of egress for the proposed project, there is no developed plan for safe fire evacuation. This 2016 article from the Gazette Journal clearly states that Reno has been the windiest city in some years um because of the mountain wave effect as described to me by Chris Smalcom at the National Weather Service. 50 to 60 mph wind gusts are not uncommon. We all know the names. Palisades, Lahina, Paradise. Wind driven fires are deadly. Insurance companies are taking this very seriously. I hope the city of Reno is taking it seriously as well. Fire season is year long and we are concerned about this. At the beginning of this 90-day continuence, I was asked to form a committee and I did. Um, I was excluded from the second and third meetings even though my availability was well known. I was out of state for an activity. I was led to believe that the committee could report back to me. No one checked with me my availability to Zoom. After the third meeting, it was made clear to me by Thompson Thrift that there would be no more meetings. At the beginning of the process, it was made clear that height, density, and parking were the non-negotiables. Yet, these are central to our concerns for safety. The architectural detailing that was changed does not speak to our safety concerns. It is not true that we oppose any project on this site. We supported the 2019 proposal because it considered the neighborhood and its safety. We want thoughtful development. Thompson Thrift did offer me um by phone and text a community donation that would encourage me to drop my appeal. Um but I did not feel comfortable with that. I declined. Uh, I cannot compromise the safety of the neighborhood. Lacage is a class A rated neighborhood. It is so because it was carefully planned. This project does not match that plan or quality. Thompson's, excuse me, Thompson Thrift will return to Indiana. We will be staying here. We will be driving here. We will be living here. and we are left to deal with the consequences of this project. I respectfully ask that you support my appeal and deny the proposed project. Thank you. Yes. All right. Thank you. All right, you guys. Thank you. All right. Hold on. I need to be able to hear. Hold on a second. My hearing is really bad anyway. Okay. Um, excuse me, Madam Clerk. Yes, please. Please take one and let me know if anyone else needs any. Um, okay, Madam Clerk, I think we're going into public comment. Correct. That is correct. All right, good. Our first public commenter is Sharon Weiss, followed by Carla Rice, followed by Jory Benjamin. All right. Good evening. Good evening. Can you hear me? Okay. You sound great. Can you guys hear me? Okay. All right. I think the chief reason why this project has been so difficult for our community to come together on has to do with the premise under which the zoning was initially changed from SPD to general commercial in 2019. The packed house public presentation at Ranchera that summer was clear. We are Reno Land and Wood Rogers and we are here to revitalize the iconic Lacage Tennis Club. In order to do that, however, we need to change the zoning so we can add around 150 units to make the property more viable. The community cheered. Few opposed the zoning change. And early that fall, Reno City Council made it official. But by spring 2020, all bets were off. Instead of revitalization, it was out with the iconic. By 2021, after a vigorous public appeal, it was in with 314 units. Now, over 5 years later, with a population increase of over 20,000 people were supposed to enthusiastically support 273 units. In actuality, the original proposal of 150 units that spawned the zoning change was the last appropriate number conceptualized for this now demolished and deserted property. In January, associate planner Leah Picotti said that if this application gets denied, the tenative map and conditional use permit for 314 units is still valid. This sounds more like a threat than a reminder. She also said, "We like to see and fill projects where the infrastructure is already in place to support the project, but LOS ratings of D and F, neither of which she mentioned in her propo in her presentation, clearly suggests that this area exceeds existing infrastructure. In which case, the McCarron widening project should a take place before additional refill, not after, and b density in this area should be lower. infrastructure is a basis or foundation. It's not an afterthought. With respect to compatibility, she said the existing mature trees would mitigate, but the existing trees are dying from neglect and new trees will take decades to mitigate four and fivetory buildings. Additionally, the proposed set setbacks will obviously be impacted by the widening of McCarron. So, compatibility findings simply cannot be made. While I appreciate the revised renderings of the buildings, the true solution to compatibility concerns, traffic issues, fire escape routes, parking, and tree preservation is to lower the density for this property. Thank you. All right. Thank you so much. [Applause] Thank you, Madame Mayor. Just for the record, um for those in the audience, please state your name for the record when you come up before you begin speaking. And that's when your time will start. And in chambers, we do have rules under 6.3.11 that you're required to be respectful while here. So disruptive behaviors like clapping, yelling, whistling, which impede the meeting, may result in a warning, and you may be removed from chambers. Our next commenter is Carla Rice, followed by Jory Benjamin, followed by Lori Laura Menady. And Carla, you may want to move that other microphone back towards you. Yeah. Good evening. Um, I'm a little nervous. I'm used to I'm used to sitting at the information desk, okay, for all city council meetings. So, I never thought I'd be making a public comment. Uhhuh. But take your time. You're fine. I did want to speak to this issue from a personal experience. I live in Lakeidge Springs. I go through the McCarron Plumis intersection constantly. I have to go through it no matter where I'm going in this city. Inevitably in the morning during commute times coming down going north on Plumus to want to get to McCarron. McCarron going east is blocked from Lakeside all the way past Plumis. Cars don't stop when they see it backed up. They just go ahead and drive into the intersection and sit there and wait. So there you are on Plumis trying to go across and you can't because the light has changed, but you can't go through because the cars are sitting there blocking the intersection because it's so backed up. The same happens on Plumis. If they're coming south and they want to turn left onto McCarron, same thing. McCarron's backed up, they get the lefthand turn signal before anybody from Plumis going north can go. They go ahead and pull out in the intersection and just wait and block the intersection while you wait for the light to change at Lakeside and you wait for the cars to slowly move their way further east on McCarron. It's horrible. And as somebody mentioned, I've had been evacuated three times and that scares me that 273 units, which conservatively at a 30% twocar per unit estimate would be 354 cars trying to get in and out onto Plumis, especially during an emergency. That scares the heck out of me. And another just personal example when I left today from my shift here at 1 in the afternoon going west on McCarron to Plumis left-hand turn lane. I was the 12th car in line at 110 to turn left onto Plumis. Once you turn left onto Plumis, there's about five to six car lengths before the entrance to this proposed complex with 12 cars trying to turn left. If just two of those cars had to turn left into that complex, the rest of us would be backed up again in the intersection and not be able to proceed. There is a left-hand turn lane, but it's maybe one car length, one and a half car lengths. So, my concern is the traffic and what it does. And I guess my final words are, you know, I hope that quality of our neighborhood and safety of our neighborhood comes before money. All right, you made it. Good job. I thought I thought I'd recognize you. Please hold your applause. Jory Benjamin followed by Laura Manady followed by Sandra Boxton. Hello, my name is Jory Benjamin and I am here on behalf of Lakeidge community including the 103 homes at Lakeidge Terrace and I had planned on speaking. And I had a whole thing here, but I want to answer to I'm part of the team that met with um Thompson Thrift and their attorney. We were given 90 days to meet in good faith and uh we are not professionals. We are people trying to find our way and save our neighborhood. There's a lot at stake for us and I realize there's a lot at stake for Thompson Thrift also. However, the color changes and putting parapits and making the balconies open is a bonus for the look of the building. It's not a bonus for sitting on this property and for what it brings to us. Um, they shut us down and would not discuss things like uh the safety, traffic congestion, light pollution. As Mr. Derene said that we came up with a bigger list than just the look of the apartments. As I said, we're not professionals. We were slow crawling. We had 90 days. Uh we were given plans with cross-sections uh and great grading, which we were thankful to get. that was given to us because we had a professional commercial landscaper that came up with some ideas that were not heard because we were shut down by Thompson Thrift and their attorney and quite rudely if I might say. We all put a lot of time into this. We um the widening of McCarron has been lit misleading as far as I'm concerned. Uh Wood Rogers is working on that. I everybody knows they're going to widen it. The old trees that they propose are going to be so fabulous in this this building or at this building. They're going to be uh taken out that should have you know the other thing that's a really big deal is they talk about units 237 units that will be built. The density is so much less than the the original proposed condominiums. Well, it's actually nine bedrooms less than the condominiums. So, density, that's also misleading. Um, you know, there's so many beautiful projects out here um that have been done. Houses on off of Rose Avenue, Infill that they did on Plumis uh and Moana, small homes there. Uh more appropriate for this this small neighborhood. Um yeah. Anyway, thank you for your time. You've heard it all. I I hope you would consider us. Honestly, it's not that we don't want things, you know, something to be built. It's just we want something that's compatible and nice and uh not this monster. Thank you. Thank you so much. Laura Manati, followed by Sandra Bogton, followed by Don Zucker. Good evening. I have been to your planning committee and now the second council meeting. You've given us all three minutes. Yet you give these people a lot more time. Plus you all ask them questions. You give us no time to rebut what they have to say. And I really resent that. We are as important as they are. We pay your salaries. We pay our taxes. We elect all of you. And you need to be more receptive to what our community wants. You've got apartments going up all over this city. You say you need more housing. Great. I understand that. We are a growing city. But you also have to consider what's going to stay here. the investment of a person who's going to buy a condo rather than a person who's renting an apartment for a minimal amount of time. This is no investment in our city. And how long are they going to own it? Are they going to sell it off? And do we have any recourse to who they sell these apartments to and their legal backgrounds to what how they handle things? I've lived in a city that a builder did that and then sold everything off and the whole area went down the tubes. So you need to consider more than just the housing. Are we going to make this city nothing more than apartments? Are we going to make an investment in our city? Thank you. Thank you. Sandra Bongston followed by Don Zucker followed by Dennis Dolan. Good evening. My name is Sandra Bangston. We own a home in Lidge Terrace West just across from the proposed development. Safety, parking, traffic compatibility, access, all issues plaguing this project. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on those because you're going to hear a lot about those. I think I want to spend a little time on the history. 2019, Lakeidge Tennis Club is sold to Renoland. Renoland, the developer, and Wood Rogers met with members and residents. They went over the project proposed for that site. They assured us that the recreation facilities would be saved, including the pool and the tennis courts. and approximately 150 units would be built in the remaining property acceptable to us. The developer goes for a zone change, gets the zone change immediately. Place is leveled. It looked then like it looks now. Immediately. Then 2020 April the developer goes to Reno Planning. He has the zone change now. So all he needs is the approval from Reno Planning. He gets the approval for 350 apartments and 392 parking places because he got a waiver for the parking. Then the decision was appealed to city council. It goes to city council in August of 2020. Five hours before the hearing, the developer pulls the project. Then he brings it back after the elections to 2021 and brings it to the planning commission in March. This time it's for 314 condos and 392 parking places. But but unlike the current project, this one is done in eight buildings. eight buildings, three levels of residence with parking underneath. Aesthetically, it's more appealing, I think, but it doesn't pencil with all of the problems. Oh, um 2025 it is approved by the council in a vote of 4 to three. Now, we're here. There's one point I would like to make quickly and that is if you should approve this project, I hope you don't, but if you should, I would ask that you put a timeline that a certain amount has to be done at the beginning and if it's not done, we don't want to sit here another five years. We want work to be done right away and if it's not done, pull the approval. Thank you. All right. Thank you so much, Don Zucker. followed by Dennis Dolan, followed by Cindy Chandler. My name is Don Zooker. I support the appeal and urge city council to reject the Plumis redevelopment project. An overly optimistic view of the project's potential benefits suggests minimal impact on the surrounding communities and commuters using McCarron. I urge you to consider the following questions which are based on a slide presented by Wood Rogers. How can the delay caused by additional cars at the McCarron Plumis intersection increase by only one second when the proposed project's main accesses on Plumis along with the existing entrances and exits to the Toll Brother condos, three separate apartment complexes, Lakeidge golf course, commercial businesses, and six residential communities off of Ridge View. The Plumis McCarron intersection currently has a safety rating of F. The McCarron expansion is dependent on state funding with no budget proposed through 2028. Considering the projected increase of at least 429 vehicles based on the number of proposed bedrooms, how does this benefit existing residents and tenants? RTC's McCarron widening is expected in 5 to 10 years. Why would such a project be approved without the infrastructure first in place? Traffic congestion is already horrible as you've heard. The 96,000 RRIF. Will these funds be restricted to address the traffic and public safety concerns in this area or will they be directed elsewhere in Reno? If the latter is the case, does this project adequately meet the needs of nearby residents? I think as you heard during the negotiations with the appellant, it does not. McCarron sidewalk would require the removal of trees shown in this picture. How will newly planted young trees conceal these tall buildings? With the backup on McCarron, as discussed earlier, cars get off and go south on Plumouth and Lakeside. The presentation and traffic study does not consider the adverse traffic impact on Ridge View and Plumis and Ridge View and Lake View intersections. Has the council considered this impact? If approved, Thompson thrift will develop, generate revenue, and move on. We have to live with the consequences of this decision indefinitely. Therefore, I respect respectfully request that you approve the appeal and reject the Plumis project. Thank you. All right. Thanks, Don. Dennis Dolan, followed by Cindy Chandler, followed by Terresa Martin. [Music] Good evening. Uh my name is Dennis Dolan. I am asking you to uh disapprove this project for a number of reasons. Most of them more eloquently spoken about by other people, but I'd like to reiterate some of them. I was at the January meeting and I was somewhat surprised and disappointed that uh the members of the council from the other wards did not really offer too much support for what the residents spoke very eloquently about at the previous meeting. The eloquent spoke virtually unanimously against this project and I really didn't hear that from the other council members. uh they were sympathetic, polite, but not really uh standing behind the constituents in this ward, war two. Um I'm asking that you do please listen to people tonight. Uh listen again. We rely on you to serve the community, to protect us, to protect the citizenry, and if at all possible to enhance our quality of life. I have not heard from anyone from the developers, from the citizenry, from the council on how this will improve our quality of life, our safety or anything else for the people who currently live in the Lakeidge area. The uh no one really seems to want this project as it is proposed. Please understand that and please try to do what you can to reject this as it says as it stands presently and allow for some modifications that might make it more amendable. Speaking for myself, even though it'd be great to have a recreation center, tennis center, again, I know that's not likely to happen. But what I would like to have happen is a much more modest condominium proposal that is built no higher than what the the adjoining apartments are in the Lakeidge community. the uh complex is outside the McCarron loop. I think under at one point you really not you but the city really wanted to have these types of housing projects going on inside the loop. This is not strictly speaking. It's uh the other thing is I know that you are sympathetic to the affordable housing cost issue in this community and that you want people to be able to afford to live here. But my understanding is that rents have now been stabilized by the greater number of apartments that are now available from the other projects that have been completely developed around Sereno. The traffic impact study is something that I'm not an expert on. But to say that the numbers of cars that we're talking about are only going to increase traffic delays one or two seconds makes no sense to me. And if it doesn't make any sense, it probably isn't true. There's something done with the figures to make that seem much more acceptable than it would really be. The safety concerns, fire delays, traffic on McCarron, all of those things, the setback questions, the reconstruction of McCarron questions, all are safety things that really we're going to have to live with, those of us in the Lakeidge community forever because once this project goes in, it's not going anywhere in my lifetime. And I thank you very much for your time and have a good evening. Thanks, Dennis. Thank you very much. Cindy Chandler, followed by Terresa Martin, followed by Barbara Carrosa. Good evening. Can you hear me? Okay, good. Um the con, um I support the appeal and the conditional use permit application for these apartment units are public record. And after examining the application and listening to both the December 5th planning commission meeting and the staff's presentation of the master plan to the city council, I have several questions and concerns regarding the planning commission's approval of this project. First, at the planning commission meeting, the staff member presenting stated, and I quote, "At first, Thompson's Thrift came in and with a modification, and the staff told them to come in with a completely different project, originally coming in as an amendment." Because it was so different from the original 314 unit condos, we had them come in as an application." End of quote. Also during the discussion, commissioners were encouraged to use fresh lenses and fresh eyes when reviewing the the um apartment complex um application. Quoting the staff member, if we had looked at it as an amendment, then yes, we would be looking at the other project referring to the condos. This was a statement after the presentation had ended. question I have is if the 273 apartment project was a new application and the commissioners were advised to view it with fresh eyes, why were the comparisons of the two projects embedded throughout the entire staff and developers presentations? My concern is that it created a bias as the fresh eyes statement was after the presentations. During the discussion phase of the meeting, the commissioners question compatibility. It was defined as two things that can coexist without conflict. The staff member also stated, and I quote, "There is no quantifiable standard here, so we're not going to be rating it on a scale of 1 to 10." Unquote. question. Why doesn't the planning department have quantifiable standards? The residential infill development standards 18.12.303 have been in existence for years. How can fair treatment of each project be ensured without an established set of standards that are consistently followed by everyone? Finally NRS regarding the master plan is very clear. So why is there a discrepancy in the expectations for citing master plan between the 314 condos and the 273 apartment um project? Why are they why are they so different? If they're so if they're not the same project and they're not compared and they're independent, why is it one is expected to have 45, the other one has very few? So my concern is that the the planning commission's approval for this was based on the lack of Terresa Martin followed by Barbara Corrosa. Okay, 10 seconds. Okay, thank you so much. Terresa Martin followed by Barbara Corrosa followed by Judith Loose. My name is Teresa Martin and I formally support the appeal for the Plumis 273 apartment unit redevelopment project. On December 5th, 2025, the planning commission approved the redevelopment project for 273 apartment units using information that was later found to be flawed. The discussion focused on defining cap compatibility without providing quantifiable indicators. The associate planner defined compatibility as two things that can coexist without conflict. At the city council meeting on January 22nd, 2025, it was further defined as two uses can exist together without conflict, clarifying that they do not need to look the same or have the same height. At both meetings, no quantifiable indicators were presented because according to the associate planner, none were available. The compatibility findings section 1812303 residential infill development standards for Reno does provide quantifiable indicators. It states in reviewing a building permit, the following three findings must be made. One, the proposed development fits within the established pattern of building height and setback for the area. Two, at least one of the following. A, the building and roof style conform to the established style in the area. Or B, there is no particular established building and roof style in the area. Or C, the proposed development represents a creative opportunity to improve or contribute to the quality of the neighborhood. Three, the proposed development incorporates design features, architectural details, materials, and building massings common to the area. The 18.12.303 residential standards could have been utilized as a substitute in the absence of an adopted list of quantifiable indicators by the planning department. but instead the determination of whether the project met compatibility standards under the master plan was subjective. It lacked specific established and consistent standards. The planning department also has access to the law insider dictionary definition of compatibility that could have been used to develop and adopt quantitative measures. According to the Reno City Code, this project must make all the findings of compatibility. Because this project does not meet the Reno City Code for compatibility, it must be denied. I request you, the city council, support the appeal and reject the proposed 273 unit apartment project. Thank you. Barbara Krosa, followed by James Scaliz, followed by Steve Toppel. Hello, my name is Barbara Carrosa. My purpose in attending this agenda item is in support of what council person Naomi Der requested at the January 22nd council meeting. She requested the HOA for Lakeidge homeowners and Wood Rogers to meet to discuss the development. Today, they are presenting the finalization of their discussions. The very next agenda item after Lacage that January evening was the appeal for LDC25-00003, also known as 2400 West 7th Street Development. To recap that item, the council overrode the planning commission's ruling in which they did not approve the development. Prior to the council meeting, it was pointed out several times that the development did not follow the cluster code that was stated in their application. Several property owners have repeatedly presented how that designation was not being followed as stated at NAB meeting and the planning commission meetings of October and November. The planning commission did their job. I repeat, they did their job. The vote by the planning commission was five against the development and one in favor. The sole vote in favor was from a person who is a partner in Councilman Reese's law office. The Wood Rogers representative clearly represents AMH and does not follow municipal code. Their company representative twists and manipulates the city department that reviewed this application and more. Time today does not permit me to discuss. Also at that meeting, a Lidge homeowner presented an overhead recap of political contributions from Wood Rogers that council persons received who were running for election on the November ballot. situations where elected officials receive political contributions from any entity which involves an approval or vote of any kind causes them to recuse themselves from voting. I am strongly pointing out this was not done. This is a practice that every elected official is aware of. Why wasn't this followed? I am now emphasizing my rights have been violated. A precedent was set by the Reno City Council voting for a mutual meeting of both parties in the Lakeidge agenda item. The same situation clearly should have been stated for the agenda item for 2400 West 7th Street. The city attorney needed to advise the city council that a precedent was being set. Therefore, the same opportunities for this agenda item needed to be upheld. This is now a legal matter. Do I want to point out a violation was occurred by city council members? Absolutely not. But I cannot and will not allow any individual, whether elected or not, to totally disregard the laws, municipal codes, or ordinances of the city. You are all held to a higher standard. Every council member needs to understand everything relative to your position or else ask for information before carelessly making a decision. For the most part, I believe this selected body does follow this, but not in the situation I've just stated. The city council by their overruling of the planning commission's denial violated the city code. How can that happen? If a city council member violates the city code, are they no different in a legal capacity than anyone else? I personally hold the Reno City Council responsible to follow all municipal codes, laws, ordinances, and any situation regarding ethics while in office. A resolution is now required. Thank you, Barbara. Okay. James Kis followed by Steve Toppel followed by Clay Adler. All right, James. James. Jane Scaliz. Oh, Jane. Oh, if you would hold your applause so that we can announce the next speaker, that would be helpful. Thank you. All right, come on up. And then um after you is Mr. Toppel. Come on. And um so Mr. Toppel, if you're out there, just be ready in 3 minutes. All right. Good evening. Good evening. Can you hear me? I sure can. Okay. I'm Jane Scaliz and I'm uh the president of the HOA with Lorage Village. Can you hear me now? Just a little louder. There you go. It's not coming. I know. Maybe just speak a little closer to it. About a year and a half ago, I met with INDOT and they were already saying that the traffic flow uh between Lacorage and McCarron and Plumis had gone up at least two minutes. Now, that was a year and a half ago. My condo side is on the McCarron side, so I'm very well well aware of the traffic patterns on McCarron. And I'm retired, so I'm there. And it has gotten in the last couple years just horroneous, let alone the most motorcycles and the drag racing that we had to deal with. Our four entrances and exits on Lakeidge Villas all are going into Lake Lakeside Drive. It is horrendous for us to get in or out of Lacidge Villas because of the traffic. So, I'm I know a lot of people have spoken to the Plumis McCarron traffic, but I'm speaking to the Lakeidge, the Lakeside, pardon me, McCarron traffic. Um, I support the appeal. I do not support at all the the building plans. Thank you. All right, Jane. Thank you. Steve Toppel, followed by Clay Adler, followed by Ed Upton. Hi. Hi everybody. I'm Steve Toppel and I live in uh in Lakeidge on uh Sper Drive and I bought my uh lot there in 1979 for $85,000. And I'm really happy I did that. And I built a house there in 84 for 200,000. And I'm really happy I did that even though I had to pay my dad back the money that I borrowed from him. That's a good dad. Yes. Um my family built um all the apartments at Lidge uh all the uh from Lidge phase one the east side ones which are now uh where the tennis club used to be the tennis club used to be part of east side um my sister-in-law Jenny is here and her husband Nate who passed away was our lead guy that did all the construction but the family was behind him 100%. Um, we've been here. We're not going anywhere. I love it there in Lacage and I'm glad that all these people are here because I feel like it's family, you know? I I mean, if I had a barbecue, I'd invite everybody over there and it to be great to have it. And I'm never going to the the being the feeling in Lacorage is one of compassion and understanding and it has been that way since I've been there. the the project that that Thompson Thrift wants to propose now has no bearing and has nothing to offer to the community. We're it's a community there and we look out for one another and we look out we built this beautiful lake that we're all fishing on and we have kids over that they're fishing. It's all part of what the plan was that Mr. Jaxic put together was uh that he would have this big beautiful project that we would all share in and we've maintained it for for our kids and grandkids and for anybody else who buys a house there. I mean, I'm not going to go anywhere. I'm going to die there if I have to. Not that I want to, but I'm going to I'm not planning on going anywhere. What I don't want to do is have to see this um which has been a regular occurrence um at the corner of McCarron and Plumis and and Lakeside. Most the accidents have been up in Plum on McCarron and Plumis, but it's been horrendous and it's gotten worse and worse and worse. the the traffic is backed up to the entrance now from the stoplight at McCarron and Plumis to the the entrance to Lakewood Shores and it's like that every morning. So, um I want you please to to I I know you're going to do your right do the right thing. You have to put something there. This isn't the project to put there. If they want to amend it, that's fine, but they're not. But this is the wrong project to put in language. And thank you for your time. All right. Thank you so much. Clay Adler, followed by Ed Upton, followed by Kim Bakus. Hello, my name is Clay Alder for the record. Famous. We all know who you are. And thank everybody here. Thanks so much for listening to me. I fully support the appeal of this project. I prepared a statement here. A little background on Lakeidge. In the late 1960s, the vision of Lacridge was born. The brainchild of Reno's Sam Jassik, this 900 acre plan community was developed in strict accord with balance and a creative master plan. Rigid controls maintained for all the phases of the development and architecture. Boasting the Robert Trent Jones 18-hole golf course with a variety of one and twostory houses surround this extraordinary masterpiece designed with open space with rich verdant grounds, fresh air, nature areas for wildlife and people. Now due to the careful planning along the years of maintaining the character and strict design requirements, Lakeidge is rated a class A community. Thompson Thrift will build their daunting monolithic four and fivestory of non-compatible apartments taking advantage of our class A statage. These two tall structures will cast a shadow on Lacage one and twotory apartments adjacent to their towers. Now, if the city council approves this incompatible project, this build will forever stain and dishonor our carefully thought out and skillfully developed class A neighborhood, which we call home and have built our lives on. 273 units, this could add 500 cars and just three round trips a day in, out, in, out, in, out. That could put 3,000 more car trips on Plumis daily, which is their only entrance in that. That is absurd to have one entrance. And the area they have that's under a uh an easement that could go away and the fire trucks getting in there will have a problem. Okay. Where am I here? All right. Their only exit. This will overburden Plumis Ridge View and the 15 mph school zone Lakesid Drive. We need an exit on McCarron. This increased car traffic may be the leading cause of more accidents. We need vision. We need foresight. Reno is fast becoming a sea of uninspired stucco boxes. The apartment complexes seem to be mostly tall, monolithic, cold concrete rectangles, uninspired and not welcoming. We want a good build on this prime site, but one that will blend in and be in balance with our class A lacage, which is what Lorage was envisioned and designed for, not this. City council, please, please have vision and foresight. Please vote no on this fivestory traffic breeding complex. If built, the tax dollars received will never compensate for the harm this illthoughtout project will do to the Lidge community forever. Reno and Lacage will forever be grateful. Thank you guys very much. Thank you, Clay. Ed Upton, followed by Kim Bakis, followed by Art Rangel. Hi, my name is Ed Upton and I live at the Crest on Ridge View. Uh, I came out I've always lived in big towns. I came out here in 1998, having grown up in New York, although I don't have an accent anymore. I lived in Chicago, Miami, Los Angeles, uh, Washington DC, and then for a job with the wonderful airline, Reno Air, that some people may recall, I moved out here to this small town with 140,000 people, too small, unfortunately, to support its own airline. I started living at Lorage Apartments and uh that was in 1998 and then in 2002 I bought a home at the Crest and uh I always loved Reno. I gave up a perfectly useful career. I decided to stay in a small town rather than move to the big city that I was used to. And uh it was wonderful. I remember when Nate Toppel wanted to build a three-story thing on that hill at the southwest corner of Plumis and McCarron. Everybody was up in arms against it. As I recall, he wanted to put cute shops on the first floor and then two stories of apartments or condos, whatever they were. What's up there now, Toll Brothers, is three stories and that seems to have set a standard. We've got that brokerage firm or whatever it is on the southwest corner and it is masterfully hidden by the growth and the trees. Uh I've been waiting in traffic coming down from Skyline on McCarron just waiting and waiting and waiting to make my turn on to Plumouth. And I've also had to wait at Plumis and uh Ridge View and Lake Ridge uh Lakeside and Rididge View uh to make my turns there. Uh this place uh has two exits as I understand it, not not just one, but I've walked over there and uh there's one exit coming out of Plumis. I recall an earlier proposal had an exit onto McCarron, which at least puts more responsibility on the people living in the apartment than the people trying to travel down McCarron. and it's got an exit onto Lakeside, but that exit onto Lakeside is absolutely useless because if you think you're going to exit there to go on to McCarron without waiting behind a stream of cars and then what are you going to do? You pull out there and once again you have some lady mentioned before block the box. Everybody's screwed up there and if you're waiting to go over Windy Hill, you're in a lot of trouble anyway. Uh you're not going to hear anything new from me. I was just brought up that if you have an opinion on an important issue, express it. I was also taught to be brief and to the point. And you can have your 10 seconds back. Thank you very much. Look at you and I'm pretty sure I still hear a New York accent. You thought you thought it left, but it's not a Nevada accent. Kim Bakis, followed by Art Rangel, followed by Margot Piskovich. All of you have this. I I gave you that because I'm going to try to talk really fast, but I might not make it. Thank you, Madame Mayor, for giving me the opportunity to speak in favor of this appeal. Uh, definition of compatible. Compatibility we've been talking about. The law insider dictionary says that compatibility refers to the sensitivity of development proposals in maintaining the character of existing developments so as not to be so as to be harmonious with and not at variance to nearby existing development. The uh city of Reno title 18 code states that uh plans should conserve and enhance the character of Reno's established residential neighborhoods and uh by through appropriately scaled and planned infield development also states that a plan must be in substantial compliance with the master plan uh when it comes to mitigating traffic impacts and providing iding safe environments for pedestrians and bicycles. I submit to you there are problems with this plan in the following ways. This project will neither conserve nor enhance the character of the Lakeidge residential neighborhood. Certainly is not appropriately scaled for the site or the neighborhood. Nor is it in harmony with the existing one and twostory residential architecture including condos and apartments. Applicant proposes tightly packed four to five story buildings on 9 acres which is 33 dwelling units to the acre compared to the 12 to 13 dwelling units per acre commonly seen around the adjacent area. It does not show substantial compliance with the master plan regarding mitigating traffic impacts. The developer states it um developer states in October of 2024 that the traffic would be slowed by two seconds at the intersections. That much. But it does not tell us what the actual peak hour volumes are in 2025 with a population increase from 2020 to 23 of 21,000 people in Wo and 11,000 in Reno. the apparated um intersection at Plumis has been noted that we now have the Hilltop pouring out their coun their uh projects there. I want to also point out that B you are considering the Ballardini Ranch project with 600 to 1,000 homes that will also be pouring out onto Plumis and McCarron with the questionable evacu fire evacuation plans in the area of Ridge View Drive. I think that it is important that you consider that there's going to be an extra 2 to 3,000 cars driving down there. Uh my Lidge community is only a mile west on McCarron and it sees 200 non-residential vehicles per day coming and going. That complex will see at least that many. And this is per our security data. Last but not least, please let please note that should any member of my family be killed at this intersection, I will spend the rest of my life and my treasure getting getting justice for them. The burden of safety of fire act evacuation and traffic risk is not with the developers. It is it lies with you. You are making this decision for Reno residents. Thank you so much for your time. Thanks, Kim. Art Rangel followed by Margot Piskovich followed by Maya Johnson. Thank you. Uh, as many of you know, I do not live at this neighborhood, but I do live in Reno and I frequently drive the McCarron Loop through Reno as well as Sparks. My concern as a city planner is the cumulative impacts that this and other projects in the region are having on the tremendous amount of traffic that's been generated and the quality of life for every one of us. I'm particularly concerned um about the fire access issues. I mean, how many times do we have to go through the some of these fires that are I mean, I'm very familiar with what happened in the Palisades. um and it's happening here and we've got to be able to properly mitigate these traffic impacts that these properties are are u generated with the level of service D and F already. This is really not good. The question is who pays for these impacts? I know that city is very desperate for development understandably because of the uh the uh tax process that we have in the state of Nevada but growth for the sake of growth is not good public policy. It's not smart growth. There are other ways. I don't have time in three minutes to talk about the affordability issue. Um we don't have a supply problem in in Reno and Sparks. Look at all the for for sale and for lease signs all over the region. We have a affordability problem and the subsidies as you're doing now is is not effective in the low tax state. There are other ways. I don't have time to discuss those but I I just say please look at the cumulative impact that these projects are having on our quality of life. Thank you. Thank you Art. I always appreciate your comments Marggo Piskovich followed by Maya Johnson followed by Donna Keats. Good evening. My name is Marggo Piscovich. The planning commission and the city council have a reputation for not listening to or caring about residents of Lorage and and we and do not care about the harm that this could happen. It's just not in my district. I don't have to worry about it. I only have to vote in my district. That's not the way it's supposed to be. This this community is supposed to be helped by all people on the council, not just their own. What we're having now is a situation where it's it's truly not compatible. Um I don't care where you live in this large area. It's it doesn't work. This is a neighborhood. It's not a It's not a It's not a school zone that has, you know, lots and lots of people, but it's got a school zone. It has to be followed. We're having all kinds of difficulties with with what's going on in this area. This plan is totally unworkable. The neighborhood is is dangerous for public safety, for density, for traffic, for parking, for fire. And God forbid that you had to get out of this with with a normal situation, no less a fire. It's clear that all the residents in this plan are not accountable. This project is not compatible with even with even the easiest way to make it work. This is a 9.5 acre space. It should have much much less. I just wanted to show something that I thought was very interesting. This is a This is a development um in in Reno around Second Street. Cute little houses. Really nice. No problem. This is what's done now. This is five stories. There's a little house here. There's a little house there. And this thing is a block long that probably has 300 units in it. It's under construction right now. I just took a little bit larger photograph of it. To me, this is not acceptable for this area and it doesn't match the area. I don't think it should have been allowed here for that kind of height, but that's beside the point. I don't do that for a living. Also, I think it's important that the development be designed to fit to fit the surrounding area. And by that I mean we need to have the compatibility that we've had. We need to have the interest that we've had in our community. We need to have residents wish and have orderly neighborhoods. And it's a nice neighborhood. It's not anything I own property in Lake Villas. And it's a very pleasant place to be. And I'm really hoping that we can continue to continue to have what we have already and not have it and not have it be ruined by this development. All right. Thanks, Margot. Maya Johnson, followed by Donna Keats, followed by Liz not. Hi. Uh, my name is Maya Johnson for the record. Hi, Maya. Hi. Um, it's good to be back. Um, we've heard from a number of people tonight. I'm sure we'll hear from plenty more. Um, most who seem to uh own homes near this project site. I would like to ask city council to consider people who are not here tonight, the people who will live in these buildings if they're constructed. Um, I rent in Reno. Um, I am concerned by many of the comments that I've heard that say that renters are transients, that they live in apartments for the minimum amount of time, that they don't care about their neighborhoods, that they bring crime. Um, that my neighbors in the complex that I rent in are families with children, older people, young single professionals, all kinds of people. Um, whatever crime we experience in our neighborhood downtown does not come from my neighbors in my complex. Um, so I am really uncomfortable uh with all of uh these comments that renters are not good neighbors, that we don't want renters near us. So if it's condos, it's okay, but we don't want apartments. Um, many people rent for many reasons. Um, and uh, I would like us to consider uh the people who would live in this building, who are not here tonight, who probably don't even know that this building is being proposed. Um, but they are citizens of Reno, too, or they will be, and we should consider them. Um, it's great that we have existing property owners who like this city and care about it, but there are other people as well who do and who will in the future. Um, I've lived in Reno for almost two years. Uh, it's it's a great city. Um, I don't feel like it's a small town. Uh, this is the cultural and commercial center of Northern Nevada. Uh we are a growing city and uh everybody seems to agree almost everybody that we have a housing shortage. We need to make room for the people who want to live here and enjoy the city together with us. And if we want to make room we need to build things somewhere. I would rather that they be built here in the Truckucky Meadows and that we push further and further into the north valleys which will cause even bigger traffic problems on 395 and elsewhere. Um, I think that the solution to traffic problems here in the Truckucky Meadows is ultimately going to be getting people out of cars and not um just stopping building things. People need to go somewhere. Um, I think we need to consider our transportation needs, but we also should not say that we need to have some kind of moratorium on construction because we're concerned about traffic. Uh, we have to make room for everybody. the city is for everybody who wants to live here. Um, and I hope that we will not try to de facto ban people from moving to Reno by just not providing homes for them. Um, I'm concerned about these comments that a new building needs to match the height of existing buildings. Uh, compatibility is a very subjective issue. Uh, I live in a neighborhood where there are a mix of single family, single stories, two-story homes with three, four, fivetory buildings. I think that's great. I would like it if you built a five-story building next to me. I think that would be fantastic. So, um, I encourage you to approve this and support the property rights of the owner of this pro property to build this project. All right. Thanks, Maya. Donna Keats, followed by Liz Kn, followed by Linda Cross. Good evening. Hi, Donna. Welcome back. Welcome back. That was very brave of you. Thank you for that. Okay. So, there are some I I oppose this project. I've heard everyone talk at the NAB. I've been to the planning commission. I wrote a letter to the planning commission. I wrote a letter to you. I've written letters everywhere. So, I'm going to just say if any of you are disincined to support the planning commission's approval of this, you should go straight to the findings that you have to make. Okay? So, we've heard a lot about the findings in compatibility. That's a very subjective thing. You can make that finding or not, however you want. We have the the with the compliance of the title, how it goes with title 18. Um, let me see it because I've lost my page because she's impressed me so much. Um, we have this incompatible non-transitional density thing going on. The applicant wants to tell you, oh, just 30 dwelling units of acre. We're not nearly going to 45 like we could. Needless to say, nothing around there is actually built out to 30 units an acre, even though it's zoned that way, a lot of it. So, you got to keep that in mind. Incompatible transitional. And these are things that we're supposed to do by code. Transitional density, transitional development and scale, transitional from high density to low. This goes bam, bam. You know, you it doesn't fit. We all know that. But you can go straight to that one if you need the code. I'm sure Garrett will tell you about it when he stands up to speak. It's an incompatible non-transitional design. Nobody's saying don't be ridiculous. But I don't think anybody wants these plop drop buildings that are the same style everywhere, everywhere, all the time. So they did a nice little thing. They took a different design than the one they pllopped here and they plopped it here again and said, "Hey, we're done." They had previously said, "We're not making any any inroads or any concessions and no, no, no." So they gave him a little bit of a builder look. to this young woman's point. When you talk about the people who are going to live in this building, look at the design. It is a wasteland. Pedestrian amenities. What does your master's hand plan say? Encourage walkable environment, public spaces, blah blah blah. No doubt they're going to contribute to the pedestrian amenity fund instead of actually do something. And this is all concrete. Building one is not invited to play in building two where the amenity this proposed swimming pool is. Building one, building two, I forget which one, but they're not invited to play with each other on this property. The dog park is stuck way in the back where nobody is. The bicycle parking is stuck way in the back. No covered walkways for people on their bicycles to get to the front of the buildings. I mean, it's not a good building. If you if let's just say we wanted it, which I don't, but there are so many other things, so many other reasons to not approve this. And well, I could listen to you, but I always talk too long. So, I hope I gave you something to work with. Fine. All right. Thank you very much. Thanks, Donna. Liz, not followed by Linda Cross, followed by Damen Cole. First, can you hear me? Yes. Good. Cuz others can't. Okay. Can you hear when I Okay, I'll try. Just try to speak a little louder. Good evening. There I go. There you go. Good evening. I am Liz not of 2620 Everett Drive. Before approving LCD25 hyphen 000016 housing plan for Lacage land, please consider first how many new rentals are currently vacant? How many new construction plans have you already caused the city's infrastructure to become worse and safety to become an issue and federal requirements not to be followed? How can you know that the Tuma has enough water for more homes? I remember in the 1980s being asked to conserve water due to our living in the Great Basin Desert. Can you ethically approve any more construction within Reno without first learning answers to these questions? Could you please require developers to precisely follow the Reno Municipal Code so that Reno can still be considered the biggest little city in the world? Think about your safety while you turn onto an Reno major major artery. Ridgefield, Ridge View, excuse me, Lakeside, Plumus McCarron Lakeside Plumus. Drive it during dawn, dusk, rush hour, without a signal. Right. Before approving another development, please carefully process the wording of what you are being told and not being told. Please uh let's see. Infrastructure is more important than an afterthought. Please respect the Lidge homeowners and deny this plan. enhance our quality of life by rejecting this plan and future plans that do not meet the requirements of the Reno Municipal Plan, our code that the people before you before you were turn before they were termed out developed. Okay. Thank you very much, Liz. Thank you so much. You sound like a professional announcer or you would be wonderful to read a bedtime story. Nice. Nice. Oh my goodness, what a comment, Hillary. I appreciate other things you've done dealing with the mentally ill. Thank you. Thank you so much. Yep. Liz Linda Cross followed by Damen Cole. Well, good evening council. Here we are once again. I'm Linda Cross. I want to make sure everybody can hear because I haven't heard but about a tenth of what everybody said and your little dooji wobbers that her ear ears are not working. So, first of all, accidents. Um Steve Toppel mentioned it. I myself was in an accident at the corner of Plumis and McCarron. I was coming down the hill and as I was my car turned off. There was nothing. No brakes, no steering, no air conditioning, nothing. And it stopped as I was coming down toward there. I had no choice but to actually I kind of skidded the red light. And then I was looking ahead and I'm looking at Plumis and and McCarron. And there's cars over here. There's cars over there. There's cars going down the hill and on the other side. And there are people that are turning right. And I'm thinking I'm going to die today. And what happened was I luckily got in the right lane, but there's nowhere to pull over. Nothing. They're just the the dirt. There's no dirt. You know, you can't even do like a runoff. When I got down there, I just fortunately the guy that was at the corner finally made a right-hand turn at the end of the signal, but now it was turning red. I managed to turn that corner. I was in an 84 Cadillac El Dorado, which is like ride driving an aircraft carrier and I managed to make the turn, but I hit the car that was in the lane to turn left going up. Nobody was hurt. If I was stronger and a little younger, I probably would have been able to make that turn, but I'm not as strong as I used to be. I found out. What I'm saying is you don't realize how much traffic there is and there's no place to go. I got lucky because it was 3:30 in the afternoon, the end of August. School was out. Everything was happening. What you need to know is there's no place to go. And it and and this foolish notion that enlarging the by one lane for one block between Plumis and Lakeside is idiocy. Nothing is going to happen there except there's going to be more people all bunched up. Yeah. I mean, look at the difference between Lakeside and when you get down uh down further where there's three lanes that go in front of Talbot and everything. I don't want to lose all this. I want I want to remind you guys of uh but I lived but but it was tough. I want to remind you of the traffic, the school, this affordable housing BS. There's no affordable housing that costs $1,900 a month for a a studio that the the home um the future of the golf course. I predicted that there was going to be problems. I predict now and I've said it before that people are going to get tired and then they're going to say, "Well, we really should change it to nine holes instead of 18 and then you're going to put more condos in there." Nobody will like that, but I'm telling you that's what I foresee. And uh finally, if you would con uh survey your constituents, you would find out that most everybody hates all of these big cube apartments that are being built. The ones down Virginia Street that block all the mountains, the ones over by Sam's Club. There isn't a person I've ever talked to that didn't say they hate it, but what can I do? I can't do anything. The council's going to do what they want. Well, I hate to tell you, but you're supposed to do what we want. I know I'm over again. Sorry. I have to cut you off because I have to give everyone equal time. So, I apologize, but good comments. Okay. Thank you. Oh, you're welcome. Paul, cool. Good evening. I'm hearing a lot of comments that mirror mine regarding the situation of McCarron. Like I said before regarding Mayberry in that area there, McCarron was originally planned as a freeway that was toned down due to concerns for the neighborhood 50 years ago. So here's the current situation that we have. Um, perfect example because we have a platoon. That's the engineering term for all of those cars backed up waiting for the light to turn green. Okay, so we need to stop thinking about McCarron as a freeway. Turn it into a greenway. Okay. So use roundabouts to eliminate the platoon decreasing congestion by creating continuous flow that so they have they have discovered in Carmel, Indiana that by doing this they kept the level of service up by even being able to remove a lane due to the fact that no one is stopping at these stop lights. This would allow you to save the trees and green space. You could even put bike paths on both sides. We have four schools within a twob block area. So, we have to consider that. So, this is Carmela, Indiana. This is the all of those dots are where all of the roundabouts are. That's a lot of roundabouts. They started in the 1990s. They were the pavers for the entire country on the standard for roundabouts. Just like how we use Zakitsky and Neil. It's perfect example. put them here. This is McCarron. This is where the country club and golf course is. And as you're entering toward where the Walmart is, as you're getting toward a commercial area, you continue this all the way around Meadowwood Mall. This will reduce the amount of need for widening. So, here's how it looks in Carmel, Indiana. Those are apartment complexes. big box retailers right there. This is what it looks like from the street view. This is about the same level of traffic as McCarron because they don't have to stop. They slow down, but they don't have to stop. And the entire downtown core is turning into I mean they they're using tiffs, they're using dense public parking. They didn't have a downtown area 30 years ago. For the last 10 years, they had been using all of their tiff availability uh to create dense downtown core. And the place seems like it's a it's a and they are about a third of the population of us. Even though they're like so small, they have tons of room to grow. So, I think the concern about traffic is valid. I think that RTC needs to reconsider widening the road in an area that is heavily residential. And I think that's kind of silly. So, thank you very much. Um, thank you, Damian. I'm I'm curious how you found Carmel, Indiana. Road guy Rob YouTube channel. He is an engineer and a radio personality. He's, you know, been on the radio for a long time. So, he created a channel that speaks in layman's terms how to discuss these complex issues. He has three videos on his YouTube channel. He goes out there, he talks to the city mayor, the the former mayor. Brainard. Mayor Brainard. Mayor Brainard. We've spoken many times and it's a beautiful community. That's why I asked how do you know about Carmel, Indiana? Because this is very visionary and it it is a beautiful community. They've done something very right. Saves on maintenance cost, saves on energy. Just get a hold of McCarron, you know, from the state and and turn it into this. I have a book on Carmel. I'll give it to you anyway. Okay. Thanks so much. All right, Madame Mayor. With that, we have no additional public comment. Okay. All right. Thank you very much. Um, with that being said, at this time, we are going to close the public hearing, Madame Clerk. So, put that on the record. I'm going to bring it back to the council uh for discussion. I'm going to start with Councilwoman Der. It is your word. So, go ahead. Take it away. Thank you so much, Madame Mayor, and thank you all um who have come out tonight, as well as the applicants who have made a proposal uh for this site. Um I've gotten to know Joe Ryan, who represents um Thompson Thrift, and if I could give an award for niceness, she would get that award. That's very nice. Um we can't say that about everyone. She she is uh accommodating, but she's also firm on what she can't do. And unfortunately the can't do outweigh the the can dos. Um what they could do when when I met with them. So the only reason this came to council is because it was appealed. If it had not been appealed, we would not be uh weighing in on it. But it was appealed and I listed out some my issues at that time which had to do with the design. I was very concerned about the prison chic look is what I call it. Uh the the kind of looming building. I was very very concerned about the traffic. Um, and that does not mean just traffic. It was about access into and out of the property. It was about safety and accidents. It was about the gridlock. I live very near this area and I experienced it myself. And then uh fire evacuation. Fires on everyone's mind. At every um development that I've talked to that's coming in front of us, one of the main issues that they bring up is fire evacuation. So, I just want to go over these very quickly. And I may not I may run out of time, but um I before we begin though on my issues, I wanted to just mention some people brought up that this property was reszoned from a um SPD or a plan special plan district to general commercial. Why did that happen? I was asked and the residents supported in a meeting of 200 that this should move forward. Why? Because the developer at that time, Reno Land, said they wanted to build 150 apartments, not 273, not two, not 313, not 330, but 150. And they wanted a restaurant. And the restaurant required general commercial. Why? I don't know. Our staff agreed. So we leaned in and we said, "Okay, we understand it." It was the only way to save the property and keep some of the amenities. But as been mentioned, what has come forward, the 150 has been put to side and there've been many other um proposals that we've dealt with. So let me begin and I'm going to use the applicants um list here. They list the things that were asked by the appellants and even myself that included architectural design modifications. They not only get a check, they get a check plus. They did take another development in another area. Their designers worked and they come back with something very beautiful. And I have to give high kudos to that. That is one of the benefits in my mind of appeals. We would never have this conversation unless there was an appeal. They themselves, I've heard Joe Ryan say herself, "It looks much better." Everyone on our team agrees. Okay. I do wonder why they couldn't originally submit that, but that's neither here nor there. It wasn't. Um, in terms of density, um, they said they cannot reduce it because it doesn't pencil. Their concept and their rate of return says they have to have a certain height, a certain density, a certain amount of apartments, decrease the building height, did not pencil access onto McCarron. And on my second round, I'm going to ask to bring up Damen Cole's first slide because it really um shows the issues. Um in this case, not supported by staff, not allowed by RTC, not supported by NDOT. That is a problem. This issue could help alleviate the traffic congestion. It could help with fire access and fire evacuation. I do not know since there's been an existing um access there for over 40 years. And on the very next block, there are at least six accesses right onto McCarron. Why one is not appropriate here. I know I'm out of time, but this is a very, you know, we have so many people. Do you want me to go on, mayor? Yes, I do. I I'll give you another minute. Okay. um restrict access onto Lakeside. And this is where if if our staff could bring up that first Damian slide I brought up time and again I'm extremely uncomfortable with an exit out onto Lakeside that um and here it is. So you would go right out of the you can see the little entrance. But what we have out of McCarron is something called a free. No one has to stop at that light. You just get to keep going at the speed you're going and you run into within about 50 feet the exit and people are going to have to cross five lanes of traffic to go east on McCarron or two lanes of traffic or three to go west on McCarron. This is very problematic. I have brought it up over and over and over again with the applicants with our staff. No one seems to have an answer for this. Regrade the site um doesn't pencil. Um that's because they've gone from two buildings or eight buildings to two buildings and that means they need a bigger flatter space designed for future McCarron widening. No money. I have begged RTC to do a deal with the developers so that they could put their $900,000 right into play on McCarron. Whether it's a roundabout, a widening, whatever that looks like. I've heard no can do from RTC. uh no earmarking uh for the funds if they can't do a full project and that is problematic mayor may mad mayor and I would ask you and council member Ree to see what you can do about that at RTC I will come back with a few other points but I wanted to take the applicants list and address doesn't pencil RTC didn't support it why are our agencies not supporting us in solving these problems okay thank you so much I appreciate it okay council members do I have any comments from other council members. Councilwoman Eert. Um, yeah, thank you. Um, I don't know, maybe this is for staff. The widening of McCarron that that's been a concern for people with the landscaping. Um, that is happening regardless, right? whether the project goes through or not, they still have to tear up that area to widen the road. Okay. Um so I don't like pulling out trees either. I love trees, but um that area is going to get modified regardless of um the outcome today. Um I also wanted to ask when was the last project approved? Thank you, Council Member Eert. Leah Picotti for the record. The last project was approved in 2021. Okay. So, it's been four years. They haven't done it and now they've come back and made all these changes because of the request of the uh community. Okay. Um what was that? Oh, no. No. This one. this project that's been changed, modified, the exterior looks different. They've added more trees and things like that. Um, so I'm not really sure, you know, besides the traffic part. I I don't know what. Okay. I don't know. um you know what's considered an acceptable amount of traffic. I know level of service but um I don't know. Thank you for the question. Uh do let do do we have an engineer here? Maybe we can get an engineer up to talk about the traffic. Um it's it's up to whoever wants to come forward. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Marggo, I think we're waiting for Mike Michelle. Mike Michelle is going to come up and and address it. Okay. Come on up, Mr. Michelle. Uh Mike Michelle, engineering manager, development services. For the record, I'm I'm sorry, what was the what was the question? So, just what kind of level of service do we have in the surrounding area? I mean, I I hear we have FS. I know there's a lot of Fs in Ward 4 because of traffic and things like that. Um, but is there is there a level where you just say no, you can't do it? Well, uh, currently at McCarron and Plumis, the level of service is F. Okay. Um, at Lakeside it's E. Um E would be the lowest uh level that we would consider acceptable. Okay. All right. I think that's it for right now. Okay. Thank you so much. All right. Any questions from council members to the right? Go ahead, Councilwoman U or Vice Mayor Taylor? Go ahead. Thank you. Um I think this is a question for Leah. Um there was a staff report in our materials that you provided I believe back in January and it lists all the findings the general findings and the cup findings at that time all of the findings could be met based on what is in your report. Has anything changed in that report that we need to be considering? Thank you for the question. Uh again Leah Picotti for the record. Nothing has changed really from that report. The only changes that have really been made were to the facade. So, if anything, we've just again um it it's still an infill project. Still an infill project. It's still GC where we encourage this. The density is still lower than what is zoned. Um it looks like through what you know, Councilwoman Der has led that they have made a better project, which I'm that's good to see. I have another question. I've heard a lot of talk about a class A neighborhood. I don't know what that is. Do you know what a class A neighborhood is? There's nothing in Reno Municipal Code that defines a class A neighborhood. So, I did a little research and it's a little disturbing to me. I don't know if it's true or not, but it talks about um higher rents, higher class, higher I I I'm not asking you to say that, but I'm just wondering when we say class A neighborhood, it's from what I can research, it's it's not a term that we use in code, so I don't I don't know what it's referring to, but based on the research, it's it's a little disturbing to me. And um I think we want to live in a place where everybody is welcome, where everybody is, where renters are welcome. And just for the record, my daughter lives in what in terrace terrace circle. She lives over in the same area. So I think for me that I can make the findings that were met before in January, but I also appreciate the applicant and the residents for meeting and getting a better product out of this. And I think that was part of the process. Thank you. Thank you. All right, Councilwoman Dor back at you. Okay, so I want to focus next on the findings since that's what we need to be able to make. So um we list general review criteria and conditional use permit. Um at this time we are focused on you know the biggest unresolved issues, traffic, uh fire evacuation, etc. This project sits at the um center of the evacuation point. So, if you're coming um downhill from Ridge View Apartments and and you don't need to stand there. I'm not asking you um you're coming down Ridge View Apartments, you have to go through these intersection. You're coming from anywhere um south of Lake Lakeside, you have to go down to McCarron because often the fire is going to come from county areas, areas that are less dense, areas that still have a lot of trees. um that's where the fires came and the Davis fire and since the Davis fire where this area was under a mandatory evacuation order for at least an hour before it was cancelled. They called me 5 minutes before and they said, "Councilwoman Der, we have to evacuate virtually your entire ward." Virtually your entire ward. Everything except Moana to McCarron. Okay. Everything down from South Reno up. They had to go through these intersections. They had to go away from the fire. Nobody could move. It's gridlock already. Um I'm very concerned about the money whether it's widening or putting in roundabouts, whatever RTC ends up deciding. First of all, I got to say I'm grateful to my colleagues who are on RTC because they have helped push forward the design process and they're doing design at RTC right now. But what they've told me repeatedly is they have no money to build this road. They had they had hoped that NDOT would come forward and be able to help. Well, we know what's going on federally. A lot of these um grants are being pulled. That is where NDOT gets their money. We've heard that the state budget is very tight. So, they're unlikely to get money for a a small widening project when you consider the entire state demands here. So given the fact that I'm not confident that we're going to get money for this project no matter whether we're in design now or not and the fact that I'm extremely worried about fire evacuation out of this site again I met I met I met to try to get an opening onto McCarron to provide a third way out of this development to release the uh residents. It either didn't work because of grading or it didn't work because of NDOT. So what I cannot do at this time is make some certain findings. It's findings three under general review criteria mitigates traffic impacts. They don't have it within their capability. They will give $900,000. It's unearmarked. It can go for any project south of I80. Any project provides a safe environment. I don't believe we have a safe environment for pedestrians and people on bicycles. That is why I helped with the rancher project to uh come up with a workaround so you don't have to go on McCarron. You don't have to go on um uh kitsky. You don't have to go around roundabouts. And then uh the two more criteria, conditional use permit, the characteristics of the use as proposed and may be conditioned or reasonably compatible. Look, it's not in my eye. It's in the eye of every beholder. I haven't heard anyone say that it's compatible except for the developer. Um I would have liked to see a height reduction myself, a density reduction. Mentioned it many times to Joe. He said, "No, we can't do it." And finally, number six, the granting of the conditional use permit will not be material detrimental to the public health health, safety, or welfare. I cannot make that finding. And so, for those reasons, when it comes to my turn, I do plan to to recommend um support of the appeal and denial of the application. I want to be clear about something. That does not mean I am opposed to something being built here. I facilitated the zoning change, so something could be built here. 150 apartments. It could have been 200. Um, and I also appreciate something that hasn't been mentioned. Um, Thompson Thrift put in more parking than had previously been discussed. It's their standard at their company to have one um, car per bedroom. And while we want to encourage alternate transportation, biking and everything, we don't have those things today. We don't have a nice bus lane down McCarron. And so, they've done good on parking. I would have liked to see it under the building like the first proposal, but bottom line, um, all those cars got to go somewhere. So, Madame Mayor, I I'll hand appreciate the minute and a half over. I've tried to make this as quick as I could and cut to the chase. Um, but I would like to see something here. I truly would. I do not want a hole. But finally, I guess I should put as a final note, I have to be responsive as well to my residents. And when they bring up good points and points that speak directly to our findings, I have to lean into that. I mean, that makes sense to me. It's not all about what Naomi do thinks in the moment. You know, like I said, I think they did a lot good and I appreciate the changes that Thompson Thrift did was able to make. This is not affordable housing. This is not average housing. went to your point about class A, council member Taylor, they have told me these are high amenitized, high luxury apartments with high rents and that I don't object to that. That is what their plan is. So, just so we all know what the plan is. Thank you, Madam Mayor. All right. Thank you so much, Councilwoman. All right. Any other questions from council members? Uh Leah, I do have a question for you. I want to put this on the record and that is I believe um Miss Rupert I believe um she made a comment and I just I want to make sure that um if there's a policy that I don't know about uh she mentioned on the record that um she was denied a meeting with the city engineer. Is that a policy we have here where where staff does not meet with the public? Thank you for the question, Madame Mayor. Um, no, we we don't not meet with the public. I think she had reached out to the engineer and the engineer wasn't exactly sure because they just review the she had questions about the traffic study and they're just reviewers. So, uh, he put her in touch with me and I told her that just go ahead and send me the questions and I will get them to the appropriate person. She responded later that day and said she no longer had any questions. Okay. All right. I just want to make sure. Um, I have not heard that, but if something had changed or if um our team is not meeting with people, that's a problem. So, I appreciate you being responsive. Absolutely. Thank you, Leah. Uh, the other thing is um, Councilwoman Dur, I was I'm disappointed and and I want to apologize um to you and uh, the set aside you guys wanted to do for uh, the infrastructure component. Um, I will give you my word that at RTC I will put it on the next agenda or request that uh from Alexis Hill, the chair over there because that is really problematic. Um, so I want to apologize for that. And uh, do we have anyone here from RTC or NDOT? No. Okay. That also is one of my big pet peeves. big. I don't I don't like that. I don't like it when we're looking at projects when we're seeing flood projects. Those um whenever we don't even have flood management here, I look at it in the same way. When we have complex projects, they need to be in the room. Totally not acceptable. So, I would just ask I don't know what the process is when you guys invite. Usually, we have everyone here. Um and and the fact that we're not seeing them tonight is very concerning. So, um I would just ask in the future, um you can just say madame mayor is not going to be happy. Uh so I appreciate it, but that's overall with everything whether it's fire, police, any of those things. So, uh I don't think we have any more questions from council. So, I'm going to send it back to you, Councilwoman Der, to give a motion, please. Okay. Um let me just find this here. Guess it's right here. All right. Uh, Madame Mayor, regarding the appeal of LDC25-000016 Plumis redevelopment based on the council's review of the staff report, the record on appeal information presented at the public hearing. I move to affirm the appeal, reverse the approval of the conditional use permit by the planning commission, and deny the conditional use permit based on the inability to make all the applicable findings. And just to recap, I won't read them, but I will just um mention them by number. General review criteria, three, mitigates traffic impacts. Four, provide safe environment. And then conditional use permit criteria, I can't make finding. Five, about compatibility, and six, about the health, safety, and welfare of our residents, which I take extremely seriously. Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much. So, I have a motion from Councilwoman Der. Um, I will second your motion because I believe in that and I support um the findings that you have. So, um, and I also, uh, I did put my comments on the record at the last hearing. I was on Zoom, but I did put them on the record and I did not mince words. So, about fire and other issues, safety, and I think you did a good job. All right. Thank you. So, thank you. All right. So, I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Yeah. Go right ahead, Councilwoman Eert. Okay. So, if this project isn't approved, what what how will the community feel if the other project gets built with the more apartments? I mean, is that going to be considered a win if this appeal is upheld, but then they decide to go back to their original plan? I understand that. But it was approved at a certain level. All right. You can live with the other one. All right. Thank you. Okay, you guys, we're in the middle of a a motion. So, let's get through the motion and then confirm that this project really took into account community feedback and they made a lot of changes for it. But the reality is the reality is they could build the other project if this doesn't go through. Correct. I think they know that. All right, Madame Mayor, can I get a point of order from the legal team? Mr. Hall or Mr. Shipman, I think Miss Eert raises a very important question, but it's a legal one. One that I think that you should answer. Is there an existing approved CUP or PUD on this project that could be built today without approval by this council? Yes. Thank you. Okay. So that's my point is, you know, which one would you prefer because that's kind of what you have in front of us now. So I don't know. All right. All right. Thank you. Any other questions from council members? So I have a motion on the table from Councilwoman Der. I have second that motion. So at this point, all those in favor say I. I. I. All those opposed? Nay. Nay. I'm going to ask for a roll call vote. Madame clerk. Uh, Vice Mayor Taylor. Nay. Dor. I. Martinez. No. Eert. Um, I want to be supportive of the um council council member that represents this area. So, I'll say I. Ree, no. Anderson, no. Shivy, I 43. Motion fails. Right. Thank you. Um, okay. I am going to send it typically to vice mayor. I'm to give a motion. Okay. I'm going to try another motion. Um, and my motion is based on this is a lens intense approved project. It conforms with codes and standards. Staff recommended approval. There was unan planning commission was unanimous and I believe that the applicant has met with the residents to make changes where feasible. So my motion is to affirm the planning commission decision and deny the appeal approving the conditional use permit. All right. I have a question real quick. Hold on. Hold on. We can do that once we when we get a motion onto the floor, we have to move on. We'll do it in discussion. So, hold on. So, I have a motion from Vice Mayor Taylor. Second and I have a second from Councilwoman Anderson. Back to you. Uh, yeah, Councilwoman Eert. I have a question just on process here. If if our vote failed to uphold the appeal, does that mean that we need to take another vote or are they able to just move forward with what they've brought in? No, because it died. You have to have an affirmative motion that we um vote for, not the lack of something. Well, okay, never mind. All right. Before we take a vote, uh just for clarification, um Vice Mayor Taylor, you can make all the findings. Yes, I can. Okay. All right. So, I have uh a motion and a second. All those in favor say I. I. I. All those opposed? No. Opposed. Madam clerk, roll call vote. I just want it on the record. Vice Mayor Taylor, yes. Dor, no. Martinez, yes. Eert. No. Reese, yes. Anderson, Shivy, no. Motion passes 43. Okay. All right. Um, Madame Clerk, so all right, Madame Clerk. Madame Mayor, we're moving on to item J, which is closing public comment. Okay, at this time we have closing public comment. So if any of you would like to um put your comments on the record, please do so. [Music] Do you have any public comment, Madam Clerk? Madame Mayor, we do not have any public comment registered for the record. All right. Um I am sorry, Madame Clerk. Where are we at? I think we have one. Do we have one? Okay. Cynthia Nielsen Okay. I usually figure out I'm assuming this is the time to Yes. Come right up. Okay. Uh my name is Cynthia Nielsen. I would like this on public record. Um I've been a school teacher. I've traveled all over the state of California and um also had an ex-husband that was in public service. So I've seen a lot of different ways that people can disagree on on things on an official level. Um, what I didn't I wasn't planning on speaking tonight, but I do live in the Lakeidge area. I'm a a renter and I know there's a lot of homeowners here. I've owned homes for 30 years in California and um now I rent and I like renting. I think it's wonderful and some people like to own a home, some people like to rent. And I've had different phases of my life. Anyway, I did want to stand up for the renters because if there's an assumption that only the people that care that came tonight are just homeowners and that's the only people, you know, homeowners. I I just want to debunk that. That's not true. I have lived in um Reno now for over 8 years and I lived in the Lakeidge Apartments when the club was there and that's why I moved there was for the club. When they took that away, I still stayed there and um everything was going down and down and down. Then they wanted to charge me $500 more a month to live there with all these things being taken away. So I moved up to Aspen Ridge. So I still live off of Ridge View Drive off of Plumis Drive, you know, in that area. And um also being a school teacher in the past, noticing, you know, the traffic with the buses and and stuff like that. I I'm just standing up for the fact that I do believe that even if you're a homeowner, a renter who, you know, you don't even have a home, that you can still care about your community. And that's what I'm here for tonight is that diverse choice of where you want to live. And um I've chosen different places to live and I like a little more open space only two stories high. Fine. But my son loves seven stories high and he's lived in Long Beach and you know he loves it. So I'm just saying that I I hope that you take that into consideration with any choices you make about the city and what you're building. Um, but this is all the things that were said tonight are true and I've lived it. I've lived at Lacage there on, you know, Lakeside, right, and off Plumis and I still live there and I love it. But there are real concerns and I am so thankful for Naomi Der when you came years ago when I told you they were cutting down trees that didn't need to be. They were beautiful, you know, kind of trees, but it was kind of late by the time you you guys got there. But I can tell you they don't care. the developers don't show by action that they care about trees or care about the community in general and uh from what I've witnessed. So, um but I just wanted to speak up for renters and homeowners and and the public. You know, Cynthia, great comments. And listen, there's nothing wrong with renting. They do it all over Europe. It's very common. Yeah, that I don't think that's the issue. Some people don't even want to be locked in, right? So, there's nothing wrong with that. By the way, beautiful tank top. Love it. Oh, thanks. Thanks for coming. Anyway, thank you for listening. Thank you so much. And thank you, Neymi. Sorry, I'm nervous. I stay for a minute. You're fine. You did great. Stay for a minute. You did a fantastic job. Madam Clerk, I too would like to make a public comment. All right. Do you have any more public comment, Madam Clerk? Madam Clerk, I would like to Okay. Then I'm going to send it to public com I'm sending it over to Councilwoman Der to give us public comment. Okay. Go ahead. I just want to make it clear to and and I didn't want to get into this in the discussion, but I do want to get it into now. I love all of my renters. I love all of my homeowners. I love my mobile homeowners. Uh I love my mobile home renters. We have about 50% of our community that rent. They're my constituents. And where I get upset is that they don't get notice of these hearings. Only the owner of their building. And let's say there's something else comes up. only the owner of this new building will get notice, none of the people that live there. I think that's just plain wrong because I think you do not need to own a piece of property in order to count. And I have advocated for this since I came on council that renters as well as owners should get notice of our proceedings. That's number one. How do we change that? Well, all we do is we it's either a procedural change or an ordinance change and our staff will tell us, but that's very important to me. I I have felt that we treat runners we disadvantage them. We don't give them the same opportunity of notice to participate. It's their community, too. The second thing I wanted to address is that I struggled and if I could have come up with a way, if I could have had RTC do an agreement with the um the representative to uh commit their money. I would have felt that we had about one-third of the money to address the problem. That would have made a difference to me because I would have known that one of the biggest issues is on its way to being solved. As it is, that money will go anywhere south of I80, could be over at uh you know, use your imagination. The area is very large. The second thing is that our staff um if they could have worked with me on the exit out of Lacage uh onto Lakeside where you have to cross five lanes of traffic to go east on McCarron or three two or three lanes to go west on McCarron. That is very unsafe. That is guaranteed to have an accident and I'm not going to blame anybody for that here but I'm just saying we can predict it with some confidence that we will have accidents because of the layout of this road. And finally, to get into this development, think about where you're coming from. Whether you're coming McCarron East, McCarron West, you're coming up Plumis, you know, going south on Plumis, you're coming over from Meadowwood, wherever you're coming from, you're going to have to take a left on Plumis. And then you're going to have to turn left into your development again across numerous lanes of traffic. A few people might be able to turn right. 80 90% of the people are going to have to turn left to get into this development. To me, the traffic situation is unressed and if I could have got there on those issues, which I've worked on the entire 90 days of this appeal, I would have would have been able to maybe arrive at a different decision, but just couldn't do that today. Well, I appreciate your comments and I'm very frustrated because we knew at some point there would be a project here and the fact that um it hasn't been fasttracked by RTC is really disappointing and um I don't know. I don't get me going. All right. Thank you very much, Linda Cross. All right, Linda, come on up. I just wanted to bring up something. I would like you to consider getting a better speaker system here be I inherited hearing loss from my mother and it's a lovely thing to get and uh I don't I can hear some things but like what you said to me when I walked away I I only got a little bit nothing and uh when most of the discussion that the council had we couldn't get and and most of the people that were up here I'm not the only one but I do and my hearing loss. Well, I'm going to I I think they finally found some hearing aids that'll fit me. They told me they couldn't fit me for the last three years. So, maybe they will help. But mine is the the voice level. And so, I just think because what comes out over here is very bass. And when you have too much bass and not enough trouble, you don't you can't understand what it is. You don't want it in music, a lot of trouble. But you do you do want a good mix. So that I would like to say. And the only other thing I would like to say is you need to do something about what's going to happen with the fire in the fire problem because the I can remember the photos that Steve Toppel showed. That is where the fire people were when they had the fire up the up up the hill up up up by raies and all that and everybody had to evacuate and the fire department could not get there. So it's not just the lacage area, it's that whole general area that they cannot get to and they were parked down there. And then plus the fact that you the parking is allowed on the west side of of Lakeside, but it was not allowed on the right side and then somebody went and put a bunch of lines there and now people are starting to park on that side. That is going to create a huge problem. It's going to be a whole another issue because I'm going to bring it up anyhow because it's only 20 ft from my bedroom window and I don't like it. number one. But number two, people I drove down tonight and there were cars on both sides and and I just I think it's very bad for the street. So the lakeside issue, the the fire department needs to have a way to get around in in that whole area, not just not just where this project is, but for the whole area going up the hill. And oh, I'm done. And finally, um, the speaker system because you No, you're right, Linda. We definitely need to because I'm not hearing well either. Yeah. So, I I absolutely Well, yeah, because I didn't know. I agree with you. I don't didn't know who voted what. I know what Naomi votes because I can always count on her to be the voice of reason and consideration. But, um, thank you. But the rest of you, I don't know enough about. And well, Linda, thank you for your comments. It's greatly appreciated. And actually, I think cuz it's been a very long day. Sorry, I missed the thing. I didn't realize we got there until she hollered at me. So, you're fine. You're fine. Um, that is something that we need to bring back. I would ask the city manager um and and we've asked for it before and I think it's coming but I have not heard is the fire evacuation plans uh throughout the whole city. I know that um the public safety center they supposedly have a comprehensive one. I have not yet seen that. So as soon as we possibly can bring it back the entire city needs to see their fire evacuation plan. Good, good points. Okay. I mean, you just mentioned something that I did not talk about. Okay. Do you not do you want to um just quickly put on the record? Sure. I mean um write the thing down just after she's done speaking then I'll I'll fill it out. Sign it. Perfect. Okay. Uh what I wanted to let you know is because you're talking about the whole city of Reno. I happen to live where West 7th Street requires 973 home owners. It can be husband and wife, but I'll count it as one. Home owners have to use West 7th Street to leave our homes to come to tonight to to this facility to go anywhere, go shopping, whatever. 973 of us. It starts at McCarron. No, it starts at Tash Tasha Tasha Circle. No, it's not a Circle. Tasha Court. Tasha Court, which is behind uh BFA, Bank of America, and uh the uh the restaurant there. Anyway, and it goes from there all the way to uh to Washington, the park. And I only marked the the the 973 that either were in pockets where we had to use 7th Street to get out of our pockets or those people who have to back out of 7th Street homes because they happen to live on West 7th Street. I did not count the apartments that are there. I only counted the homeowners for 973. Now, we're going to have 28 more thanks to the previous January 22nd approval by you guys. So, add those in. Also, even those those are apartments and yet they're homes. So, you figure it out. AMH is in control of a ton of new things happening in in our little uh community. All right. Well, great job. Anyway, thank you cuz that was something I wanted to make sure you know and that is I counted them. I went and pulled up the map off of the assessor's office and counted every single home so that I would know that I could say 973. Good job. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you. All right, Madame Mayor. With that, we have no additional public comment. We're just looking for I'm going to ask for a motion to adjurnn. May again motion. I have a motion. I have a second. All those in favor say I. All those opposed? Motion carries. You're opposed. Then you can sit right here and stay here forever and ever.