Mr clerk we're ready are ready when you are okay thank you and good morning I'm going to uh ask Mr clerk to uh get us started off are we recording yep we're ready to go thank you so much we'll start off by calling to order the October 25th 2023 Reno city council meeting and we'll start off with the Pledge of Allegiance Mr manager would you lead us to the flag FL of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all Mr cler roll call please thank you we are taking roll for the October 25th 2023 Reno city council meeting uh beginning with council member breus who is absent uh derer here Martinez here Ebert is absent uh Taylor here and Rees here and mayor shevy is absent at this time uh Mr vice mayor you have a quum of the Rena C councel thank you public comment our first item today is public comment uh 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 meetings that link is links. reno.gov sl3 RZ B like Bravo I like Igloo s like Sam Alpha it should be noted for those in attendance that comments are to be addressed to the mayor and city council as a whole comments heard under this item will be limited to 3 minutes per person and may pertain to matters both on and off the council's agenda city council may not take action upon any matter not agendized on today's agenda when you are called on for public comment please state your name for the record and begin speaking the timer will begin when you say your name and you will be afforded three minutes for those participating in Chambers in accordance with Council rules 6.3.1 one 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 are an attendee in the zoom meeting and would like to make public comment please raise your hand at this time and we will begin our public comments with Terry Brooks followed by Bill shrim okay Mr Brooks welcome thank you good morning it's me Mark Twain again oh no Terry Brooks that's right good morning it's me Terry Brooks again and today I'd like to engage in the topic of discrimination when it comes to employment and age because elderly workers who have worked somewhere for a long time usually get paid more then when the place is overstaffed the elderly get laid off more but then when the elderly people looked for a job that they really desired then they were less lik to wind up getting hired but if they found a job they liked and even did get hired because of their age then they are much more likely to get fired and another reason why they may not get hired is because it wouldn't be long till they decided to be retired and because the elderly people are probably less educated and less knowledgeable of modern technology they're more likely to be terminated but one good thing about about being older is they're less likely to be absent while their younger co-workers are more likely to be absent most elderly workers are seen as being a lot more stable so as far as showing up and doing their job they are seen as more reliable the elderly seem to be more careful at work and have fewer accidents unlike their younger co-workers who have way too many accidents and elderly people are considered to be more committed to their job much more than younger co-workers try to be committed to their job older employees practice more social interaction with all of their co-workers and are known to share helpful advice with all of their co-workers so even though some employers won't hire elderly workers because they don't think they're worth it all in all considering the work environment the elderly are certainly worth it they might be a little slower at getting some things done but the elderly are very determined to eventually get everything done I would like to thank you all for listening to me today and because I'm elderly I am determined to show up on time the next day oh if I really was Mark Twain I'd be 187 years old today so y That's him thank you next we have Bill shrimp followed by Noah Bristol is this visible cool all right all right well hello good good morning uh thanks for being here uh I do appreciate you guys doing this job I really do uh my name is Bill shrimp um I'd like to encourage you to take some time outside of this meeting to examine a fantastic science and water purification project at the advanced purification water facility it is in Ward 4 and it's operated by onewater Nevada this topic drinking water in the desert is what makes legacies first I want to call out and commend the city specifically Dustin Waters the assistant director of utility services and several other City staff to and and too many to name this team works with onewater Nevada which is a collaboration of several local and Regional agencies Dustin the city staff and Tuma recently presented at two Community Information sessions the session I attended was informative had several phds and Engineers it was a true geekfest it was wonderful this handout is from the meeting you can see this blue shaded area here uh it's talking about regulations and Grading of Water Reclamation and it talks about A+ which is great the fly in the oy here is that our smartest people are doing better than A+ and you elected officials can hopefully help them the advanced purification water facility is a pilot project in the desert Southwest it mission is to take effluent water from rosw Worf and make it portable they have been working at a proof of concept scale for several years and are moving into production as impressive as this is it's styi by state regulations the current RS require the facility to pump its better than A+ drinkable water into an aquifer for 30 years we are putting perfectly good water deep into the ground and at Great expense current regulations do not exist to allow this Advanced facility to replenish our immediate water supply it's not not even conceived in the rags the 30-year aquafer requirement also limits where these facilities can be built imagine if we directly replenish our drinking water at each of the Reclamation facilities Reno operates there is undoubtedly a yuck factor here but let us be leaders let us get over the heie jibbies and help this amazing technology come to maturity consider Reno could own and sell this drinking water that's a Revenue stream as elected officials you hold some Sway With regulators and can find a responsible Way Forward for this new technology drinking water regulations are of the utmost importance my home is on City Water this is personal but I'm here to tell you I want the city treatment plants to clean water well enough to run it into my tap the science is there the RS are not just think water in the desert so thank you again and and I hope everybody has a good Nevada day on Friday Mr sh thank you for that oh the city is very proud of our facility there at the one water it's been an incredible journey council member der and I spent last spring touring the onewater facilities in California uh with a number of other elected leaders so it's a really exciting project and uh our folks are really proud of it great thank you please continue lend them support it's great thanks we have Noah Bristol followed by Rich betet a little bit of stage fright it's my first time up here well you'll do just fine we don't bite all right thanks uh all right good morning council members and mayor um my name is Noah Bristol I'm an artist I live here in downtown Reno so I walked here today uh I'm here to provide some comments on item D1 uh Mr Jacob's neon line District Archway sign is supposed to identify an area but who identifies with this area who identifies with this sign what point of view does it represent signs point to things they signify some meaning Beyond themselves put simply what does this sign mean what story about this part of town and Reno as a whole does this sign want us to believe and who and what interests does that story serve does the sign and the point of view it represents match the point of view of the people who live and work in that area who is this sign for if it is for Citizens and if its purpose is to inform individuals of where they are this suggests that people don't know where they are to begin with we are meant to believe that people living in the proposed District formed a Grassroots coalition to inform Jacob's entertainment of what they all Cally refer to as refer to their neighborhood as Reno's neon line District this of course is a fantasy these are not Grassroots they are asro Turf put simply nobody who lives here calls it that or at least nobody did until Jacob's entertainment cop copyrighted the phrase Reno's NE online district and started encouraging people to refer to this part of town by that name with regards to identifying the street and everything around and Beyond it as aro's neon line District what gave Jacob's entertainment the right to name a public Street much less an entire area and did the city actually give them that right some key questions to consider do the words Reno's NE online District identify a defined and designated area do the words Reno's neon line District have the intent to promote an entity's commercial interests it strains the bounds of credulity to think that Mr Jacobs would spend $1.8 billion to build his Entertainment District without any desire to recuperate his investment you wouldn't tattoo the McDonald's logo on your forehead unless you really liked McDonald's and you certainly wouldn't tattoo the McDonald's logo on someone else's forehead without their consent the proposed Archway sign over the Fourth Street RightWay is an advertisement not an area identification sign I urge the city to not appeal this judicial order thank you all for your time thank you next we have I apologize uh there we go Rich beset thanks good morning council members and Mr ree uh so this item uh I'm addressing is the geothermal heating at Moana Aquatic Center honorable May shivy and distinguished council members my name is Rich Bisset I volunteer with Sierra Club Great Basin group on behalf of the club we submit this opinion about the upcoming vote to move forward with geothermal energy at the Moana Aquatic Center Sierra Club is strongly in support of this initiative the City of Reno should give high priority to any program that uses clean energy for City facilities the advantages of clean energy are far-reaching cost effective and essential to a healthy environment for future Generations using clean geothermal heat for the Moana Aquatic Center is an excellent step in the right direction it will benefit the residents of Reno by keeping otherwise harmful greenhouse gas pollution out of the atmosphere for these reasons we urge you to work towards geothermal energy instead of fossil fuel derived energy for the Moana Aquatic Center thank you and lastly we have Iris J papart hello good morning mayor and elected officials I'm Iris JY papar the executive director of One truy River and I just wanted to uh share uh my thoughts on two items one being b11 that I am so happy to see this on uh the consent agenda and I support and thank the uh public utilities and trucky River fund for moving forward with the project at the Lake Park Watershed uh project and uh it's important to the trucky River from my understanding seasonally uh some of that water in that pond goes into the trucky River and it is impaired so this is uh great to see this project moving forward and it also complement one try Rivers River friendly living demonstration garden that's been funded by endep that will be installed the spring of next year and then I also wanted to comment on D2 the trucky River planning process and I want to thank you first and foremost for prioritizing this work and then also for inviting one Trey River to participate on the panel I support the first and the second choice that's recommended today and my hope for this overall planning process is that it will take off from the one treky River Management plan as it was unanimously approved in 2016 uh by City Areno uh and the other two jurisdictions and as I see it what we need now for the corridor is a geographical based Vision at this point so where and how do we implement the one try River Management plan so thank you thank you so much and we have one more live public comment from Christopher Schneider good morning good morning Christopher Christopher Robert Schneider I want to say um I've made so much progress and I want to thank each and every one of you for all the support and help I was in a really dark place before I came and then and fell on my knees basically and um such support and love I could feel I'm proud to call Reno my home and and I wanted to say thank you most wholeheartedly to miss Jamie Peak she's done such a good job with all my headaches I give her she's always there always there anytime day or night even when it's an emergency so I want to say thank you to her team as well and and most certainly Reno Police for not arresting me again but um I love you guys very much thank you thank you that concludes our inperson public comment for the record we received 13 comments which were General in nature or not directly associated with an agenda item prior to 4 p.m. on October 24th these comments were voicemail and or written correspondence received via our reno.gov online public comment form or by email to our office copies of these comments have been distributed to the Reno city council and are available to the public on the reno.gov meeting portal they represented two in favor two in opposition and nine concerned and that concludes our public comment thank you Mr clerk Mr manager I think we have some changes to our agenda so I'll start with you thank you vice mayor reice uh yes we do have a handful of changes um item C6 we need to postpone due to a noticing error that's the Penbrook Drive annexation um the appeal this evening it is my understanding that that has been worked out with fire but we have not yet received confirmation in writing from the app that it would be Moot and so standby to standby there but that item might be removed from today's agenda as well and then it would be my request that we take two items out of order after the consent agenda uh that's item D2 and item D3 so Delta 2 Delta 3 okay um we'll also open items Charlie 1 through Charlie 4 together uh and so when we get to there that we'll just notice that we'll vote on each one individually but they'll be open together uh with those changes I'll look for a motion for approval of the agenda okay I have a motion by Miss der second by Madame mayor uh any additional questions at this time hearing none I'll call for the question all those in favor please signify by saying I I I any opposed motion carries NY item A5 approval of the minutes can I get a motion motion to approve motion by Miss mayor second by miss derer any additional questions hearing none I'll call for the question all those in favor please signify by saying I I any opposed motion carries unanimously Mr clerk thank you and with that we are ready to move into consent agenda okay Mr clerk herds there any um public comment on this item we have no inperson public comment however for the record we received seven comments which were directly associated with the agenda item prior to 4m on October 24th these comments were voicemails and our written correspondents received via ar.gov online public comment form form or by email to our office and copies of these comments have been distributed to the Reno city council and are available to the public on the reno.gov meeting portal they represented a total of seven comments five in favor and two concerned okay thank you Mr clerk are there any items that Council wishes pulled for discussion I'll start with Mr Martinez nothing for me thank you so much okay Miss Taylor okay well end with Miss Madame mayor yeah okay Miss der um yes I'd like to pull item B9 which is the Moana pool um acceptance of a um contribution and I'd like to set it if possible for a Time certain of noon or shortly thereafter for in the middle of an agenda item um the um participants in this will be planning to come and then my hope is that right after that we could break because there's a lot of interest um and I want to uh create a dist distraction for the meeting understand it's a transformative uh donation and really a legacy issue so happy to make that accommodation that'll be B9 B9 it'll essentially float as a trailing item and we'll hope to get to it right at 12:30 or 12 or 12 yeah okay Miss Eber shortly thereafter anything for you ma'am uh yeah B8 B10 I'm sorry B7 as well and B1 and that's it for me okay can I get a motion to approve the remaining items Mr vice mayor before we take the vote item B21 relates to the Redevelopment agency agenda did you want to pull that and open that together well we'd have to open the Redevelopment agency first correct um we could do that as we address the item if it's pulled okay so I'll pull item B21 and we'll address that at that time I me to so with those changes um can I get a motion to approve the remaining items so moved okay I have a motion by council member der a second by Madame mayor any additional questions or comments at this time hearing none I'll call for the question all those in favor please signify by saying I I I any opposed motion carries unanimously we're going to start with item B7 as pulled by council member Ebert hi good morning hi Lance how you doing good um I just had some more questions about uh this location is it uh can you explain what this will be hammer and nails sure uh for the record Lance Fado director of business licensing uh this is basically a uh um a barber shop um and it's located this one's located in the summit mall and they also have a they're on this agenda for an alcohol license because it's a membership um establishment and they want to be able to serve alcohol to their patrons so it's a it's a membership that's right so like you you would have to sign up to be to be a part of this a membership to get your your haircut and while you're there you could purchase alcohol it's not something where say I could just walk by and come in and order a drink you have to be a patron that's that's that's involved and signed up with that company okay do we have other locations like this in the city ofo honestly this is a there's another one on this agenda that's going to be going in North Reno it's a franchise from what I understand okay um I can't think of another instance that's like this particularly um we we do have other salons that offer complimentary products with service but this uh in this uh type of the the way their business model set up is the way they they they charge for drinks additionally if you're a patron of that establishment okay all right thank you uhuh motion to approve second ation by second by Mr Martinez any additional question com car call for the question all those in favor pleasey by saying hios motion Mr item V8 as pulled by Miss Ebert I just have a question on the wording on this it's a privileged business license for supplemental alcohol what is supplemental alcohol uh Lance fro for the record uh essentially this is an upgrade so they already have a license to serve alcohol they serve wine and beer so when they come back in they're doing an upgrade to serve full alcohol so we just call it a supplemental alcohol um application it's it's just it's just the verbiage we use okay uh thank you uh uh motion to Pro have a motion by Miss eert a second by Madame mayor any additional questions or comments at this time hearing none I'll call for the question all those in favor please signify by saying I I any opposed MO carries unanimously item B10 B is in boy 10 as pulled by council member Ebert Mr George welcome hi hello so um this is for um the director finan to purchase materials is there like a a limit on this will there need to be any Council approval for any items that are being purchased or is this you know gives the finance director or the ability to just purchase whatever is needed so this Justin George senior civil engineer for public works this gives the finance director the authority to sign our purchasing contracts for the FF in Moana Springs so we are um we've got a a budget we've set that's been included in in our our finance package for this project and this just provides the finance director the authority to sign those so that we don't have to bring back several different purchasing contracts for that project because we're going to have several for you know Furniture fitness equipment um pool equipment so it's just to streamline that process so we don't have to come back to council several times for okay so not for individual invoices as long as it's like within that budget okay correct this is to to stay within the budget we've already presented to council okay thank you any additional questions can I get a motion Miss Ebert uh motion to approve okay have a motion by m Ebert a second by Miss du any additional questions or comments at this time hearing none I'll call for the question all those in favor please signify by saying I I any opposed motion carries unanimously item B1 as pulled by Miss Ebert welcome good morning good morning Madame mayor and council members I have a presentation if you uh care to see it does any Miss Ebert does yes yeah okay yeah thank you great so I'm here to present on accepting the trucky River fund Grant uh for the Lake Park Watershed project in the grand total of $3,832 so the uh project is a collaborative effort between Utility Services Department parks and R trucky meow Park foundation and the uh one trucky River and the friends of Lake Park which is a uh Coalition of citizens who live in the uh region of Lake Park as you can see on the diagram The Watershed project involves installing three floating Wetlands mats in Green in the center and planting pollinator and Wetland species around the perimeter of the lake as well as installing two educational STEM Science technology education and math signs on either side of the lake um in red there and then I'll point out in purple is the approximate boundary of the uh one River friendly demo Garden which is a one trucky River Project so the overall goals of the project are to improve the outdoor recreation and Aesthetics of this park and uh provide improved opportunities for birding things like that diversify native and pollinator species and to Showcase Wetlands enhancements which can improve water quality in how it uptakes nutrients and then finally to educate Park visitors um about the uh about how wetlands work and how they can improve the ecosystem so what exactly are are floating Wetlands well here in the upper right hand corner is a really well established one they're um floating based on they float on inert buoyant uh material that is anchored to the bottom of the lake and it floats Up and Down based on the lake level which does change moderately throughout the season at Lake Park um and as you can see in the middle this is a nice diagram of the cross-section of a watershed of of a wetlands and it shows how you know an ecosystem can be created in the root structure as well as the plant material uh I'll point out that um maintenance would be maintenance for this type of thing would be coordinated with trucky Meadows Park Foundation volunteers as well as the friends of Lake Park With a Little Help from Parks and Rec and this would be the first time a floating of wetlands is actually installed in the in a city of Reno Park so in that way it's a pilot project for future projects and this is the staff recommendation I'm happy to answer any questions okay any questions receiver no I just wanted to see no I just wanted to see what it looked like and what we go into it so thank you a motion to approve thank you second okay I have a motion and second for discussion purposes I'll just comment first of all thank you for the excellent presentation a Lake Park is an important local community park and the folks who live around Lake Park have really um desired to see improvements in the park for many years and so this is a really exciting opportunity the grant that's been proposed I thank councilman Taylor uh for really advocating for this community and this park specifically because um you know all the parks are important and the pocket parks are really important especially when you live along the park this is a a neat park because it used to be that in the winter it would freeze and 50 years ago we could ice skate on it and it was really a special place for that community it's not so much able to do that anymore changing weather has changed the dynamic of the the actual Lake um but I really appreciate council member Taylor for her advocacy on this and and certainly to your team for and uh trucky Meadows Parks foundation and uh the other partners for really making great advocacy for it and as Miss perard I think indicated this morning what a great opportunity to improve the water quality in the lake uh certainly the smell sometimes is a little uh irritating too so thank you for that any additional questions at this time or comments hearing none I'll call for the question all those in favor please signify by saying I I any opposed motion carries unanimously okay Mr clerk if I'm not mistaken because we have moved B21 to another time when we open Redevelopment we're done with our consent agenda unless you'd like to to do the Redevelopment now along with that item uh so hold on a second Mr manager do we have any other items on the uh Redevelopment agency I don't believe that we do this is the sole item okay so let's open the Redevelopment agency Mr Clerk and we'll go through that process and then we'll close it out go through this okay go ahead okay we'll Begin by opening the Redevelopment agency board taking role council member breus is absent at this time derer here Martinez here eert here Taylor here Rees here and mayor she here you have a quorum of the Redevelopment agency board Mr vice mayor we have no public comment for for this and are looking for approval of the agenda okay can I get a motion a motion second okay I have a motion by the mayor a second by Miss D any additional questions or comments at the time hearing none I'll call for the question all those in favor please signify by saying I I any opposed motion carries unanimously and on to item A5 approval of the minutes to approve second I have a motion that I've made a second by Mr Martinez any additional questions or comments at this time hearing none I'll call for the question question all those in favor please signify by saying I I any opposed motion carries unanimously thank you and now we are looking to open item B21 along with item B1 on the Redevelopment agency board together and we have no public comment on this item okay does the council desire any questions or staff presentations okay I'll ask for a motion motion to I have a motion by the mayor a second by miss derer any additional questions or comments at this time hearing none I'll call for the question all those in favor please signify by saying I I I any opposed motion carries unanimously okay and then a we are closing the Redevelopment agency board okay before we close it I'll just remark that B21 which was the item which we opened I think is a very important uh item to have voted on I certainly I know that all the members understood and supported it but I'll just say that um shipo and the historic preservation fund subgrant is really an opportunity for this part of town to gain some status and recognition for its historic nature and so I know that council member derer uh has been working on this for considerable amount of time and I think them and the members of our own historic resource commissions uh these are important in important considerations so I didn't want to let the moment ago without mentioning it Miss der would you like to comment yeah I did um you know as leaz on to the historic resource commission um extremely proud and pleased that um we're going to move forward with this um uh analysis of the Lincoln Highway us 40 for designation and creation of a national register uh historic district I think it's super exciting we've got a lot of positive comment from the public on this um certainly it's become a Redevelopment area um for our community and um I I couldn't be more pleased to see us taking this kind of action so I'll just leave it at that okay thank you so much Mr clerk have we exited the Redevelopment agency we have and we are moving on to item D2 okay Madame mayor we're going to skip over yeah we're going to start with okay hold on Miss Pennington welcome hi before we start Mr clerk not Madam hello any public comment on this item we have no public comment on this item thank you thank you so much take it away hi good morning mayor and city council Amy Pennington um project special projects coordinator and Outreach coordinator coordinator for Public Works um here today to talk about the trucky River plan um and this plan most of you are very familiar with the Virginia Street placemaking plan this plan is in a similar goal goal of creating a unified vision for us to move forward on the trecky river Corridor with an implementation and a financing plan and um that is what we're here to talk about today the reason that we're doing this now is that the council approved $3 million to invest in the trucky River Corridor through the arpa funds in March of 20 um sorry 2023 and this plan will help us Focus that investment and make sure it is um used to in a strategic way to accomplish the goals of the community and the council and in July of 202 3 we released an RFQ to move forward on a competitive process the scope of this plan included these four main areas land use and design which speaks to Economic Development along the river Corridor as well as maximizing our publicly held lands like plazas and parks micromobility and connectivity including the um Tahoe pyramid Trail and try River path parks in open space and safety and sustainability so in this process we had a nine-member panel that included representatives from the City of Reno waso County the RTC one trucky River and the Tahoe pyramid Trail and dig was our was the selection of the panel they scored the highest on the written proposal and they were the unanimous First Choice in the interview evaluation based on their demonstration of the clear understanding of the scope comprehensive strategies aggressive Outreach plan and the understanding of the river Corridor as as well as their desire to provide a high level Vision in this consultant agreement we have two phases in the schedule one is that they're going to be coming forward with a first phase of implementation um early next year in 2024 and this is going to be focused on the arpa funding that is available and we'll have some initial opportunities for Council to choose um those projects and really we're focusing on what can be done quickly quick wins for the trucky River Corridor and then later in the spring or summer of 2024 we will come forward with a long-term Vision that includes a funding and an implementation plan the cost of this plan um it's just over um three and A4 th000 and then the City of Reno is responsible for um $229,600 th000 and part of this is we are this study includes from the California state through Reno to the border of Sparks and the reason that we were partnering with washa county is so we can have a plan that promotes a comprehensive and coordinated vision of the river Corridor and so this is the motion and I'm available for any questions yes Mr oh sorry all right go ahead thank you um super exciting that we're at this point I uh the mayor and I have both uh supported this in oura the whole council did but we've had a passion for this for for some nine years um so I'm really glad to see this kicking off um couple things I wanted to just get on the record and make sure so first of all I wanted to thank you and thank Washo County for being willing to participate in this it's incredibly important that this River Corridor be developed in partnership with wo County but also with city of Sparks so that we do end up with a unified Corridor um so and and they're not just agreeing they are putting money towards it and and that money speaks and that means a tremendous amount um what I want to make sure is that there have been many groups as you you and I have had this conversation many groups working on the trecky river for I'm going to say close to 40 years um and very focused last 10 years with one trucky River and um there are people in that group um we've had Irish papart here today as their director but also they have a lot of board members myself and David bobsan served on the ex official committee and helping Dev velop the one trucky River plan so we spent months in fact probably two years uh working through the issues and developing that plan which was supposed to be a community template for um preserving protecting and enhancing the river so what I want to make sure I just want to make sure during this process here we come and we have to do it I know with a new Planning Group that doesn't necessarily know those people doesn't know maybe they maybe know Iris but they don't necessarily know all the many people there were at least a hundred that participated in this planning effort um and I want to make sure that this group reaches out or or has productive meetings with those folks with you present so that we make sure we're not Reinventing the wheel in other words if they've already adopted effective reasonable direction that we adopt that too if there's a reason to differ we should do that too now I know this plan uh the other plan I don't think had as much focus on economic development in terms of we're talking about a river walk and and additional businesses along the river so that might be a newer area for exploration but some of the other areas such as providing bathrooms and protecting the water quality and protecting the banks of the river setting levies back instead or flood walls instead of right on the river setting the back where possible uh working with the Chucky River flood plan they have the living River plan right a whole separate adopted plan by a whole separate board so what I want want to make sure is we have This Magic Moment with the new consultant to bring together the one treky River bring together the living River plan and and make something that we can then go Implement because I think our goal is to have most of the dollars not go to planning most of the dollars go to actually implementing uh new facilities and New Opportunities along the river so just just a word of caution and and a request a plea really uh to make sure we include those that especially need to be included and they aren't necessarily known to you personally you've been here a certain amount of time many of these people have been working on the river 20 plus years so thank you very much thank you all right any further questions no um thank you so much I am elated to see this this is so long overdue um and I want to thank my council members for feeling very passionate about the river and what that looks like in the future it's our drinking water 7 70% of uh the water in the trucky river is our drinking water so it's really important um for sustainable reasons health reasons but let me just ask you I want to say thank you to Washo County for being part of this um I've had a lot of frustration along the way because everyone says that they want to commit to um make sustainability of our River but quite honestly it's uh been like pulling teeth and um a lot of people don't know but there is not a sustainable source of funding for the trucky River and um I think it's something that unites us and so I'm been um constantly having conversations but it's important that we also have our other partners involved in this from the RTC to the rscva um so I would like to put a plan in place where we present and ask them to be our partners so that we can continue to have a sustainable funding source um quite honestly it's really hard and shocking to believe that they're really is not something in place that will um continue to take care of this River it's really unfortunate and sad so um with that being said was there any conversation with the city of Sparks we have not um had conversations about the city of Sparks being included in the contract but we do plan to keep them up to speed as a stakeholder as they are in our region yeah absolutely I would like to see them come to the table I think that's really important um and the other one who's been a great partner of the tribes have there been any conversations with them yes so we we have updated um the city of Sparks and the tribes through um our participation in the one trucky River um oversight committee and so they are aware of the project and we plan to keep them very involved as stakeholders okay great all right thank you so much I'm I'm incredibly excited and look forward to seeing this come to fruition finally after a decade of trying to get something um done here so I appreciate you all right any further questions seeing that there are none I uh would like to get a motion yeah I'll make a motion I have a motion in a second all those in favor say I all those opposed motion carries unanimously thank you good job okay thank you moving right along Mr clerk moving into item D3 good morning Madame mayor hi council members before we start hold on one second first of all um Mr clerk do you have any public comment on this item we have no live public comment registered we did receive one comment uh prior to 4m yesterday which was in favor okay great uh any disclosures um Council Mur on yes so I sorry let me just pull that up all right I will here I have a disclosure so I'll um start go sure all right thank you so much uh Mr clerk Madam clerk item D3 involves the approval of a geothermal lease agreement with Avalon geothermal uh at 240 West Moana Lane I understand that Susan Fischer a mcdonal corano government Affairs officer represents Avalon geothermal in this matter in my private life I have retained Adam Hosmer Henner a partner at McDonald corano for a civil matter unrelated to Avalon geothermal the fact that I am represented by McDonald corano will not impact my ability to impartially review and render a decision upon this particular agenda item Madam or Madam Mr clerk sorry please accept this disclosure and uh for the record for this meeting and pertaining to this particular agenda item thank you all right thank you U Madame mayor fellow city council members and Madam Clerk or Mr clerk um it D3 involves the approval of a geothermal lease agreement with Avalon geothermal to drill a well at 240 West Moana Lane I understand that Susan fiser represents Avalon geothermal in this matter in addition to Avalon Miss fiser is a paid lobbyist for the Nevada mineral exploration Coalition a coalition of individuals and small businesses who search for and develop the natural resources and promote and preserve natural resource exploration industry in Nevada in my private life I own a company that is a for former member of nmec is not a current member in this year of 2023 calendar year um on this matter I've sought guidance from the city attorney's office and I've been advised that as a former member of N nmec I do not have a commitment in a private capacity to nmec nor by extension to miss Fischer uh Madame clerk please accept this disclosure and Lodge it on the record for this meeting uh pertaining to this agenda item thank you so in bottom line I'm disclosing um that I've had a previous Rel relationship with Miss fiser um and she as Madame mayor said works for McDonald Crono and that capacity Al also represents um Avalon and so um so I'm disclosing but I'm not recusing I don't have a conflict a material or financial conflict thank you okay all right thank you very much all right Miss kosy take it away the floor is yours thank you good morning Madame mayor and council members for the record krie kosy director of Public Works your city engineer I'm very pleased today to to bring this uh item to you the Avalon geothermal at 240 West moan lane today with me I have um support I have uh Deputy uh City attorney Susan balro and um our sustainability manager Susan groman and also with us in the audience today is uh Matt Rosenfeld with Avalon so won't advance okay so for for the present so what we're bringing here today is a is actually three parts the first part is the major part which is the lease agreement which allows Avalon to drill a geothermal well at their expense on city-owned property and we will the city will be compensated for that second part assuming that the geothermal well is um viable and they Avalon decides to go forward we will need a easement for um underground piping that will extend off of our property onto the city rideway and then we'll also need to authorize um a heat service agreement um to move forward with um servicing the Moana Springs Community Aquatic Center what we aren't going to what we aren't doing here today is we are not guaranteeing anything we're not guaranteeing that the the geothermal resource is viable at this location and we are not talking about a frenchise agreement today we will bring that to the council at a later date so I want to talk a little bit about the Avalon Service uh territory Avalon is the nation is the excuse me the is Nevada's largest regulated geothermal utility they are regulated by the Public Utilities Commission of Nevada on this slide it shows the Avalon service territory in the center of that is kind of a purple shaded area that was the original service territory I believe was in back in 2019 Avalon expanded their service territory to shows in red which um which I we've got the Moana pool site kind of highlighted in there um Avalon is expanding and it hopes to increase geothermal customer adoption by removing the burdens of the High upfront cost that would come with um um drilling for Wells and operational cost which we heard today by our public comment is very much supported by the community one of the things that um we did previous to this council meeting is we came to the council back in March of 2022 and staff presented a term sheet we talked about the possibility of bringing um this lease agreement to council uh Council asked us to refine the agreement work with some outside councel that specialized in geothermal agreements and we did that on this side slide I've highlighted the duration and compensation that the city will receive under this agreement and these are just the high points but the lease agreement will be for 25 years with a 10-year extension we would get $5,500 a year rental fee that is for the area on the parking lot that would be leased um then once once um royalties kick in that would go away um the agreement can be ter terminated uh by the city if due diligence is not met by Avalon the royalties was based on this Federal uh Bureau of Land Management rate which is 1.75% of gross revenues for the first 10 years and 3.5 after 10 years and based on our discussions with Avalon that first 10 years would equate to about 20 to $40,000 in revenues and then thereafter we're looking at somewhere around 40 to 90,000 other other key terms in the lease agreement I've highlighted on this slide um I know we talked at the last uh back in March of 2022 about the expenses who would be responsible for exploration drilling operating um maintaining um this well that would be on city property and Avalon is fully responsible for that they would be responsible for providing the city with um inspection information and Records in our in the format that we would like they would be responsible the for the fees and the bonding and insurance it's not listed up there but any insurance that would be required for the for the um for the drilling Reclamation was something that we added um they would Avalon is going to be responsible for the environmental Reclamation and restoration and mineral rights the City of Reno would keep those um let me talk a little bit about the breach of the uh of agreement resulting in termination so that was one of the things that we talked about with the last term sheet and um we have worked through those uh terms with with Avalon and essentially I want to talk about um if there's a failure to pay any installment after 30 days they could be in default and then there would be a breach um failure to perform the work specified in the agreement and what that means is basically a Avalon has three areas of work to do they have the geotechnical exploration they have the construction of the geothermal and then they have startup and operations of the geothermal so we have three um deadlines for each one of those areas of work um the deadline for the geotechnical work is it must be completed by October 31st 2024 um the the construction one year later and then following one year after that in 2026 they would be um required to have startup operations of the geothermal so I want to talk a little bit about remember I said there was three things I just finished talking about the lease agreement and on this this um slide shows the whole area let me kind of Zoom into what we're looking at so this is the mo the Moana soccer fields everyone is familiar with those those are that's in the center of the page there off to the left of the soccer fields there the uh parking lot next to Grant Drive and that's where we're currently putting in the Solar um for the community solar thank you um and then the new facility new pool facility is in that dark shade there off to the right of the soccer fields so assuming that back up here the the the area that's kind of surrounded in that purple uh in the rectangular um adjacent to Grant Drive that's where we would need a easement for the piping on our property so if if we find out that the geothermal well is um viable and they want to move forward then we would need an easement and this agreement this today we're asking that the city manager has the authority to sign for that easement um just to kind of keep things expedited as you saw in the timing of things things kind of have to roll along pretty quickly that shaded Square there right off um into the next to the inside that little purple area that's the 1,000 foot square foot lease that we're talking about that's the that's the lease for the geothermal well so if that made sense the the geothermal drilling will happen at that point um the red line line that kind of goes through the streets Grant Drive um Moana Lane and over off of Baker that's where the piping would go into the um the city rideway and that would be covered under franchise which we would come back to you at a later time okay third thing is the heat service agreement so the Public Utilities Commission of Nevada approves the rate for the geothermal District heating what that means is we don't we the city don't set the rate it's set by the public Utilities Commission so they have a formula that they use um basically they take the customer the annual uh heat load from each customer and that's in therms and they multiply that by the filed rate that Avalon has um submitted with uh the Public Utilities Commission so that's the third thing that we'd be asking is that the city manager would be able to finalize that if we were to move forward with geothermal that brings me to my recommended motion any questions you may have y all right first of all thank you great job thank you as always thank you Rockstar okay go ahead uh Council D this is your baileywick yeah thank you um this has been a long time coming and I'm so excited to be here today when you first came to council as you said you had a term sheet and there were a lot of things on that term sheet which have actually been revised yes in the time that you've been working last year and a half or so uh I want to point out to the council one of the things is that I think the original term in the agreement was envisioned to be something like 50 years with further extensions I mean everybody understands whether it's a waste management contract or any kind of contract when you get into even over 20 years it starts getting along and things change in the world new ideas come new information comes new informational come about this resource so I'm really pleased to see that we've come up with a term that's 25 years with a 10e renewable um I think that's reasonable gives them some certainty but also allows us the option to change if we need to um you also identified the royalties which is very important you know this is part of my field I don't work in geothermal but I work in minerals and one of the things whenever you have a resource which we do we own this resource um uh and you're going to share it with another person you need to get something in return that's your royalties I think the royalties are reasonable as laid out I would always want more right I mean that's the nature of we've got something it's valuable because bear in mind ultimately if this is successful um they should be able to set up a whole utility to serve other customers and I talked to the Atlantis just the other day and they said they're very excited about being a partner potential site of the reinjection well and potential customer and there might be others such as the Rena Sparks Convention Center so so that's one of the beauties of doing this this way now I want to say originally you know I did argue as a geologist working in this field that the city should consider owning our own well doing our own work much like the Peppermill did they're not part of our franchise agreement they are part of they're doing their own they hired their professionals their Consultants drill their own well they're managing it they don't have to pay corre for their heat they have The Upfront cost to install the project but they don't have to pay for the rest of their lives um so I did argue for that um you made some good arguments back that we it's not so much that we don't have the expertise in house we can always buy that but we didn't really have the access to Capital um that maybe the Peppermill did to be able to do the fiscal um capital investment to get here and I think that's something that the council should know that there's two ways to go on this do it yourself or go with a group because of the capital issues we would have had a bond we decide to go with the group but it also means we'll be paying for hundreds of years to come potentially um I wanted to just speak and I I know I'm running out of of time um about the the issue that's still on the table which is the heat agreement um we originally you had said that you had hoped to include the heat agreement with this but you ran into some issues and and some of those were from me but others too um and I found out others agree with me as well and um that is that in your report here you mentioned that um the PC has approved another geothermal customer to have their price based on the floating price of gas at a certain proportion uh I think it was proposed that we be 15% below or something and here it says something um something else but anyway that there there's an issue there and I if in case you know this may come back years from now right I mean there has to go through the exploration so this is sort of my advice to council if I'm not here three years from now let's say when this comes back five years from now when it comes back is that we should not tie in my opinion a rate for renewable energy uh to the rate that is being charged for a carbon-based fuel gas natural gas in this case that is uh subject to worldwide conflicts worldwide demand uh worldwide issues this is a local resource uh the capital expenditure will have already incurred from there on it's just maintenance and I think any rate that we pay should be tied to something we can all agree on which makes sense which speaks to why we're leaning in to invest in this resource and to be a partner with Avalon but I don't want us to be tied to a floating rate of anything gas oil anything it makes no sense to me it may have been what the puc did but it's not necessarily what the puc is going to do going forward so I'll come back with another comment after others have spoken good comments thank you so much all right any other comments just briefly go right ahead Missy and maybe Miss B Roth will be able to answer it I my understanding was that the rate was pegged by the Pu so is a percentage rate below the currently available energy rate that would be available in the absence of the geothermal energy provided I'm gonna ask Suzanne grman grman come up M grman even better thanks Suzanne grman sustainability manager for the record um so to to give a little context the reason that it's tied to gas is because geothermal heat and water runs 24/7 there's no meter so the reason that it's tied to gas is so that they can have a unit of measurement to measure the estimated heat for a customer and then they say okay if you're estimated load I'm just using round numbers this is very low is 100 thms a year then they apply the filed rate to 100 therms and then that's how they determine what the customer pays and that's the only reason it's tied to gas is because there's no way to meter it otherwise we would be charged for 247 service so they they try to look at what the heat need of the customer is but but we at the city able to change or vary the rate from the public utility commission's standard meaning if that's how it's measured we are stuck with that or we can in the heat agreement tie it to some other metric um there is opportunity in the heat agreement um to to talk about that rate with Avalon but then it is ultimately approved or denied by the PN uh so not within our control meaning the pucn has to approve it correct and are there examples in our state where other Municipal entities have entered into kind of geothermal Arrangements I understand for example up near BME there's been a decommissioning effort there and and some of that has moved to geothermal so how are how are those rates set um that I don't have an answer to but I could get that information I don't think it's necessarily important today it doesn't inform my decision about how to approach this thing but miss du raises a good question and what we don't want is to have like some volatile sticker shot that relates to the rates because we count on the rates stability and it's pegged to a certain factor in order that we can make sure that we heat appropriate the pool um I think any of the customers would want that stability and to be known uh ultimately I think um both the convention center and the Atlantis May ultimately be part of the same system I think the convention center is a few years ahead of us maybe they already have some of the infrastructure in place or they they're building it um so we'll see what happens with that yeah thank you yeah I just wanted to follow up to council member Reese's question um right in the document it says right here if any commercial customer wants to deviate from the filed rate Avalon will make an informational filing with the pucn this will determine the rate and the heat service agreement so right in our document it says that we can um request and and provide evidence for a deviation and that they will it says will uh make an informational filing and in other words Advocate that case I mean just to to be a little provocative I mean there could be an issue that could be tied to the rate for solar could be tied to the rate for wind could be tied to almost any rate it could be um you know any type of uh heat Source it could be tied for example why not tied to the rate for hydropower which is low they figured out how the river flows continuously and yet there is a rate set for hydr power okay so there there's many ways to go and I recently had the privilege of serving on a panel at the um annual geothermal conference it's International was held here at the pepper mill and while on my panel I didn't ask the audience question and I said would some of you please come to me and discuss this this issue of how do you set a rate for geothermal and SE I've reached out yeah and several have reached out and so there's opportunities to work with people and have a a good robust conversation about this but to tie us to gas which my understanding is gas recently took a huge flyer and and really increased that would have meant we're sitting here heating the pool and suddenly for no good reason we're paying a lot more for our geothermal energy just one day for things speak about out of our control out of completely out of our control so I think it' be in the city's best interest to negotiator rate that's stable includes appropriate um escalators and uh deals with the maintenance issue for the utility uh the transmission costs all of those are part of the cost not just the therms that are passing by at a very slow couple centimeters or whatever so um so those are my thoughts and then I wanted to also thank um there's another provision in this um contract that talks about data and this and I want to also I guess advise the council this is incredibly important if for some reason you know hopefully not but if for some reason and we don't proceed with um Avalon um it's very important that the data that they collect while they're doing their research comes to us and it is in a form that we can use and access and if we have to contract with another third party or we make a different decision to do it ourselves we have the benefit of that data the data is the most valuable thing and speaking from my own business and minerals um when we lease to a third party that is the thing we're looking we want them to succeed of course sure but at the end of the day if they don't we have the data so we can go work with a third party or do something different it is extremely valuable very costly to acquire they're going to spend millions of dollars getting it the other thing I'm proud of you is for reserving our minerals we don't know you know hot water has minerals we don't know where that will go in some future world so again kudos for a job well done thank you to our uh what I expect to be our future partner Avalon for working with us on these terms so thank you thank you any further questions think there are none why you give me a motion yeah I'd like to make a motion to approve item D3 and move forward with this agreement all right thank you I have a motion I have a second all those in favor say I all those opposed motion carries unanimously good job thank thank you thank you very much all right I think we're jumping back in order Mr clerk yes so we will go to uh the C items of public he all right give me one second here I think we're doing um C1 C2 C3 C4 correct I believe one through four you want it open together yes yes please open them together so that we can have a single presentation vote on the items separately all right perfect and on that note Madame mayor I will have different comments on different they do different things so you'll potentially indulge me but I'll try to cover everything I don't think in my first round I can cover all four right applications we'll get there all right thank you so much at this time let the record reflect that the city council is opening the public hearing uh Mr clerk was proper notice given any correspondents received thank you Madame mayor yes proper notice was given and for item C1 we did receive three comments directly associated with the item prior to 4m yesterday um they represented two in opposition and one concerned okay thank you so much do any council members at this time need to make any disclosures if there are none all right moving along um City attorney Carl Hall thank you madam mayor it's all you with respect to C1 ordinance introduction uh bill number 7249 an or ordinance annexing to and making part of the City of Reno certain specifically described territory being plus or minus 80 acres of property generally located plus or minus 350 ft southeast of the intersection of Claim Jumper way and tarian mine drive and directly east of the Trey Meadows Water Authority Tumo reservoir tank within the City of Reno SP of influence so SOI M the city's portion of the trucky meow service area tmsa watcho County Nevada together with other matters properly relating there too and then with respect to C4 the zone change this is um case number LDC 23- 000021 B States ordinance introduction bill number 7250 ordinance to amend Title 18 chapter 18.02 of the Reno Municipal Code entitled zoning rezoning a plus or minus 80 Acre Site consist of two Parcels located plus or minus 350 ft southeast of the intersection of Clan jumper way and Taran M drive and directly east of the trucky meow Water Authority reservoir tank from plus or minus 69.6 Acres of unincorporated transition 40 acres and UT 40 and plus or minus 10.4 Acres of large lot residential 2.5 acres llr 2.5 to plus or minus 80 acres of planned unit development valy View Estates together with matters which pertain to or are necessarily connected there with word two all right thank you so much all right at this time I guess we will have a staff presentation good morning Brooklyn good morning uh city council Madam mayor nice to see you all uh my name is Brooke Oswald I'm an associate planner with development services and the uh planner assigned to this case so you do have uh two cases that we'll be looking at today one is an annexation and the other is a a master plan Amendment and a zoning map Amendment so you'll have you'll be making three separate motions today as we move through this and I'll explain that a little bit more as we go through this so I'll break the silence once again um all three of these cases are they're very high level cases so we're looking at that annexation is that appropriate to bring additional land into the city we're looking at that Master Plan really those bigger policies that big high level look at how we we're going to move forward with Land Development and then we go further into zoning what's going to define a lot of those standards and requirements of how we do that development uh this is that's the uh there I am so we'll just jump right into the location on the right there you can see all the wards this is in ward two we are on that sort of Southeast boundary of uh ward two uh up against the Virginia Foothills um as we look at this just so you have a g better location area uh this is deani Ranch High there you can see a little D on the hill uh celebrating that dman pride and these are the 80 acres just to the east of that once again uh we are in a war two 80 acres and we'll come in a little bit closer but before we do that I think this is really important this is 160 Acres this is the Canyon's planned unit development now this has been before this Council several times we have done the initial um uh master plan of that zoning map Amendment amendments to that zoning map Amendment PUD uh annexations and additionally a tentative map has been done on portion of that so this um is approved for 79 homes it provides approximately 117 Acres of open space within that and from this uh I bring this up because it's very important we have learned uh as going through this process we have learned a lot of the incorporation in the the handbook and the handbook you'll be seeing today really uses a lot of those lessons we learned in that previous handbook and incorporates them into this handbook so that request is for an annexation master plan Amendment zoning map Amendment and specifically that's a planned unit development so a planned unit development is a type of zoning and it allows the ability to set a handbook that further gives us standards and requirements uh to ensure uh development moves forward properly I come in a little bit closer on this uh as you can see right there and there we have two roads they are stubbed out so our utilities roadways are in uh close proximity to this and is anticipated that we were going to see future development based on uh sort of those stub out of the roadways there and then this little parcel here is I bring it up because this is the dp2 town homes uh this was a tentative map for 18 Town Homes it is unique in this area predominantly we do have single family detached and we are seeing attach product up in this area now to go uh straightforward to the annexation this is allowed per NRS 268 uh 670 this is a voluntary annexation which means that the applicant has come forward and requesting to be annexed into the city now what we see uh with the stripe blue there that's the current City of Reno boundaries as you can see one of the first thing we're looking at when we look at an annexation is making sure that's um contiguous with that as you can see the property is both to the west and to the north contiguous and and ties uh is sort of a logical growth of uh the city boundary once again our D Hill just so that we have a reference point the next one we're looking at here is our sphere of influence um as you can see uh we our sphere runs eastwards uh this is uh directly in that sphere of influence but is in a unique location because as you can see directly to the south of this or at the bottom of the page that is was uh Washo County land that is land that was not included in the sphere of influence and we wouldn't anticipate moving that way in the future as as the city grows and then last we're going to look at the regional tier this is done by a regional um planning agent trucky meow Regional planning agency what they look at uh at and have um defined uh tier designations is um this is a tier two now tier two is suitable for development uh it's anticipates utilities are in close prox uh proximity Services a number of other things so from a regional level uh it's been looked at this land is suitable for development directly to the east of that or to the right you see that tier three tier three is land that is less suitable for development or really restricted in development and and as you look at the aerial and photos of this you can see that we start to see very uh steep slopes and other things that would not be suitable for development so with the this we opened up all three of these at the same time because we um with an annexation we require a master plan Amendment and a zoning man Amendment if they intend to uh change that and that's great because that provides a transparency both to this Council and to the public to understand what is anticipated with this uh land as we bring it into the city with that there is a financial uh fiscal analysis that was done on the property this is required by an annexation but with that master plan and zoning map Amendment we can really get a great fiscal analysis of what is anticipated uh to happen here so they are proposing 39 homes on this development and from that they can uh extrapolate out uh what what would be the impact of the city this development would not be a burden to the city and uh is shown to be a slight fiscal increase over the the term of 20 years so we'll start with our right there which is our our high level master plan currently our master plan is UT or that's unincorporated transition that's land um that has been Incorporated and it we anticipate it to to change or to move as development comes to there directly above that we have that SF that single family neighborhood and then the green up in the the corner there is pgos that's our Park Greenways in open space the Nola basically is we have not assigned a master plan to this that area yet that is in our sphere influence but as I kind of showed before that land becomes really restricted for development of those master plan policies as we move we move forward and this is a really unique pattern we get a kind of a polka dot or or pattern there and what they have done is applied the way we've approached this is to apply that single family neighborhood specifically to the areas that are suitable for development and so as we look at this it's approximately 17 Acres of single family neighborhood and 63 AC of Park screen ways and open space those master plan policies that are supported by bringing this in the master plan are that growth tiers concurrency management so making sure as we grow we have those services and utilities that are needed to support that development Community Development as a whole and then our annexation policies to the right there we have the zoning District uh the llr 2.5 is large lot residential 2 one unit per 2.5 acres and the UT 40 is unincorporated transition one unit per 40 acres now these are we don't currently have a zoning to set from these these are a translation from the county zonings that we have brought over what they're proposing is a plan unit development as I mentioned before this is really using the backbone of that Canyon's PUD development to set the framework of this and this would allow for 39 homes so that original density we're seeing allows for approximately six homes on on that County translated daning this would uh be an increase uh 39 homes so the first one we're seeing about one home per 17 Acres um which is normally would be closer to our unincorporated transition zoning our lowest zoning that we like to see is large lot residential 2.5 uh homes per acre and then if we move to the 39 we're approximately one dwelling unit per two acres is how we come out over the entire of the project another thing just with that master plan as we look at that that our Master plans do require a regional conformance review so it we'll be going to Regional to conform these are contingent upon that uh the zoning in and master plan R contingent upon that uh conformance review we did receive initial uh comments from them and there were no concerns from Regional at that point when we're looking at that planned unit development once again that's that that uh zoning we really want to implement that master plan as I showed we went right down to the master plan level to really specifically identify those areas from a master plan level where development was suitable we want to encourage flexibility promote com um compatible uses as we're seeing a a mix of single family single family attached we do allow both of those product types within the the handbook um improve the design services and utilities are in place or in close proximity and then that preservation of open space so with that Valley View uh estate's handbook we've really tried to take on a responsible Foothill development approach to this have we done this uh we are looking at that connectivity so this is the canyon PUD with the Valley View below so we have an overall connectivity of that provides additional access out plus emergency service and access through the developments um additionally we have pism that run through that are required by the handbook of both handbooks and so we'll see that connectivity from a pedestrian aspect uh recreational opportunities the 63 uh Acres of open space will be deed restricted and a public access easement will be allowed on that so that does allow the public to actually use that land it currently is private land it has been used traditionally but that owner does have the right to restrict the use of their land and this would open that up in perpetuity to the public uh we are seeing enhanced architecture and housing standards our architectural standards we have Hillside development uh architecture so we are seeing step down and step up within this to help accommodate some of those grading and Hills we're seeing additional uses of uh materials on that uh we also allow that attached product we are allowing uh accessory dwelling units within this so that allows another option of of Housing and affordability and then uh additionally with this uh as we go through the tener M process as we've seen on many of these we have a affordable housing agreement this will allocate money towards a fund that can be used for other affordable housing throughout the city uh Wildland interface this is an area of of of fire and so we have additional standards uh applied through the handbook in those that are applied by also the state and our Fire Marshals to address fire concerns uh Wildlife there is uh conditions in this uh that prior to that tenative map they'll have to be working with the Nevada Department of Wildlife to set up a management plan and determine uh make sure that uh wildli impacts are um addressed and and mitigated uh finally we have the Virginia range we we've worked with this I've worked with the Virginia range over my course of career at the city that's been six years I've learned a lot on that um we have enhanced standards in this we have worked with The Advocates uh on our fencing and gate and uh additional plans on that uh additionally I've had uh we do have a new director at the Nevada Department of Agriculture that is who is manages these horses and they have dedicated resources so they now have a v Virginia range manager who will be working directly with those Advocates on their agreements and helping to manage that resource and I I think that we will see more uh them moving forward to manage this resource um as as it goes forward so we did go through all the annexation filings I have brought them down in there pretty quick but we are you know the concurrency with that zma uh logical extension and that support of the expansion of infrastructures and Facilities staff did review and analyze uh the master plan and zoning map could make all the findings associated with those with that I'll leave you with with this uh motion once again this motion is all put together you'll be taking three separate seate motions one on the annexation one on a resolution for the master plan and finally uh that ordinance adoption on the zoning map amendment that concludes my uh presentation thank you thank you so much all right councilor s to you thank you um and thanks Brooke for a great presentation um so because many of you weren't here when we did the Canyons I just wanted to um say a few things about that um this general area has represented for me one of the most challenging development areas that I've encountered in my now going on 10 years of reviewing developments um why because it's right along the Front Range which what that means is it's um subject to earthquakes and these earthquakes are happening and they're not a theory um there's h a big canyon right there where the properties are joined to the canyons and uh it really rushes down there we have video that while it looks dry it's it's a real Hazard there are we've gotten reports from um the natural heritage program that um there are endangered and threatened plants animals and birds in this General region and um fire has uh been an ongoing issue in this area where we have a urban Wildland interface coming together transportation's been one of the biggest issues that has come to my attention with um the South Reno area they speak I would say 80% if they're not talking to me about a park um or rent they are talking to me about they can't move on the roads um so transportation is a critical component horses are here and we've seen many many postings about horses just this last month in this area why because even when fences are put up often they are cut and horses come into the developments they are cut by because there isn't a public access Trail through this area people are trying to use their um off-road vehicles they're trying to hike they're trying to drive they're trying to ride their own horses and so they end up cutting fences and allowing horses into the developments um there is a coming Trail plan that I've been working on with my arpa money there's a team working on that and they are starting to put a path together this is coming in in advance of that so it can't incorporate that so that's an issue um now that said I have supported some development in this area and one of them that um was mentioned was the dp2 which was Town hoses Town Homes uh proposed by uh the Dolan and that to me and if you put up a map uh Brook uh page five I or it was before that it shows um where that project is relative to this I think maybe it was three um and you had a white there right Mark there um that white one I did support because it is below a huge break and slope right there and um it already had been annexed and it already was in the planning process this is a fresh project that's just getting started so um we saw this at the NAB many many months ago and then there was a change of um consultant and then it just showed up on the agenda I went to the public hearing I've met with the consultants and the developers one of the things that I asked them to do and if you could turn to page five on here uh Brooke was to um look at the layout and I think it's on page five you have several yellow islands and um and then if you go to the next one that one and the next one would be good um what you have in this map are the orange islands that are not contiguous with the area that's considered developable and um I have asked them to remove those from the plan but they remain in the plan and that gives me a great deal of concern um I have more to say um but where I'm going here is I don't believe uh that this project is ready for annexation and the reason I I want to be able to go over very specifically why I think that ultimately um this area may very well get developed I think think it's premature the timing um I realized later that all the challenges we had with the Canyons we probably should have stopped at annexation um I wanted to lean in and work with the developers at that time we got a certain way but there were certain things we didn't get to cover one of the big differences and then I'll end and see if anyone else has comments before my second round one of the big differences here is that um when the Canyons came in they actually submitted a tentative map and in that tenative map they provided a geotechnical report a soils report an earthquake report a natural heritage report um let's see something on the flooding uh the fire um the horses they had a detailed plan and this one they've just propose the standard conditions and so what I'm saying here is I think that this project needs more work to be able to address those issues that we already know exist that the Canyons did do a lot of work had Consultants do the work to show us how they were going to address address that whether it's fire horses I've just mentioned that is not part of this project um that tentative map on that project is still waiting in fact it's coming up uh this next year into its fourth year um it hasn't moved forward it hasn't proceeded to a final map hasn't proceeded to a development agreement so my bottom line is that I think that we have approved plenty of housing that still hasn't moved forward we have transportation issues and I'll get into the details after but that's why at this point and it took me a long time to get here like to lean in I understand I think that the development folks are very well-intentioned I think that the consultant did as good a job as they could do without having that detail but I just feel it's not ready for prime time at this point and our attorneys have advised me over and over if it's at annexation and you don't think it's ready that's the point at which you need to stop so that's where I'm at okay thank you thank you all right I will come back to you in a minute thank you all right councilwoman Ebert um I I will have some questions but if Naomi would like another round first that's okay pardon she wanted to wait till my second I'm not ready yet so if Naomi would like another round that's okay okay all right uh go ahead vice mayor Madame mayor thank you so much um Mr Oswald maybe we could have a couple of questions answered so as I read the initial staff report and I look at the criteria for annexation um one of the things that is I think relevant and informative is that um some of the elements that my colleague is concerned about I'm not sure are part of the annexation requirements and so I'm just trying to think only about the annexation question because at the end of the day when private property owners own a thing in this case the property that they own and it is in this unique area which is within the sphere of influence but essentially within the Cy's control and currently a developable project could be built there but just under the County's um control using Reno standards is that correct that is correct so it would use that zoning that I showed uh previously but we would apply those City of Reno uh standards and requirements to that development and this is always a difficult thing on the edges because you have two jurisdictions often with competing land use policies and priorities but when the sphere of influence has designated them to an area which would eventually and naturally be annexed under the City of Reno and a 20-year time period we're then dealing with some more regionally based planning Concepts than what we necessarily are often dealing with of the DI is that a fair assumption that is and so um when you have identified the 10 criteria for evaluation of the annexation requests uh one of the things is is that logical extension and you mentioned it but I wanted to be clear uh this is within the so SOI and the uh trucky meow service area in a tier 2 designation is that correct that is correct and what is the difference for uh you know folks following along at home between the tiers the designations why are they at tier one a tier two or a tier three sure the the uh at a regional level we prioritize areas of development so the that first is that Urban core so we're really uh priority that's that's the first tier right then goes to a tier one which is just out outside of that largely within that McCarron Loop that we're looking at on that tier two as we move of that tier two it's that land out outside of of of that McCarron Loop or those inner things still land that's suitable for development anticipated to be developed uh suit uh anticipated to be development you have those the ability to provide services utilities those other things on that and so when they're looking at a regional level it's been determined from a a very large scale that this land is suitable for development okay um I think council member D makes good points about all that so I want I don't want to Discount uh those because it is a very challenging region of our City's growth pattern one of the things that I was interested to understand is that of the 80 acres um what is proposed then if the annexation happens and then the subsequent uh agenda items is essentially 17 Acres of single family correct how many homes would that accommodate so that hbook would allow for up to 39 homes so we did some different calculations looking at a uh originally looking if you applied a single family three units per acre across the whole thing then we have Hillside development standards so that starts to uh what that does is limit density but it also um there's requirements for the provision of open space so they don't necessarily have to do this through this PUD process but they've really applied our rules to to make sure that that um we're comfortable with what they're proposing and where where development should happen and the density of that overall development so the entirety of the 80 acres could accommodate under this um paradigm 39 homes is that correct correct and we'd see that 39 homes on 17 Acres of that and those would be specific to those yellow areas that you're seeing on the map to the left there and I have questions about that but I may come to that after U Miss D's next round but ultimately I'm trying to make a an understanding of one important point which is if it were developed under County um control and therefore applying Reno standards even if the county were to do it what number of homes could be built there under that set of conditions sure um oh and that's the one on the right so uh the yellow area and the green area as a total would allow my calculations is approximately six dwelling units so it's the difference if it was at the county of six versus if it's annexed here it would increase the density by 33 homes that is correct okay that's all I have for now I do have questions about these islands that council member der pointed out and maybe we'll see if we get there in the next round okay all right hold on one second uh Council Taylor go ahead thank you madam May thank you Brooklyn um I just have a couple of questions so we have at the city we've outlined a process for annexation and it's somewhat predictable consistent and transparent and those are the 10 criteria that we went through so this applicant went through the process and staff evaluated it and they can meet all of the 10 criteria in your in your mind correct your evaluation as as staff analysized that this also goes out to out outside agencies and their input it was determined that it was appropriate for annexation and they could meet all 10 of them correct okay so um another question that I had was based on my colleague's comments of some of the services um with transportation and in the staff report it says that this time um Public Safety Staffing Resources and facilities are sufficient to provide services to the proposed development is that still accurate and how do you determine that sure what we're looking at is U proximity to where we're currently providing services and you can see you can see the the Lots designated out to the the side there we are providing utilities and and services to those lots so it's in close proximity of those it could easily be expanded through the developer you know the developer pays for that expansion of those services and or through for those utilities so uh working with our fire and police they didn't have comments related to this but but it that comes back on that that they feel that they could provide the services necessary to support the development in this area okay thank you that's all I have all right councilwoman yeah thank you go ahead okay so I'm on um the annexation and uh I think um council member ree because that's exactly where I was going is how does it meet the criteria or not meet the criteria so um to have an annexation you have to meet some general review criteria the first one is is it consistent with the Reno master plan and um that's why I brought up the issues because the Reno master plan speaks to these issues it speaks to Wildlife birds natural resources Transportation all of those and it says that we here need to balance those that you can't meet everything and we get that but in on balance can you get there and my point here is no I do not think that we can meet enough of the master plan policies number two uh or number three of this General review is mitigates traffic impacts right now traffic is at a standstill on Steamboat Parkway RTC is trying to do a project they have delayed it and delayed it um the start each season from Spring to Fall to Spring to Fall and now it's maybe slated for next spring and they don't know but in the meantime growth is developing and um we have just recently had a report that this particular area South Reno the ZIP code 89521 is um in the top 10 most apartment dense and growing regions in America okay the report just came out I got it from I'm sending it to Council in the top 10 in fact it might be even higher um that mean every time we have a multif family that's a car but in a very small space in other words you've we packed people in and they have cars and they're all trying to navigate out two uh roads uh North and South one up Steamboat Parkway onto the freeway and down south to this roundabout and number five is a rational phasing plan um it talks about making sure that the required streets utilities Landscaping open space and other improvements are basically envisioned um so then you move on to the annexation review considerations and this is where I really struggle as well the location I've already mentioned it's one of the most challenging to develop um I don't think we should be expanding here next uh I don't believe the need for expansion is for a Million Dollar Plus Homes fact Su posited that they one 1.2 or more likely $1.5 million homes I don't think that we have a shortage of those right now um the location of existing and plan water utilities is is also challenging but number five Community goals I don't see that the 39 um high-end homes meets our community goals um we also talk about efficient and cost-effective provision of service areas that really speaks to police fire roads Etc and I want to point to the fiscal analysis that was done and let me just turn to that on one hand it said that if you net how much property tax it'll bring in and how much it'll cost to run um we end up with about a million dollars to the good in the general fund but in the very next sentence it says if you look at the street Fund in other words what it's going to take to maintain these roads we actually end up in a deficit of about a million dollars a deficit in our street fund uh an increase of a million in our general fund and so to me that just about um pencils out um one pocket the other pocket those are the issues so um you know Madame mayor when it comes time for a motion I am not able to make these findings I understand how important it is to be thorough and I want to point out to my colleagues I understand the importance of the Planning Commission the Planning Commission recommended the Evans Creek annexation I think it was unanimous and yet this Council unanimously 70 said no it doesn't make sense of this time for a lot of reasons we put those all on the record just as I'm doing now so sometimes uh we have a different perspective these um annexation review considerations call for judgment there's no right or wrong it's not an engineering calculation it's do we think we're ready to absorb this area what is the timing do we have the resources and I'll just end on this note I have gotten more complaints about lack of police on the development right below this area Palisades and just about anywhere in Reno in my ward so I get constant calls kicked in doors um theft of cars and so on in this Palisades development it's the very far from our police uh provision of services um I don't think we could adequately I don't think we can for the Canyons I don't think we can um for this development either provide um adequate police on fire but that's a judgment call and I understand my colleagues may have a different judgment call there's no right or wrong here so thank you thank you so much I appreciate that go ahead uh Council Ebert uh is applicant here do they have a presentation Mr catic you would you like to come on up thank you madam mayor I was G to do that next I thought wor I think I'll just be real focused because there's been a lot of questions if that's okay instead great going through redundant PowerPoint um to get to uh councilwoman doors can you guys pull up my my PowerPoint please would you mind stating your name for the record excuse me John kmot I'm representing the applicants who are mcau Development Corporation and uh Chris Tori we'll have that right up no that's Oldtown Road I think that's somewhere down the road Mr derling is this the correct presentation sir no it's um Valley View Estates it's got a green cover sent to the clerk uh I believe you were part of that string um Monday that Monday morning I apologize just one moment it's all good I apologize we had some technical difficulties loading presentations earlier this was emailed to us and do you know by chance who it came from directly um it was me email address John K kses group.com I did get a response from one of you that said receed Thank you Mr compa do you need the presentation to make your presentation I'm I'm not sure I you know what we can go old school here I think I problem it's at your uh convenience well actually there's just a couple of key maps I'd like to really respectfully address I think it might have been the first one we pulled up can we double check if that's is it this presentation it's not okay I don't need the whole thing I think we can we can get to it here as you have a map for the Elmo or the overhead yes we'll work on our side how about if you load that up and see if we can't answer a couple of coun B Do's question great focusing on the annexation part of this Mr grpa you got to make sure to speak into the microphone and it moves around there so do what you want with it so uh staff mentioned um this map is well but you know to say it in my own words in another way if you own that property and you want to go develop it you go knock on the door at the county what would they say we have no jurisdiction right so annexation because of the sphere of influence that was established many many years ago without their involvement set the predent for this becoming an annexation and a City development application in addition to that the tier two is Staff pointed which allows up to depending on where you're at in the City of Reno a a density range of up to 30 dwellings per acre diving into the development side of this since staff dealt with a big picture policy issues uh very thoroughly here's our comprehensive development plan can you zoom that just a bit sir so there's been mention of all of those projects that are um the different colors and we did the color coding just to give you some indication councilwoman know knows this uh very well I've been involved in all four of the different applications at some point the Canyon's Canyon's Edge I call it out as Canyon's Edge even though that's just a chapter of canyons today that was a very intensive process as you know um when we folded that into the canyon PUD to make it more uh clean administratively but in terms of comprehensive planning the land in the sphere the land in tier 2 and the land that's benefiting and using the same infrastructure you see the Tuma tank on the northeast corner of that area in green that tank is sized and funded by all of these projects so there is a comprehensive planning piece to that that would be the Canyons Canyons Edge dp2 and Valley View the roadway Network connects all four of these properties together the trail plan connects them all together and then we've done exactly this is not going up the hill it's going to the south of canyons we've done exactly the same analysis of which tools we have in the city master plan Foothill development the City Zoning particularly topographic analysis which is done by the slope map that says hey we have 17 Acres suitable for suitable for development on this particular property the blobs that are sort of remote to the big finger are areas of which can be serviced by that road that connects Canyons to the subject site Valley View and they would have to span across the drain way that you mentioned councilwoman and those are all less than 30% slope let me show you another one this is actually um we do have your presentation sir if you'd like to you have it use that thank you okay staff on maps are similar to staff so that's another one staff touched on but I think this one is key also the merits of the approach of which we have brought forward that map with the greenish Brown is the development constraints established by Regional planning you look at the blue that we have that is consistent with the master plan map that uh staff pointed out Brook Oswald but we left a lot of meat on the bone with respect to a map that was established created by the gis experts at Regional planning and so those little splashes of blue that are shown outside of the finger are the only areas consistent with our master plan and our zoning as proposed in the Pud for development 17 Acres uh 39 Lots actually we were suggesting as I mentioned to several of you individually 42 Lots with clustering and the provisions in the development code of which would uh benefit fit an applicant um you know people ask me how am I 100% convinced that we're not going further to the east simple map without a bunch of designations of devel development areas but you can see in the foreground sort of the the flatter area the rounded area of the foothill in the background a mountainous terrain that's the area when I point to it a map that says there's no chance of further development going east up this hill there's a way to get above it from another Direction but not going east it's cliff-like terrain you'll never see a road that can Traverse that type of terrain there's views looking the other direction so those are the maps that I wanted to touch on with respect to the um questions that I've heard uh to this time U Madame mayor if you have uh I'll just hang out for any more questions question well I think Miss Ebert yeah I'm just going to ask if you had a slope map in your presentation I do not because we're not at a tenative map stage right and it's just getting into engineering detail that just doesn't it's not gerain to this that's always important too Brooklyn because we tend to sort of see out this way when we need to see what's happening today um I had a couple of questions uh first of all I I think Council always brings up some really good points she's very very thorough and she likes to lean in I do um and which is always a really good thing um and we did a lot of work on um the project that was next to us what is that Canyons Canyons Canyons right yeah we did a lot of work um on the canyons and it took a lot to get there because of the challenges um and I know you know even uh councilwoman do didn't support it she worked really hard to get to um I think a council Comfort level so with that being said councilwoman doer um maybe you can give me a little bit of background on how much um work that you have been initiating in this um initiative because I think too what happens is you know obviously we need housing and I always say you know it's economics 101 you need housing of all types you can't just build one particular type of housing um but also I think that it has to be very well thought out and I know that that area can be incredibly challenging so uh the previous developers did a lot of leg work um you know in helping the council get there be supportive I like to be supportive on the front end so that we can um get good projects online otherwise uh you know if we don't have the findings where they need to be we end up in court uh we just actually just saw something very similar because um you know it it has to be done in a way that uh is protecting us and the developer so um with that being said uh councilwoman dur I'd love to know some of the uh sort of checklist items I know you always have some yeah um and so I'd like to know what those are y so okay we can get there I'm gonna say I'm gonna just say something I said a few minutes ago which is that when the Canyons came in they had a tentative map to go with their PUD and the Pud is forever you know there's a check-in every five years with the council as it goes but it it it's forever I mean there's there's no going back the problem when the PD that's attached to this tendon map they all went together the master plan is that it does not address let's say a horse plan it has the basic conditions it draws a rectangle around the project and it just says horses stay out but it does doesn't actually come forward with a mitigation there's no let's say um watering or alternate routes or or some kind of support for where the horses are supposed to go and like I just said we're being inundated in South Rena right now with horses um the other project had a report from the natural heritage program on plants animals birds so it's very specific and so we could identify conditions my concern is if we Annex this and we adopt this PUD the Pud is very general the Pud just says we'll deal with horses in the future we'll deal with plants with the Department of Wildlife but even in the tend of map level what they said there is we'll actually deal with them in the final map level okay so they didn't even deal with them detailed enough in the attendant map they said we're going to do final map and they haven't got there if this project I know you guys worked hard and and this is not I want to I know that you have not been here before this is not personal about you or your project this is about making sure we have a good good consistent development plan um I know you tried hard to do a PUD Amendment with the canyons and that didn't work out to my knowledge if it had worked out you have the reports you have the earthquake report the animal report uh the fire report the horse report Etc you have a lot of Base documents because they did aend a map we know where the houses are going to go what I asked what I saw is that we have super steep slopes you have an island of green you have to get there that means you have to have a road that goes across incredibly steep slopes and then you have your road going further to the north right into the canyon which then has to be a bridge which to my knowledge when the folks did come forward to develop a final map what they said was this doesn't make sense to cross this um this Canyon you should not cross a canyon it's very expensive you have to build a bridge and so that's why I've objected to moving this development time it into the Canyons in that way because I think the road network is not appropriate so those are some I can't in our short time I can't go over everything and I don't want to belabor the point um I just don't think it's ready for prime time I mean if asked I I would recommend denying the annexation but an alternate I suppose is to continue it to try to get more detail I could not promise I could get there but it could provide additional backbone or or um depth bench step detail for the Council you know to move forward with confidence you know and so that's just that's where I'm at is and I have to tell you if I knew this ahead I could have called you this was a decision was made to put on this agenda two or three weeks ago um we last met a long time ago I've just had an opportunity to meet with John this in this two or three weeks um and I just don't think it's enough time to develop okay the answers to these questions so that's for our M um I would then I would like to propose uh continu and so that you could sit down with them because I know that you go over it and find detail it took a lot of work in the canyons I know that eventually you know I know it wasn't um it wasn't something that you were comfortable with but I think actually at the end of it it was a much better project because of your concern and you know the work that you put in um on the front end so um I that's where I was like to see us go instead of denial right at this time Mr Oswalt is there anything you want to um include on the record here I think uh once again as I mentioned my staff report this is a very high level we use that tenative map final map process that is really our process to really dig down we have set a framework on this to make sure that many of the things that council member door has concerns with that we are moving forward to address those as we go forward they are on our radar we will be providing those Final maps at that but at this stage it is the it is a very high level one of the concerns I have is if if they are forced into a tenative map there is a four-year time limit on that right and so with our Market cycle and as things go they they want a high level so they can have Assurance see they can move forward so that is one of the timing and putting them in kind of a little bit over a barrel in timelines if we did move forward with a tentative map those are my concerns as staff one second one of the questions I'm asking is there a better way um in the process of the annexations because it's problematic I think there is um a better process here and I am going to talk with director pingry and miss fous and the acms and we'll see if we can put together a a more comprehensive way to do I'd like to see that because I think um it doesn't work well here so the thing that I'm going to ask is Mr kmpa I hate to go down the road of a denial would you be willing to do a continuance sure what what did you have in mind what did you have in mind well I would like you to sit down with them um there's we have an extensive list I think from The Canyons uh so I just think that a lot of those have to be answered before we continue to move forward even without a tenative map I think we could get these you know more detail I think there's a lot that you can come to agree on I really do I think that some could we set something date certain maybe 60 days out is that is that I okay 60 days roughly something like that roughly 60 days and maybe our clerk could figure out when I can open a calendar and so let's give a time yeah let me I'll do the calendar so we're at the October 25th November so it be December 25th so what about that next meeting in January does that work okay the next meeting in January all right thank you so may I get a motion from uh you for continuance yeah Madam mayor given um the issues that we've addressed here today and been brought up I would recommend a 60-day continuance approximately 60-day continuance to the uh first council meeting in January um I don't know what that means in s in terms of noticing so our clerk will have to advise us for that okay thank you so much Council D I always appreciate your willingness to sit down and make projects better so thank you so much all right I have a motion in a second all those in favor say I I all those opposed I'm Madame mayor I'm going to but I'd like to um just make a a discussion or comment really quick the reason why I'm going to um not support it is because I think if we have criteria that we're asking applicants to go through again talking about being consistent and transparent for all applicants and developments then we need to change the process or include more information and what we want to see so people can give us what we want when they get here um and not have to go through this and I understand that's something that we're going to be working with so thank you very much all right thank you so much I'd also ask Mr Thornley to make sure that you bring me back something um when it looks at these annexations for a better process or it's just um I think it's very clunky Madame mayor for noticing purposes just to clarify that would be the January 17th meeting at 10: a.m. okay perfect and then does it apply to all of the items C1 through four I think it is yes okay so for the record see 1 2 3 and four yes all right thank you thank you so much I appreciate it all right all those in favor say I I all those opposed opposed motion carries all right thank you so much moving right along Mr clerk Madam mayor if I might jump in it is noon are we ready to proceed with our trailed item B9 we were waiting on someone we we're ready to go B9 oh hello Mr farahi great to see you here fantastic okay uh Mr clerk any public comment for item E9 no public comment on this item all right hold on one second maybe we could get a staff that's what I was hoping for a staff presentation on item E9 it's B9 or B9 sorry unfortunately what's that our staff presenters for this item have departed unless Mr George can do it I think here I think he can handle it all right Justin all right take it away Justin all right please zoom out just a little bit Perfect all right uh council members I'm Justin George senior civil engineer for public works and I'm here today for a exciting um kind of milestone in our MOA Springs Community Aquatics and fitness center and we have um Parks director Nathan ulot and we have Mr farahi from the Atlantis here today and the Atlantis Cino and Resort has agreed to donate $250,000 to the Moana Springs Community Aquatics Community Aquatics and Fitness Center Program uh what that money will be going towards is for FF so fixtures Furnitures and Equipment more specifically for our multi-purpose rooms and for our fitness center at the public safety center we've got a nice 5,000 squ foot fitness center we've got a large multi-purpose room on the first floor for hosting a multitude of events um that's what's shown here on this slide here is multi-purpose room kind of the The Architects rendering on the top left and then layout of what that room could look like in one of the Furniture configurations on this slide here is the fitness center um layouts on the right we have a 5,000 ft fitness center with a small multi-purpose room off to the side of there that again could be that will be outfitted with furniture that can be um rearranged in a multitude of ways and also be used as a kind of a fitness studio for for classes um this slide here just a list of the the equipment that we're anticipating using this donation for um cardio equipment strength training equipment free weights and accessory items to outfit that nice Fitness Center on the second floor and then also the furniture for the multi-purpose rooms and that concludes my presentation okay thank you so much so first of all I want to highlight and say thank you um from the bottom of our heart from all this entire Council in the City of Reno to Mr farahi honestly I I don't think people understand how important those private and Public Partnerships are uh this is not just one project that you have helped the City of Reno get over the hump but many and have been such a massive supporter so I want to say thank you from the entire city of Reno for doing such a tremendous job um because if it wasn't for people like you in this community we would not be able to continue to do great projects like this not not to mention he's got impeccable taste it's going to be fantastic it's um but also I I know that you're very passionate about health and safety and well-being in our community and so I couldn't thank you um enough for doing uh such an incredible generous donation to this project um so anyway be like Mr farahi hashtag so thank you so much my friend come on up I'd love for you to say a few words oh and he's brought the check he's even brought the check I love it thank you so very much I mean this is this is massive and it really um speaks volumes to how much you're committed to what we do and all the kids that will be able to use that facility it's an important facility on so many levels for me I'm super excited that there are so many children that will be able to learn to swim it will save lives um and you have been a big champion of that and and our youth in this city so thank you Mr Farah it's wonderful to have you may thank you very much thank you members of the council uh we appreciate this opportunity to come and say that we feel this is a great project for our community the we've been working on it I don't know 10 15 years 20 years yeah government slow but we got there finally you guys got it done so we thank you I want to thank uh Council woman NORAD for coming and asking us to participate to contribute nothing Venture nothing she's good at raing money she's good at raising money we are wow we are pleased that we are going to uh uh help to get some of the equipment for the fitness center and other needs in the facility is uh I truly am excited because I have worked with the people who worked on this project for again 10 15 years time goes by so fast and they are dedicated people who want to do good for this community so I want to thank them writing a check is not hard you can write a check to get the job done is what it counts and the people who work so hard to make this a reality this incredible uh addition to our community I want to thank them and mayor yourself and members of the council for again bringing the package together being under construction opening it next summer so all that makes us very excited to be here today and do our little part to Big that's a very big part please stand and give him a huge round of applause thank you very much thank you thank you thank you very [Applause] thank you a yes let's get a picture um Mr Fry I I just want to say before we do a picture I just want to say that um from the from the time I got elected we're talking I'm in my 10th year starting my 10th year you have talked about the potential for this property to be what it could be you know the soccer fields the baseball but the pool and when we made the decision here and I really got to credit our CFO and our our city manager for figuring out the financial mechanism when we figured out that we could do it you couldn't have been happier and you have met with me on site every time I've met with you you have said how excited you are how impressed you are with the council how and every time you see the building you know the parking lot going in you're saying they're making tremendous progress we spoke about the architect you said you use the very same architect and were very pleased with their work and thought you know really kudos to our development team for getting a great architect on board so um it starts with the vision that vision is laid out by the architect and then the construction with Core Construction have done a phenomenal job as our um construction manager at risk and uh CMR process so thank you for being part of it I know you're across the street neighbor you might even work with us on geothermal but today this is about the pool and today this is about your generosity and commitment to our community and the kids the adults that are going to be able to come to this facility both use the meeting room maybe my neighborhood Advisory board but also the fitness Center you know being fit in America is one of our greatest challenges and so this really makes that accessible you don't have to pay fees you know you might have a certain small fee but it's not like an entrance fee to a gym it'll be for the whole community so thank you for being so communitymed and putting your money where your words are go God bless you thank you there is a little bit more left on that block to finish the project that's all I want to end with that block could the whole thing become a recreational entertainment for our community and I want to urge you please there are some buildings that are boarded up yes that there's if there's a master plan to F continue this process to the end you can count on us that we will be there again to do our share to complete that project I think I heard that right there and there is still a lot of work to do and if anyone knows you and works with you he just always says Hillary it matters just how we get it done we get it done I mean that is your big motto every time I've ever worked with you get it done get it done is the motto that he has here I do want to stress though I don't think people realize um what this does because it brings amenities to the table in ways that we can't do always so from the Penningtons to the farahi we are so grateful for uh what you have done for us honestly thank you again for that heavin good seeing you yes vice mayor go ahead I know you want to say a few words go ahead John it's always a privilege to spend time with you but I wanted to really say thank you from the bottom of my heart I mean since the 1970s your family has made a commitment to this city and this is just an one example of your very generous nature and I I I really do think it's one that will be Legacy defining the commitment that you've made um I know it's also been a very difficult time for you personally as we witness very difficult events uh happening in Israel and so that you're here today really speaks to my heart I know it's a painful time and so uh thank you for being here with us I I know that you say it's an easy thing to write a check but it doesn't happen every day and not everyone is writing such a generous check so thank you uh to your entire family uh for this commitment to our region and uh thanks for always rooting for Reno yeah God bless you thank you very speak to you just to take that a moment in such trying times and I know how devastated you have been I have been in our entire uh Community about what's going on to bring a bright light in the midst of that darkness is exactly what the Jewish people are about and what our community is about it's about bringing you know beating back darkness and bringing light to the situation and in this case light and joy so thank you well again I want to thank all of you thank you very much so come up and join us for a photo up here yeah let's we'll get down there du be closer to you no that's all right we'll share all right ready one two and three one two three [Music] so think plan is we're GNA take a break Sor I got as as we I thought we we didn't vote Mr clerk did we oh okay yeah oh we do okay we do need a motion all right Madame mayor that would be helpful go ahead like to make a motion to approve item B9 all right I have a motion in a second all those in favor say I all those opposed motion carries unanimously congratulations yay are we going to break then that our plan I think we are we're going to break we are but before we take a break I need to tell you that tonight's um I item the appeal has been officially withdrawn by that appellant so fantastic there will not be a 6:00 here to put out on social media put out all right fantastic okay and then you want to um attorney client I don't know I we did Jonathan do we have an attorney client no no nothing okay all right then we will take uh what 30 minutes one okay let's just make it easy 1:00 we'll be back at 1:00 thank you everyone we're in recess we'll be back at 1:00 I'm so sorry eight so Mr cler was proper notice given any correspondence received proper notice was given uh we have no written correspondents received we do have a couple of live public comments in the room all right sounds good let me just make sure we're both still here uh first we have deian Radcliffe and then Alice house will follow her okay I do have a PowerPoint affirmative great can I just before my time starts can I just see if the arrow is going to work or the mouse thank you excellent okay all right okay good not good morning good afternoon good afternoon mayor and members of the Reno city council thank you for your work my name is deian Radcliffe and I a longtime resident of Verdi I would kindly ask that my comments be included in the public record Rec I am here to provide concerns regarding the abandonment of Oldtown Road the first current concern is life safety as this land is being developed with City densities and is located in a high Wildland Urban interface many of my neighbors have experienced fire personally with the loss of structures livestock and having to evacuate residents cannot fathom what an evacuation using these two roundabouts would entail but there are some Givens egress would be significantly limited and there would be a bottleneck as you are likely aware many of my neighbors would be evacuating with trailers for Animals As Warrior Lane is not number one or number two to the roundabout there would likely be a huge backup just a reminder too that the Meridian 1 and two property has an emergency access onto Deer Mountain thin Warrior dumping more people into the neighborhood as more residential units have been approved than were planned there would be more people to evacuate there are over 2,000 dwelling units approved for this area promises these are not figments of my imagination but were written assurances to all residents of ver as part of the Morton and Garson development plan I wish that there had been a robust Community engagement plan for this request and not simply one NAB I cannot imagine the impacts but a few include un limited congestion we will always have to wait for the up and downstream traffic and literally changing traffic patterns for 30 40 and 50 your residents without any input or collaboration this clearly does not minimize traffic impacts on the existing Verdi Community the grade on the warrior Lane roundabout is double the current grade that we drive out drive on it will also create significant congestion to our community as the adts will be at least 22742 on this new road and that's without the school traffic I would not want to navigate it in inclement weather and it would not be a snow plowing priority as councilwoman doer has discussed some roundabouts work well and others do not I am aware that professionals have designed and signed off on this project but residents opinions should not be dismissed I would like to offer the following example you have abdominal pain and seek Health Care The Physician states that evidence-based practice indicates you should have a CT with contrast you don't want to receive contrast and you discuss this with your physician and complete an abdominal ultrasound instead we are not Traffic Engineers but we are residents who navigate roads and know our neighborhood I want to ask the city to delay this and allow time to discuss both the Envy energy bridge and engage the existing Verdi Community to make it safe and accessible for all residents I certainly do not see this as something that needs to be rushed there's only dirt on the road as you see in that photo and I'm not aware that the city is ready to build the fire station thank you very much for your time all right thank you good job next we have Alis house good afternoon Alice make sure you adjust the microphone that it'll move anywhere you want to I am short no it's not that you're you're great but I just want to make sure we can hear you okay um Alice house for the record good afternoon everyone um this is a dangerous Wildland Urban Fire interface warning sirens should be going off loudly in your heads they are in mine the plan for emergency evacuation needs a great deal of uous work if not now then when the fire threat is always imminent we have only one way in and one way out development is not improving this what is taking place is the entrapment of of Blue Heron in the B Ranch Estate and the proposed development of marinian South homes the abandonment of this roadway is going to create a loop of the Blue Heron a loop out of Blue Heron at leads to Warrior Lane the abandonment of this road is not creating a secondary evacuation point safety is required to be built concurrently with development the emergency evacuation access for mer Meridian South 1 and two is at dear Mountain Road a very narrow dirt road which is privately constructed dear Mountain Road leads to Warrior Lane Warrior Lane is the only way out for emergency evacuation in all three of these locations keep in mind there will be many paniced people and panicked people with livestock trailers trying to escape all of these areas will converge at the roundabout to escape all emergency vehicles fire engines equipment and E emergency Personnel will be coming in at this same roundabout the Garson Road overpass is a narrow two old two lane overpass OT stated that it is in the planning phase to be improved and it will be years before the bridge improvements begin fire will not wait for the completion of this bridge you must be you must have a plan for emergency safety now safety first and foremost because later will be too late the bridge over the Cy River at the bottom of ballet Ranch off of Mario Lane is locked the bridge is privately owned by Nevada Energy it is an old narrow wooden bridge with no rail guard rails on it it is dangerous to walk across emergency evacu evacuation across it will be super dangerous the rebuilding and opening of this bridge will be a two-fold problem solution it will be a critically needed secondary evacuation ation point it will eliminate traffic through private neighborhoods for access to the planned park for access to the public trails to the National Forest at the end of Mario Lane in belli Ranch concurrent with this development the bridge should be rebuilt for another emergency evacuation Point City of Reno should take the lead on the reopening of this brid Bridge Project your involvement is crucial the emergency evacuation point in Santa quacy project is not under construction it is the only other emergency evacuation point plan for the Southside Development Area sounds safe to you it is dangerously insane people over profits should the public safety be a number one priority should you be more prepared for emergency evacuation in this dangerous Wildland urban area should the the bridge at lower B Ranch be rebuilt concurrently with development should the Sant aquacy emergency evacuation point be in place before the entrapment of these communities should we require more from developer developers should the roadways be considered now the answer to all these questions is a resounding yes lives are at stake reconsideration of safety and emergency evacuation for these communities are crucial now thank you for listening thank you and that concludes our public comments on this item okay thank you so much okay at this time where we at staff presentation good afternoon Jeff Foster associate planner for the record um the applicant also is prepared to make a presentation if you would like yes we'll them go right after you okay very good so before you today is uh the abandonment of Oldtown Road ABN 241 the request is for an abandonment of a of approximately 23,88608 to the area just as a frame of reference for anyone who doesn't know it um it is between Boomtown Garson Road and the Blue Heron Park Subdivision to the south of I80 and the Boomtown development the key issues are maintaining access for residents um and the financial uh aspects of an abandonment uh zooming in here a little bit the land uses we see around the site are vacant to the South and to the west of course you have the I80 Freeway to the North and the Blue Heron Park Subdivision to the east as far as the um project with development of the approved subdivisions that I mentioned the Sant quicy developments uh the existing roadway Network needs to be altered to better conform to. inter intersection spacing and access management standards related to the Boomtown Garson interchange a roundabout and end. roundabout is proposed at the ENT sorry at the on-ramp and off-ramp as well as another roundabout owned by the city at the extension of warrior Lane to serve those future subdivisions with the end do roundabout in particular the physical expansion of the intersection prevents connection with the Oldtown Road at the current location and that is why the abandonment is necessary in fact condition number 12 for Meridian South Villages 1 to6 requires the abandonment also as a part of the project um to the South we have the extension of warrior lane from the existing Warrior Lane over to the city uh roundabout as far as far as construction is go goes the applicant is required to continuously maintain access and connectivity for the residents in the Blue Heron Park subdivision and of course everyone else in that direction uh temporary access roads will be constructed to maintain access to the on-ramp and the bridge during construction of the roundabout the adjacent parcel there is only one adjacent parcel next to the abandonment area um and that is the only parcel that will benefit from the abandonment as the area joining the northern half of the abandonment area is end. RightWay so instead of splitting the abandonment at the center line all of the abandoned area will become part of the adjacent parcel to the South um and in fact that adjacent parcel to the South is where a potential future fire station uh would be located the Zoning for that parcel is public facilities um and it has a Suburban mixed use and public quasi public master plan land use designation and that adjacent PF zoning would be applied to the entire abandonment area financially speaking uh records indicate that the road was offered for dedication to the county and then through annexation to the city as right away and no value was exchanged the area therefore should revert back to the adjacent property owner with no Associated fee if abandoned and the city will benefit from reduced liability and mainten sorry maintenance responsibility associated with existing uh with maintaining the existing substandard roadway and that's the roadway that you can see there in the picture staff can make all findings and here's the recommendation the recommended motion okay all right thank you so much I appreciate it okay hello Andy come on up thank you madam mayor uh Council for the record Andy derling with wood Rogers representing the applicant staff did a very thorough job and and um I think a lot of my presentation will be redundant so just to reiterate a few facts um the existing Oldtown road is a substandard roadway it's only about 24 feet of pavement uh there's no curb gutter or sidewalk and it's only about 100 feet from the existing interchange so that that existing um intersection spacing is is not uh up to uh end dos standards um and so the new proposed improvements with the two roundabouts um greatly improves the traffic flow and um uh more concurrence with existing standards than currently exists uh there are some existing utilities within the abandonment area um mainly overhead power uh private irrigation those will be relocated um there's existing storm drain in there it won't be necessary any longer so that'll just be abandoned uh as well or removed um the zoning as as staff mentioned will uh revert to the adjacent public facility zoning uh and the access I think the important note here um the conditions of approval on the abandonment uh allow for 24 months before this actual recordation of Abandonment takes place that would allow for the construction of um the main roadway as well as that Warrior Lane Extension so that we can maintain access open up that new access before ultimately uh abandoning the roadway and removing those improvements uh that are in there right now so with that uh I'm available for any questions we are in agreement with staff's recommendations and their conditions as proposed and would be happy to answer any questions okay thank you so much question can I um ask you really quickly maybe I didn't hear you correctly um so you're the purple area where you want to abandon correct and what I thought I heard was that that there would still be access so the purple area gets abandoned but before yes but before essentially it's a a sequencing right we're going to build these improvements that you see on there kind of in the in the darker gray the two roundabouts and then that roadway on the on the very bottom there that connects into uh the existing Warrior Lane to the east that would all get constructed before the order of Abandonment is actually recorded so there's it's a stepped process we have to apply for the abandonment we're actually conditioned um to apply for it as you um when this body approved um those past subdivisions for Meridian um we were actually this was a requirement that we needed to apply for this um acknowledged at that time that you know it was a substandard roadway so this is kind of part of that process okay thank you so much I appreciate it all right councilman D go ahead yeah um before you go Andy um Andy why do you need two roundabouts so that my first question is it's they're so close and if I was a resident out there coming out and then going around one then going around another just to get to the freeway I mean suddenly there's a lot of impediments and why can't it be one like why does it have to be this diverging path so um that was part of the or it's part of of the ongoing discussion but part of the uh traffic study that was approved by OT is in order to um for the traffic movement to occur and because the intersections they're still relatively close um there's some physical constraints there obviously Steamboat Creek or Steamboat ditch sorry uh is just off you know kind of off to the south of that last that southern roundabout so there are physical constraints to be able to push those intersections further um and so this is part of that mitigation in order to have two roundabouts rather than one intersection and one roundabout would not operate as well these would operate kind of in tandem okay so then can you tell us how does the residents travel path change that are in b or in blue harn sure so instead of taking Oldtown road which is kind of that Northern roadway up there thank you for the pointer um they would take uh Warrior Lane now which is the the southern existing roadway it would extend straight across they would go through the roundabout make a right turn and then wherever they want to go make a right turn to get on uh East bound I80 for examp now did I hear you right to or someone said that this is uh creating a second exit for blue Haron because there's just no this would be replacing Oldtown road with this Warrior Lane Extension the secondary access is further to the west and south as part of the Sant quicy development um actually I remember that one yep so on Planning Commission on November 1st I think actually they will have uh a permit for the grading associated with that that's coming forward so that's that's also moving forward as well so I mean meeting after meeting on this general area we've talked about using the railroad bridge the Envy energy bridge and I don't know if you have a map that shows it or if uh I don't our staff does um as a as a path but and and yet and I maybe this is something I should point to our staff I mean it seems to me that is like the correct alternate in this case you have a a big development spanning um along the whole freeway in a big way right from Santa to Meridian to okay so it seems like they need an exit out to the east that would be so the Santa and Meridian projects they are able to take care of their secondary access per fire code per international fire code um with this access and the and the one that is proposed to further to the West um to the east is it's that's kind of an existing condition as part of the B Ranch um the history of why the bridge is not open or not I don't know um I know that it you know as as was stated it's owned by Envy energy now um but I don't know the transactional history of why or or how that was closed right I'm not asking for that I guess I'm just asking really our staff that that in looking we we've talked about the need to use this bridge you know and that it's a bridge it exists uh for a long time and I don't know why we never sort of kind of get to closure and the reason why this area has been known to be a very high fire area I myself did a PSA out here years ago uh about the fires with the fire chief and with the owner of mcabe arms this area this not not an area two miles away but this area and so what I'm very concerned about is how do we continue to address that and I know that your requests for this banam but we're looking at the overall traffic pattern here and and the residents have also brought this up so I just wanted to see if there were any plants you know like I stated the secondary access is planned further to the West the really sort of not germine to the abandonment that's on understand at this point um the traffic flow and everything is is based on the demands that are generated by the projects that are coming in plus the existing traffic that's on there so it's it is part and parcel to um to that but it it you know the abandonment itself I I think you know focusing on it's a substandard roadway now um and so just in the impove Improvement of you know further separation from The Interchange um that's that's a good thing okay um any other questions councilwoman uh Ebert um this is for stop so did I hear you correctly in that this has to happen this is due to an endot requirement this abandonment like in order to have this happen they're requiring the abandonment effectively yes so the the the projects that were approved this anilic projects that were approved by this body by the Planning Commission and this body you know over the last several years part of the analysis that went into those projects was the project as designed today that we're looking at with the the endot roundabout and the roundabout further to the South so that was all uh reviewed as a part of those projects um one of the conditions from one of those projects required the abandonment of the this portion of Oldtown Road specifically because it conflicts with an end. roundabout as located okay and can we get the map up again I'm sorry which um with the roundabouts sorry this one here yeah so if we cut off the access there from from the Oldtown Road people are still going to have to use the same bridge to get to the freeway regardless right yes so whether or not we have the roundabouts or we're still using out uh Oldtown Road everyone's still going to be merging down to that one access point to get to and from the freeway correct that would be correct yes okay all right um is there any concerns with uh the what is that um where you're cutting off Oldtown Road and it's connecting to Warrior Lane there what I can't see what that street name is uh is that blue heron so that's kind of an awkward angle there is there any concerns about that people using that road to come over so let's see here let's go back so Warrior Lane you can see here to the South right and that is essentially just going to go straight across like you can see here so it's going to connect to the the new Warrior Lane Extension will connect to Warrior Lane down there yeah but the resident I mean if you can go to the other picture again oops sorry so blue heron how are the people that live on Blue Heron how are they connecting over so blue heron uh so the folks who live or Access Blue Heron there will when they're heading west on Blue Heron they will then turn left onto Oldtown road to the South and then they will turn right on to the warrior Lane Extension and then go through the roundabout okay so there's no concerns there about the traffic there no okay okay thank you um the other question that I had is so fire is always a a critical concern um and matter of fact I mean there have been times where I I wouldn't approve something based on the fire access um especially out there has have you um have the fire department weighed in on this so they didn't look at the well they looked at the overall development prior right the the development projects that were approved prior and they they weighed in on the access and the overall developments at that point in time so um the yeah so at the at the end of the day yes the fire has has looked at this and and then I would also point out as I did during the presentation in the future we have it's anticipated that a fire station would be built on this very parcel here uh so do we know and I assume that's our fire station right um and that's the other thing so I honestly I would love to have fire look at this and say you know we agree with this with this pattern um you know I'm for the abandonment but I also want to make sure that we have uh the best Pathways in and out of this this whole area um so okay it looks like Angel would like to speak Angela maybe you can help help me hi Angela fous assistant director so just for clarification this has always been the plan these projects were approved two and three years ago fire looked at this design approve this design they approved this is the primary access they also approved a secondary access we did not look at waso County's development and how those people get out we said we're providing access in and out for our new development the new development also provides a new secondary access for all of those watcho County residents that they don't currently have so while I appreciate that they want us to solve the problem of getting access out of an existing County development right we're solving the renal problem not an existing condition I think if those County residents want to talk to Tuma and NB energy about the bridge to the east yeah they should do that but what we are dealing with right now is projects that have been approved with this design fire has approved this okay regardless of if you approve this abandonment or not this project is still moving forward right this road will still be built and then we will maintain it uhuh so this is the next logical step I think so what you're saying is actually this will provide more um access and safety this will definitely make a a better access for all those developments um that haven't happened yet and the existing developments yes we're putting in a road that meets standards we're putting in sidewalks um a whole new roundabout that makes it safer that makes it more efficient putting in a fire station so many good things that are happening that are not there today okay all right thank you for the clarification appreciate that okay go ahead Council dur and then I'm going to go to um vice mayor and then I'll go to councilwoman Ebert and then over to this side you run the slides and go back to that picture we were just looking at that one so sorry no that one um so you see where blue Haron meets is at Oldtown and it's a very sharp greater you know very acute turn it it seems like there should be a mitigation you're being left with a very a primary route that is we would not like this is not a city standard okay to leave a street like that and I'm wondering if it should be rounded off and and rejiggered so to speak so that it's a better intersection right there I mean we've often done that is redesign roads be you're you're creating a situation where you're forcing everyone to take a 30 degree turn or whatever it is 45 degree it's not 45 degrees it's like 30 degree turn um do do you have some thoughts I mean could we have that as a mitigation if we're forcing a new route onto people that have lived there for a long time can we do a better men as well so that they can actually get to this other roundabout you see the intersection I'm talking about yeah the north one on Blue Heron Blue Heron down to Oldtown yeah so Ashley verling for the record with wood Rogers um that is obviously existing the way it is so people can still turn left as it is now um it will be the primary access but we have been working with Washo County to get that approved and they have approved our approved what the design of this whole area yes but I mean right now they go on the yellow right to get to I mean they have a kind of a smooth you know just curve this way they're going to take a very sharp turn go down to Warrior take a laugh go through two roundabouts I mean this is a whole change of life for people access this development and what I'm asking is it seems like we should mitigate the impacts on the existing development and not set up such a securest path without mitigating that road yes and I think it should be the developer I mean they need this change for the to facilitate their development yeah and we've gone through the permitting process we're in currently in the permitting process was county has given their stamp of approval the city has looked at the plans and well I will just tell you everywhere in my Ward where these kind of um uh less than 90 degree turns exist it creates a Traffic Challenge right I don't think this is anybody's idea of a great Road intersection so um I don't know what permits you need from Washo County but it seems like this is something that you guys should address at some point in this project okay let me ask you where where's the closest fire station can you show me closest fire station it's not going to be on any of the Aerials here I thought it was close Chef where's the closest TM fire station mul okay okay which is where relative to this world to the West right by a mile sorry to East to the east okay apologies three miles to the east um VI mayor go ahead thank you madam mayor uh first of all thank you uh Mr Foster and also to Mike brayley for meeting with me and with Miss Radcliffe about this issue uh it is obviously uh true that all the residents of this area want improved safety for themselves for their families for their livestock um I think that two things are true one is that the abandonment of this section will improve that I think that the end do um decisions to rebuild the Boomtown Garrison Road and the related infrastructure that comes into it is ultimately going to lead to a better and more safe environment so this is just contributing to that I also am U I'm not sure I understand some of the concerns that have been raised by my colleagues about uh turns I mean this is a neighborhood of very few cars and and users um I think everyone will be able to navigate turning left I don't think there'll be an issue there um as far as having two roundabouts close to each other I'm not a traffic safety engineer but I I trust the traffic safety Engineers to be able to make it so that it is designed in the way that would be most advantageous my experience with roundabouts is that they help to move people much more quickly than say controlled intersection so I would rather be having the to navigate the roundabouts which are built in such a way that they're there's kind of large graceful entries and and it's not curb and gutter that's high they're ultimately designed most of them the one that we opened up last week for example there's some give to them and you drive sort of up and on to the roundabout in some way I don't know what'll be designed here but again um this is a certainly an easy decision uh ultimately because two things are true one is that we have conditioned this applicant to make this request so we've already had that vote uh they're now just here to ask for the technical means to achieve that um I think it is true that we have to keep improving the um safety for our residents in ver ey it's why at the RTC the mayor and I have advocated for this bridge to be improved it's why we're looking at other portions on the backside of uh Boomtown to be improved that road is a a difficult and challenging stretch that has to be improved and long term the mayor and I are looking for Solutions on that uh this will make an improvement to this community and be for fire safety and for fire adaptive community so absolutely supportive thanks for the presentation I think I also to just to clarify what I also heard regardless um if we did not approve this it's still it still has to uh or it still will go go forward correct okay um I guess councilman Taylor or Council Ebert and then I'll come to you live oh good okay go ahead I have a question on the map it's it's gray and white with some red lines on it I'm sorry if you can get to that sure that one there that one looks like it's still using that piece of road what so the the red lines indicate the existing roadway Network okay so and it you know with it with it outlined over the aerial uh if we were to take away the the proposed uh all the proposed improvements you could see a little bit clearer that the red lines EX L match what is on the ground there today so that's what it would look like if we didn't do the abandonment correct if there was no further improvements or whatnot the yeah exactly the okay the roadway Network would exist as it is today okay thank you all right any other questions any further questions no okay oh go ahead councilman Martinez thank you I appreciate that um Mr froster I'm just curious if you could address the letter that we got from AT&T um I know that was included in the packet and just making sure that their concerns about the abandonment not affecting any existing utilities and how you're going to work with the existing utilities on yeah the applicant's representative is already working with AT&T to to address that issue they can speak to it further if you'd like but yeah they've already been in communication to address all the utilities no I just want to make sure that that's on the record um and then just out of curiosity how far down the road is Deer Mountain Road Road um on either blue herin or Warrior Lane how far down the road is that sorry what Deer Mountain Road it looks like there's another Crossroad in between blue herin and Warrior Lane um but it's just further down the road yeah maybe Andy if you yeah I apologize I don't have a a map showing that far out but I think Andy may have some info yeah dear Mountain Road is the next road to the east of Oldtown road so if it would provide another access to Blue her and circle as well okay do you know how far apart those roads are by any chance I no I don't have a distance it's maybe it was on it's the next block yeah I mean it's yeah half mile all right using my estimator okay yeah I just wanted to make sure that some of the concerns that we heard from um you know our constituents are are being heard and that the flow of traffic whether it's during an emergency or just regular traffic day are these improvements will help no yes absolutely and and actually this is a good you know zooming out a little bit further right Warrior Lane is kind of more the main road that provides access not just to um you know Blue Heron but also to Bell Ranch to further to the east the existing Blue Heron kind of creates more turns actually for existing residents than this would this would provide a more direct access to Boomtown garsen road than they probably most people out there currently have okay thank you for providing that information that's all I have thank you m that's it okay um and Mr derling I would just say and you know this I mean we've we've all been doing this for a while so I don't have to remind you but we have um a lot of residents out there that have done a really good job of keeping the council informed working together you know I think um because of their activism and their communication with the council that uh there are projects that are much better out there and it's it's incredibly challenging um and so I can so I'm very sensitive to what their needs are and what they're doing um have you been meeting with them uh no I mean we attended the NAB for this um but no we've not had really very much um since you know kind of a couple few years I also suggest that you get her number because she comes to council a lot and has great feedback and especially I mean I think the people that live in those areas know it's so much better um I'm also sensitive when we talk about the fire I mean with Colin Ranch in that area I mean it was just a disaster whenever it came to uh the traffic and and the mitigation and then it's also really hard because we are not traffic experts so I going to not that I love it by any stretch of the means because I don't and I and I completely agree with the residents um but that I hope that you know we like to believe that they are experts and put that trust in them and I'm not a traffic expert so I have to believe that they um looked at the right and best path so I guess if I can maybe just interject there I mean to to your point right I mean this is sort of a unique project because it is this roadway has to have the approval of the City of Reno and do uh was County so all three jurisdictions are reviewing it RTC also provides kind of a cursory review as well so I mean it's it's kind of making the rounds um and so to to maybe help you know provide some more assurances to you um that you know this is getting fully Ved yeah I have to feel that there are more experts looking at this than not yep right in this case they just about everybody's looking at it okay thank you so much yeah um okay I'm going to send it to you it's your word go ahead councilwoman Taylor oh I just want I had a quick question and I think Angela you might have said it so this what we're looking at now is is strictly for the aband abandonment of this road and what we are asked to do is determine that the public will not be materially injured by the proposed abandonment and I think I heard you say it's not the project design it's not the approval of the project it's not the roundabout design it's strictly are we abandoning this road and will it be in a better condition than when we left it so if we denied this then we would be maintaining that portion of roadway correct so if we abandon it and have the this infrastructure when I was out there I had an opportunity to go out with Miss house and look at it I'm not a traffic engineer but it seems like the access will be improved with the abandonment and the roundabout is that what the Traffic Engineers have decided that's correct and the way it's designed now it does not meet our current standards it was built as a County Road um I would say it probably hasn't been maintained to the level that it should have been over time it became our road again it does not meet our standards so once we abandon it and the developer has to put in a new road they will design it to our standards then they will maintain it until such time as it we take it over they will dedicate it to us so that whole interim which will be a couple years they are responsible for maintaining it so that that takes a lift off of us right now while it doesn't meet any of our current road standards and just want to add as well you know the concerns about fire I think it's important to just call out that when that Santa project was developed the fire staff looked at it and said you know what we're going to require that that secondary fire access the one that's to the Far West has to be built and in place prior to the first house going in and I think you know that the leadership from this Council that approved those conditions and brought this issue up really goes to show that this topic was vetted um and that's not something we would normally spend so much time talking about fire access but because those neighbors brought that up and said we want to make sure that fire has truly looked at this and addressed it um that that topic was very very much discussed and and again with fire and and and Council approving that condition it made it number one um a point of concern and and and address to say before house number one is built that secondary fire access has to be in place so and in the report it says or our staff report it says no concerns are received from fire or RPD on this and the existing Oldtown Road um when we were out there there's ditches through there it's not necessarily in the bests condition anyway correct okay I just wanted to make sure I was on the same page thank you very much all right any further questions going to send it to you okay uh Madame may I move that Council make a determination that the public will not be materially injured by the proposed Vaca vacation and approve the abandonment subject to the conditions in the staff report okay I have a motion second I have a second uh all those in favor say I I all those opposed motion carries all right thank you okay and we are moving to item C7 and then will you make sure you get everyone's contact number Mr dery oh okay okay thank you so much okay uh sorry go ahead Mr clerk we are moving to item C7 okay Madam mayor Mr Clerk if I might let's do C7 and C8 uh at once two separate votes but one presentation okay that would be great so at this time um Mr clerk let the record reflect that the city council is opening the public hearing uh was proper notice given and any correspondence received proper notice was given and there was no correspondence receives okay do any council members need to make any disclosures no okay um then I am going to send it right back to you I think uh wait a minute I think we need to have do we I think do we have to have you read this our City attorney no we're good okay take it away all right good afternoon mayor and council members for the record elain wisman housing and neighborhood development um what you have before you today is an affordable housing fee reduction request by Sutro Street senior um Housing Development um as you know in 2019 state law was changed to enable local jurisdictions to subsidize enterprise Enterprise fund fees and this Council adopted an ordinance in 2020 um setting the criteria for our own standards this project is Sutro senior Sanctuary so it's one project title but it's two different location so there's a North location at 839 Sutro Street this will be 105 units of affordable housing um for seniors at or below 60% of the Ami and they're requesting the full 85% um reduction in their fees which they're eligible for based on the 60% Ami and then they um that gives them 75% reduction they get an additional 10% because the project is located within a quart quarter mile of a um rapid bus stop the second site is Sutro senior Sanctuary South and this one is 65 units of affordable housing again it's 60% and Below of the Ami and this one is for senior veterans so it's also eligible for a full 85% reduction in their sewer fees and building permit fees they're requesting building permit fees for both of the sites as well so a total of 170 units will be added to the market and this slide I every time uh we present you know we just keep adding units to it I love this this slide it really reflects the good work of this Council and this program so if this is approved today um it will be a total of 1,459 new affordable units um that have have been um subsidized by this program and a total subsidy of almost $8 million that includes the sewer and the building permit fee so just a really tremendous effort so with that um this would be two motions um approving their request and I do have the developer here um Gary schaer with two Sparks development so if you have any project related questions or would like himim to to speak to you yeah he's available great thanks so much love for you to come on up first of all um thank you so much I know that these projects are becoming more and more challenging every single day um and it's also one of those areas where sometimes the city needs to also be a really good partner in these the most difficult and challenging projects um these are the ones that we really need more than ever and now before so so I want to say thank you um for bringing something like this forward since it's so desperately needed and we're seeing a lot less of it so uh I commend you for that so thank you I don't know is there anything you would like to add about um your project uh happy to answering your questions and again Gary schaer Wood to Sparks development for the record um no I I agree with your comments and I appreciate the sentiment the the housing is definitely needed I think the location that we've chosen is a is a perfect location relative to the uh wasel County Senior Services Center public transportation it's just we were excited about the uh the opportunity to put this project where it's located and appreciate the support of the the council well thank you we appreciate you all right questions go ahead M Madam mayor council uh sorry vice mayor Reese and then I'll go to council thank you so much go ahead Mr schaer first of all welcome to Chambers I know that this is not your first time visiting with us but maybe you would share a little bit about your background I know you've chosen to be here which is I think why the mayor is so excited about having you in Chambers today um this development is I hope not the last that you might consider bringing here but really I think your story is part of the fabric of this community and the changes that are happening here um I am encouraged by what you see in Reno because of course it's something that we've always seen in Reno but maybe just take a step back and and tell us a little bit about you and your partner and and why you've chosen these as an opportunity because you have a lot of places you can choose and you have chosen other communities um so tell us a little bit about your you know your vision for what you're doing here yeah happy too and appreciate the question so I'm a relatively new resident of of Reno uh just moved here at the end of May from Chicago where I've spent uh like was born and raised Illinois and just kept moving North from my uh my rural Southern Illinois routs um so uh happy to be here in in Reno and I think my really my first time here and I was brought here by our our general contractor so we have a a partner who we work with in Chicago and he's got dual headquarters between Chicago and and Reno Reno was not even on our radar and he he said we definitely need to check it out he was uh uh praising the the council and how easy it was to do business here and so um I came first it was a year and a half ago stepped off the plane looked around saw the mountains and I was I was sold so um having the opportunity right it was a lmer than Chicago but Chicago's got that biting cold so it's yes been really biting cold uh so stepped off the plane saw saw what Reno was and the more we learned about it um ended up bringing my wife and kids out showing the area and uh and here we are and now you're living here now we're living here wow well welcome that's so exciting and this was one of the things that we wanted to do just to give back to the community here you know we've we've done other real estate projects market rate um in other locations across the us but really wanted to focus on the affordable comp opponent here at Reno well we're really grateful that you are cuz there are very few people that do it and understand how to do it so whenever we see it um we also think it's an opportunity for us to create what we call those private and Public Partnerships so thank you so much absolutely thank you really really appreciate it okay go ahead Council dur yeah I just want to add very briefly to my colleagues I've had a chance to meet you before uh you guys do amazing work I love the location at Sutro um and you know more and more this is what we want to do to be able to support affordable housing is to wave these fees um me we've already adopted through with the mayor's leadership a program to defer fees and we do that now at Co um but this is an opportunity to wave which I assume will bring down your development costs and I hope that that would translate into supporting this affordability component that you have what is the affordability component that you're established uh so for both sites it'll be a 60% or less um and we're still working through some of the components of that um as you might know um project P vur are in high demand and and not as high Supply here in the City of Reno and really Northern Nevada in general um and so the more of of that type of support we can get um our goal is to make this as low income as possible we want to serve those in most need with with these two sites and so um to the extent that we can still secure some of those vouches for the project uh we want to go as low as possible at the same time of course the building has to make Financial sense in order for the partners to come to the table and that's those are the two ends of that balance and let me ask Monica if you wouldn't mind coming up I know that um we had talked and this probably a year ago where you all were amending your development agreement to specify rents and how they could change could you I don't know if that was implemented in this one um Monica Kirch for the record it's really hard to say now we got a new I was congratulations thank you um that is in relationship to uh home units and so when these uh developments are put together if home funds are included in the project and it'll say I don't know maybe there's three home units and so we have contr direct control over those units and so with those um the developers cannot raise the rent more than 5% per year and um it is my understanding that at uh the Nevada housing division they are working on um implementing something similar for litech projects as a whole okay that's fantastic news um as you know I'm struggling with some other affordable housing that's also at 60% and just recently a lot of the people get what was called Section 8 vouchers or now called housing Choice vouchers and that allows the developer um not the developer but the owner to raise um the rents to market rate market rate even if it's an affordable and then um have the difference between what the resident can pay and what the uh rent would be uh filled in by Reno Housing Authority I think you know they only have so much money so if they pay a higher number that reduces the amount of places that they can help essentially put in a nutshell so that's something I'm struggling with I have a whole um one of these senior affordable units struggling as they go to market rate in the 895 21 area code um they are looking at 2360 and that is a market rate that's not what you would think of as affordable I know and nobody would so just be cognizant of those and any way you can work with us on those kind of issues would be very much appreciated and we really appreciate the work you do generally and again I do appreciate that and and our goal here is supporting those that are in need um it's to the rate that those rates are the rents are increase it's only to make sure the the the project can financially exist right otherwise our focus is taking care of those residents got it thank you thank you all right any further questions see that there are none may I get a motion Madame mayor I'll make a motion on the first item uh which is the request for subsidization of $910,000 uary North all right thank you I have a motion and a second all those in favor say I I all those opposed motion carries unanimously Madame mayor on the second item I'm prepared to move to approve the request for subsid cost of $538,500 in building permit fees for the Sutro senior Sanctuary South all right second I have a motion and a second all those in favor say I I all those opposed motion carries unanimously thank you all right thank you congratulations we're really excited um and let us know whenever you have shovels in the ground because we can't wait to celebrate see all right okay Madam or Mr clerk sorry sorry that's okay we are moving on to item D1 all right Miss Mr clerk at this time uh do you have any public comment on this item we do have several uh in the room wishing to speak um we'll begin with Bill shrimp followed by Mark Ray okay good afternoon everybody uh so as always thanks for being here and I appreciate the work that you do uh and even times when when we don't agree on everything and my name is Bill shrimp the Nevada attorney general has a document called the Nevada open meeting law manual I hope each person on this body is at least familiar with it a key concept throughout the manual is that agendas must be quote clear and complete end quote agenda item D1 and its supporting materials are neither what are we going to appeal to take the agenda item as written the recommendation is to sue to support the scenic Nevada has standing withdraw a support for the identification sign and allow the Billboards reading between the lines which is the opposite of clear and complete I don't think that's the intent ask yourselves can each of you articulate what you're being asked to vote on in a few minutes I am not an attorney and neither are most of you but that shouldn't be a requirement to understand an agenda item another problem with the agenda item is the financial implication I don't think is none going to court is not free appeals take time and treasure at a minimum Court filing fees if the city loses the appeal what kind of legal Jeopardy are we getting into what's the downside risk are we going to pay another $3 million settlement and call it a pragmatic deal assuming I am reading between the lines correctly and the agenda item is not to be taken at face value is the city acting as a deao representative of the developer absent from the report is any mention of the developer or their willingness to or their willingness or intention to engage in appeal process alongside the city consider a motion to sever was granted in 2021 I think that means that Reno is treated separately from the developer what do you hope to gain for Reno up or down on a few signs that ultimately help a large company how is an appeal helpful to the people of Reno it's as clear as mud this whole matter is a mess o sorry this whole matter is a mess please get the city out of it don't kick a dead horse besides it's the developer horse if anybody's going to kick it let them do it thank you and hope you all have a good night night today all right thanks okay Mark Ray followed by Lori Ray hello um Mark Ray w a y I'm an attorney in town over here on Lander Street and I represent cic Nevada in this matter I hope you all saw the letter that the board of cic Nevada sent in on Monday which um sets forth whatever position we can take on this I think it's limited because we don't know what what kind of legal advice Carl and and uh uh Jasmine and Shan den and and John have given you but if I could just focus for a second here on this it appears that the problem is that a judge has determined that two of our signs that we gave approval for in a development agreement do not comply with city code so we're going to peal that to the Supreme Court these two Signs Now one of the signs is on the freeway it's an off- premises advertising display and therefore a billboard as defined by city code but the city in its wisdom did not require these developers to surrender a banked receipt per our 2017 settlement agreement the banked receipt is supposed to be surrendered for any billboard but this was apparently too high of a hurdle for the developers they just would not do that there just other people can the law does apply to other people who want Billboards in this town I think it should apply to these developers the same as it does to everyone else in compliance with our 2017 settlement agreement given that can we not take the high road and say to the developers you've already appealed they filed their appeal yesterday can we not say to them go for it we the city uh don't think it's wrong to follow the citizens vote in the year 2000 when all the people in the city or 57.8% of us voted not to have any more Billboards I think that's the correct thing to say to the developers and to the citizens of the town that we support you you voted we passed an ordinance an initiative it's codified in your Municipal codes just like the sign code and we'd like you to follow it please um I'd like to point out that one one last last thing judge steinheimer in our order saved if you will the arch sign on Fourth Street by the Chevron station and she did that using U reasoning that was acceptable to her and and we weren't appealing that or weren't planning on appealing it and um so it's there but unless we have abandoned for Street to these developers that is a sign over a public Street and therefore an off- premises sign and qualifies as a billboard as well now the judge didn't say that but these are the kind of things no one knows what's going to happen on appal it's possible that those three judge panel this three judge panel could say yeah we're looking at this whole thing again and the way we see it here's the outcome and it could be uh very much in favor of one side or the other it could be somewhere in the middle we just don't know so all of this process is going to happen simply so that we can oh thank you thank you for all right thank you Lori Ray followed by Barry Hall good afternoon good afternoon my name is Lori Ray and I'm here to pres to read a letter into the record by Peter Chase Newman he's a retired attorney in town that lives in Ward one so this is what he has to say Reno city council ought to deny the request of the staff report to appeal the decision and Order uh of District Court Judge Stein uh Connie steinheimer judge steinheimer is one of the most seasoned and respected District judges in Nevada and her 18-page order filed September 23rd is very likely to be affirmed and so to vote to spend additional public resources including lawyers and staff salaries of the city attorney's office is unreasonable and contrary to the interest of the people of Reno who pay those salaries with their taxes the Court's findings and decision that at least two of the proposed go Gotti neon line signs would violate the existing law that prohibits additional Billboards is certainly based on both fact and law because this court is spot-on correct in concluding these two signs are not area identification signs but rather a billboard and an on premise sign that would violate the 25t limit of the city code there has never been a downtown district called Reno's NE neon line District that phrase is simply the creation of a clever marketing agency for the developer now we learn that this phrase was invented and trademarked um in November of 2018 in other words the phrase neon line district is no different than coca colola or Best Buy or C and robu would this city council have allowed an area on West Forest Street to be named The Best Buy district and permit commed the developer to erect Billboards advertising it as such I think not I urg the Council to not only deny the city attorney's office permission to appeal but also I request the city council to resend and revoke its approval of the so-called Archway sign proposed to span four lanes of traffic on with four street because the application for its construction was made on false and misleading arguments without disclosing to you the truth that the phrase Reno neon line District was simply in invented and indeed patented or trademark as a clever way to convince you that there is actually a district by that name there is not and it is unfair and highly divisive for this Council to Cave into the desire of the developer to have his development given what will be in effect like a Good Housekeeping seal of approval signed by the members of the council it is not right it is wrong I ask you to correct that wrong every time your constituents strive under that misle leading uh commercial Archway sign that will block our out there view of the Magnificent Sierra Nevada range those voters are going to curse that sign and the people that allowed it to happen thank you very much Barry Hall good afternoon mayor shie and all council members and thank you for this opportunity opportunity to speak my name is Barry Hall I live in the old Northwest at the top of Keystone near Rancho Sam Rafel when I drive down the hill I arrive at the area being redeveloped by Jacob's entertainment I support several small businesses in the area for example betto's Mexican restaurant the best Mexican food in Reno and the Golden Flower Vietnamese restaurant uh little a little office a little office supply store on Fifth Street I tell you this so that you understand that um that this part of town this area is um a part of my extended neighborhood the discussion of the proposed signs is personal to me I am here today to urge you not to appeal judge Stein heimer's decision to deny two of the proposed signs and to ask you to to deny the arch um that Jacobs wants to erect over four Street before I make my point I'd like to say that I support all the legal arguments uh Scenic Nevada has made I hope you honor the settlement agreement you made in 2017 with cenic Nevada as councilwoman dur said no means no I hope no still means no in all the discussions in regard to the science I haven't heard anyone mention the Lincoln Highway you see for trate Fourth Street is part of the old Lincoln Highway to build an arch to provot a private business would desecrate a national treasure the attorney for Jacobs entertainment Garrett Gordon argues that the name Reno's neon line district has caught on quote it's become organically known not only in this area but around the world I respectfully submit that it's the Lincoln Highway um that is known in this area and around the world if you want to place an area designation sign on Fourth Street imagine a beautiful vintage sign like the original sign for um Reno biggest little city that's now on Lake Street a sign that says Lincoln Highway gateway to the sieras instead of a sign this uh uh owned by a that promotes a private business and says Reno's neoline Neon line please keep your word to the citizens AR Reno by denying the arch sign please honor the Lincoln Highway by denying a sign that is the opposite of what the Lincoln Highway stands for um not only to the people of Reno but to people all over the world thank you did you say you you are with beos and oh okay I thought sorry I thought that you said you were with bados and and the Golden Flower Restaurant okay no I just represent myself oh got it okay I just love those FR okay oh okay all right thank you so much I I think we all agree with you there for sure okay thank you Madame mayor that in uh concludes our inperson public comments for the record we did receive 24 comments directly associated with the agenda item prior to 4pm yesterday uh they represented 14 in opposition and 10 concerned okay and that concludes our public comments for this item thank you so much okay take it away Jasmine M with the Reno City attorney's office for the record uh this item is before you because we're asking council's approval to appeal the Court's order granting in part and denying in part the rid of mandas sought by cic Nevada regarding the development agreement that the city council had approved with uh the Jacobs development entities um there were three main issues the court upheld Sanic Nevada standing um held two of the three signs are not area identification signs but rather on premise or off- premise signs and finally the Court held that the city can't deviate from existing code when entering into a development agreement under NRS 27821 as Mr Ray noted the developer appealed yesterday and filed its notice of appeal um and we are asking for your app approval to do the same all right um thank you so much I appreciate that um so explain that you're saying under under the um the development agreement and also I want to put on the record I'm I have not spoken to you or to Carl hall or anyone from our legal on this this is the first um you know that it's come before us so I do want to put that out there uh so that people know that there there was no bias before coming into this meeting um so explain again um I guess I think to your point um in layman's terms why uh wh why that is the recommendation um well in our briefing to The District Court we had argued that as to standing that the statutes governing development agreements do not Encompass a broader standing only the parties specifically to the development agreement are named as parties that can be can appeal um as to the area identification signs that was something that we had looked at um and determined that it was appropriate in the development agreement to have area identification signs because they're not addressed by code code addresses on premise signs and off premise signs area identification signs are defined in the code but um but they're not addressed as part of the sign code and then finally in the the development agreement statute um it allows um for the wording of the of the statute basically says I can find it unless the agreement otherwise provides and accept as provided in subsection 7 which prohibits the city from enacting new codes that would impact the development agreement the ordinances regulations uh resolutions appable to that land are the ones that would apply to the agreement but it says unless the agreement otherwise provides and so that's something that we're concerned um would no longer be really a tool available to the city council to use as part of its its planning um processes because the the court specifically said the codes the ordinances are the ceiling you can't you you can't go beyond that you can make things more restrictive but you can't make them less restrictive restrictive okay I got that the other thing is um I also think because it was referred to as a billboard which I hate to say that now I and listen I respect Scenic Nevada very much uh Connie judge steinheimer um very very much I and the reason I I think in my mind it's not a billboard um it's placemaking identification Reno has not seen a lot of it but what they have seen is Midtown we've received a lot of push back on that and we branded Midtown as Midtown and it's I see it no different than um the same way when it comes to Neon line District um you know it's just one of those things that you brand and I think we actually need to do more of it and that's what I hope with when we talk about the plac making um it really helps an area for very it's for the business buiness for Branding specific um I think obviously it should be done in a certain way that um you know is conducive to what the um area sort of entails or um I guess you know the the nature of what's happening there it helps businesses tremendously um on a much bigger level especially those businesses that can't afford to buy advertising or buy signage I mean it it helps tremendously there's a lot of different reasons I saw it firsthand when we were fought with Midtown over and over and over again um whether it was infrastructure sidewalks the sidewalks took 15 years 15 years um and so you know we had to rely on actually the bigger businesses to help push us through with the Midtown District um for those little businesses that no one had ever heard of so um I just philosophically feel very different about branding it doesn't matter if it's a neon line or Midtown or uh wherever it is I think um and and I think too quite honestly it's easy to pick on Jacob's entertainment so people like like to do it is what I think but I'm a big believer in placemaking um obviously I want to see what those look like I don't think that they should be you know um should they should be conforming for sure um I agree with that so okay I understand kind of where you're going but this is just sort of how I feel based on what I saw with Midtown and um sort of how challenging it was and we still don't have signage there and we need it desperately uh we've talked about it but um and I think at some point we should bring it back to make sure that um there is something in place that we can expand on so that we can identify districts and the placemaking and all the reasons why having districts are important so thanks so much okay um who would like to go first okay go ahead Council M dur okay um all right thank you for being here Jasmine and bringing this to us um let me go over a couple points you said the first point was does scenic Nevada have standing or not and I completely agree that and I always have affirmed that Scenic Nevada is standing in these kind of issues they're generally formed nonprofit they open membership to everyone this is their focuses um Beauty but also signs in particular and so I actually concur with the judge saying that they have standing um the the judge's decision on the signs that are considered off premise my under I want to make sure I understand the development agreement so if if you have it handy there the development agreement as I recall said they had to come in and get permits for those signs that is correct okay so it's not done I mean we did the development agreement but there's next step and that's getting a permit okay and I I would have preferred to not even see this part in the development agreement for me the development agreement was really about extending sewer credits so they had asked for 20-year extension we agreed to a fiveyear extension that was in our purview we did it through a development agreement they also wanted as I require as I recall to count improvements that they made along the sidewalk um to count as part of the commitments that they had to do per our code so they they just wanted it was an accounting exercise and it was also a sewer extension credit exercise um so I do not want us to appeal whether Scenic Nevada has standing I do not want us to appeal uh the off- premise signs they get an opportunity to come right back through the process and apply for those signs under our code is that correct well under under the existing order yeah no the only sign that they could apply for is the archway sign well let me understand I guess I I don't have a visual of what they were envisioning on the uh gas station site and on the cemetery site but I mean we often have let's call them WF finding signs on a freeway that talk about here's the gas here's the so and so Hotel get off here and they're they're all conforming was that what was envisioned or was it something different um well I mean the the sign that were sub envisioned were in the in the development agreement as an exhibit um but I will note that the that the order says that um the basically it's further it's hereby further ordered that the City of Reno is prohibited from issuing building permits to Reno real estate Development LLC and or Reno property manager LLC pursuant to the development agreement to erect the cemetery sign and or the gas station sign but what were those signs as described in the development agreement right well my understanding those were bigger signs than what I'm talking about okay those are I would call them quite different from what I would call A Classic on the freeway sign I mean a freeway sign advertising Harris and a billboard is different than a sign saying exit here for the neon line District I mean and we have gone over the sign code we have established Billboards we've said what you have to do to get one you know I'm not sure with her saying you can't even apply for one I think that would get denied but you know this is just where we are after this many years of discussing it but um and I don't think they were trying to do like an Under the Tent approval de facto approval of the sign because they still in my mind had to come in to get approval right so I wasn't that worried about what the pictures look like when they present and they kept saying it would be something like this but these are not the pictures and don't hold us to it and they all these disclaimers that's what I recall yeah so you know I thought we had a process for approving signs and I'm sticking with that process now you say that these are a kind of sign that a w finding sign is not defined in I mean it's defining code but there's no permitting process to get one right it's not and my understanding is we're supposed to be adopting one yeah but I also understand from what you just read is that that would not apply because they said no future regulations can apply to us you just read it in the statute yes right yeah so even if we adopt a a wayfinding sign ordinance it wouldn't even apply to them I think if they came in and applied for a permit it would have to be up to the creativity and negotiation with staff because we don't have a process for that today that's correct so I I think that um Jacobs as well well situated to fight their battle on that I do this issue of deviating from code and development and I see I think I'm over time so I'm happy to come back but that's the issue I want to address okay re thank you Madame mayor I'll um try to uh sort of follow along with Miss du's thoughts Miss meta first of all the work you've done has been exceptional on this file and your team has done really great work uh it's a complicated issue when you start talking about outstanding and some of the development issues so excellent work um you know I think you get two lawyers you can get 10 opinions about whether a judge's order is ultimately the right one it's okay too um I like you have divided it into the three things so standing I'm somewhat agnostic upon I don't really have a strong opinion I think Scenic Nevada makes a good argument about why they have standing but again reasonable legal Minds can disagree as to the signs I'm somewhat in Miss doers camp but maybe come out on a different angle which is to say that I don't want us to be fighting about the signs either in the Supreme Court I I think that the Supreme Court has I mean judge Stein or steinheimer has made a pronouncement on that and we can agree or disagree about how big the signs were were they Gody were they colorful placemaking is a real thing and so I think it's okay that they can be more than just a exit here to get a food symbol I I don't think that that's really what we want um but again as we went through the development agreement process it was identified as here are examples but we have to come back to you for approval when it comes so I don't know that we could hold them to even the examples that were given that third issue is the one that is the one that's concerning to me as a lawyer this question about whether the city can deviate from code in a development agreement and I believe this is where judge steinheimer got it wrong meaning she has overstepped the judicial role of reviewing a decision that we have made here and I certainly believe that state law says that a city can deviate from the accepted code standards up or down uh in a development agreement and that is the legal issue which I think is worth pursuing I'm interested to know what my colleague's uh concern is on that um I have a very technical question though what happens we now know that the developer has appealed if we do not appeal what happens um the appeal goes forward but it's an empty chair and when they get into some oral argument posture if they would even Grant oral argument and the Supreme Court Justices want to ask questions we're not there like it seems to me that there is an appeal whether we vote yay or nay to do it there's an appeal that will resolve the issues in the appeal is it just that we don't get to have an opinion on how that is sorted out what happens if if we're one party that does not appeal that is a great question and I did um quite a bit of research to try to figure that out and unfortunately there's not anything out there that I could rely on I suspect it would either go one of two ways either we're taking along anyway um you know because we are a named party and so I don't know that the Supreme Court would say you're exempt from participating um or it would be an empty chair and we just wouldn't be there so I I clerk for the Supreme Court and have an appet practice of my own and so I think it's likely to be the empty chair meaning that Supreme Court cannot force us to participate in a process if we choose not to um but then it just somebody else gets to ascribe our thoughts for us and it really is an empty chair um there's no one there raising the issues that the city would have and that's concerning to me it's almost like the die has been cast by virtue of the fact that the developers appealed and I don't know if we we don't necessarily have to St shoulders to- shoulder with them the developer May fight the standing issue they may of course fight the sign issue maybe we aren't there but I think if we were able to narrowly focus our writing efforts in the brief side of this it would be on that third question right uh and that third question is important for you know why as a body we have certain powers that we have and certain authorities we are a separate co-equal branch of government and so when one branch of the government seeks to limit our Authority This concerns me uh especially when it does so in a manner which is contrary to what I think state law indicates our powers are we receive our rights of course in a Dyan rule state as grants from The Sovereign the state and so when one body deprives the other co-equal branch of government of a power that it is afforded by a third branch I think that is a question for me that is worth pursuing so um this is really my thought process on it and again I think you've done done outstanding legal work I am not the city's lawyer you are the city's lawyer uh and so I I think I am inclined to hear my colleagues comments but those are my initial thoughts and just for the record I will note that this at this point in time we would just file a notice of appeal with a a case appeal statement and that it doesn't lay out the issues it says uh these are the parties they're represented or they're not represented uh here's order we're appealing from it's it's very generic and we could certainly have a more indepth conversation about the focus of the briefing well on that point Madame mayor if you'll allow me can I so miss meta I I want to make sure you understand something I don't think it is for the client to tell you the lawyer which legal theories to pursue I think those are issues that lawyers get to make judgment calls about I'm just suggesting that yes I know that the notice of a appeal is a form says we appeal and you turn it in I I'm not suggesting that's not the the thing the case appeal statement will identify issues for appeal and for my part um were I in your position and I am not I would seek a limited number of issues to appeal right if there were 10 issues to appeal you don't necessarily appeal every one of them I also think Mr Ry was correct in his public comment that we don't know how a three judge panel or even the onbon court would rule it is possible that the unbun court would rule entirely in favor of Scenic Nevada and would uphold all of the uh or strike down all the signs right it's like you roll the dice and again I I think the legal argument on the third issue is the one that is of critical importance to me as a policy maker but the other issues are ones that you know reasonable Minds can disagree about and again I I'm not telling you that when you go for filling out your opening brief it must contain certain arguments where it may not include those I don't think that that's for us to decide thank you so much thank you all right uh Council abber um this might be a little bit off topic but I think it's kind of relevant um has anybody [Music] um sorry the term is escaping me right now has anybody copyrighted the term Midtown do we know that I don't know no businesses okay so we don't know that okay so I while people were discussing this I Googled um Reno uh neon line neoline Reno just variations of that and the top three uh results um all said Jacobs so the very first one actually well it wasn't the first one first one I clicked on I think it was the third search result um is for a travel website let me see which one this is bear with me just one second travel Nevada it says that uh a vision of Jacob's entertainment this stored stretch of the Lincoln Highway is one of the largest Redevelopment projects of its kind transforming worn properties into a new pedestrian friendly Reno Arts District so I hear that it's a district but it also calls out that it is the Lincoln Highway um um so I mean if we're identifying a location it is the Lincoln Highway the next result saying you know uh which one was this uh Reno neonin district.org so this is a Jacobs uh site um I believe let me see Reno sorry this one oh this was from the downtown partnership ship this one also says if you want to contact anybody the email address is Jacob's entertainment so also the Reena website if you do a Google search that uh for neon uh line District in Reno reno.gov website says the neon line district is a proposed private developer infill Redevelopment effort located in downtown Reno so everything's pretty clear here that this is a developer driven private thing so I don't think it's really the city of Reno's place to get involved in this and to join in the appeal it sounds like Jacobs has already filed their own appeal so I don't see how it's relevant for us to join in this everything that I'm seeing on my search results um the downtown partnership says it's just um Jacobs everything I'm looking at says it's Jacobs so why we would get this involved with a private company's appeal doesn't make sense to me well you know we're using City of Reno funds to do this so I don't think I'm going to support this Jacobs can file their own appeal they can handle their own lawsuit if this was truly a City of Reno identifying area um you know the first four search search results wouldn't come up with Jacob's entertainment uh Midtown when I look at up doesn't come back to one specific business it comes up with different restaurants and shops downtown nobody's trademarked Midtown it is truly an area within Reno but from everything that I'm looking at neon line is Jacobs so let them handle their own lawsuit right am I crazy here on this well I will point out that the city is a party to the development agreement and enacted it as an ordinance yeah so we are MH um in Partnership so to speak with but Jacobs has appe filed their own appeal right we can sit this one out let them file their own appeal why why do we need to be involved to this well I think it goes to the point that that council member Reese brought up um that you know the way that the development agreement has been interpreted by the court uh is is really um inhibitive of what development agreements can do so it would no longer be a tool so we did have you know the mayor and council member breus and and der did support Scenic Nevada in the past they did say that they don't want to have more Billboards so they've kind of set a precedent here for the City of Reno um Scenic Nevada um you know is is correct in in what they said in their letter to us that you know we should support um what what the people said and that they don't want more Billboards um if it's truly an area identifier that's different you know um if we wanted to have a a Midtown Banner that's different it is an area identifier but I don't think that we should be going to bat for a a private um company when they can you know file their own appeal okay um I think you're over about two minutes so I think what I'm hearing from you this isn't about the sign it's more for what councilman ree was saying that that could be problematic any way it's interpreted whether it's this project that project or another project is that correct that is correct that's why um I think that's what we're trying to okay so I'm glad that you distinguish the difference this isn't about oh it's a billboard sign oh it's this sign or you know councilman breus Council dur Council or mayor shivi supported uh Scenic Nevada this is about the the law aspect of it from from um your perspective correct okay all right I just wanted to decipher because to councilwoman Ebert's points you know um and then I would also say this it I don't care who identifies um the area BEC it was four businesses that started Midtown uh we we all had four businesses we weren't one uh the biggest business in Midtown and then started it um and had we have been then we would have come up all over the search so it doesn't really matter um about what business it is you have to have a business that starts at anyway whether it's a collective business or one business um so I just want to put that on the record all right Council W dur go ahead so I said I was gonna said I was going to come back to the third point about um deviate from code in the development um if you may recall call we were asked whether we wanted to appeal the Stan Lucas where they basically said we got it wrong and um I 100% did because the judge's order seemed to crimp our ability to make decisions on development and I I felt it strongly and this one what I hear the judge saying is that you can't use a development agreement to do something other than what's in code but what I do know is that we have a PUD and a PUD is called make make your own zoning you can if if if City street standard is 70 feet and you want to do a 60 foot one you can adopt that in coat you could also go wider so narrower would be less restrictive you could go wider you could um you usually set signage on puds say what it's going to look like often they will ask for something more than what our code does and we often say no but they often ask for other things that we do say yes on so in my mind a PUD is like a development agreement it's basically us all stipulating to do a certain thing a certain way and I feel like it this is where this one is very difficult for me because you know how you say the judge affirmed in part and denied in part well I want to affirm in part our role to appeal uh that we can do a development agreement and it can be different than code we we already adopted something that she didn't find fault with which was extending sewer credits and I'm not 100% sure if those are in code or that's just an operation thing do you happen to know um I believe that there is in in title 12 there is a provision for sewer credits but it's limited to five years yeah and and there's no extension right and so in the development agreement we extended it and she didn't find fault with that maybe that wasn't the subject of discussion so it was let go but I mean I want to be able to do those things state law contemplates us being able to do those things puds contemplate us being able to do those things so I think that part strikes at our Authority and ability to act and so if you can narrowly construe your appeal that is what I would support I would not support getting into a conversation about the sign whether they can can't what they look like what they say uh I would not support challenging whatsoever Scenic Nevada's uh standing I just I completely don't agree and if that's how you construe if I vote yes to appeal then we would go attack all these other issues then I would vote no but if you could agree and I to say that you understand what you've heard from both council member and REE and I to say what we're concerned about is our authority to do business under the law and to set a a different standard than is in our law and all that said I want to be really clear this agreement basically said they have to come back and get a permit we we did not Abate our City's role in approving or disapproving a certain sign correct okay so I'm supportive of that that's why we put it in and I was a proponent of development agreements and I went over this in extensively with Mr Thornley before I ever supported the development agreement in the first place and I was quoted in some articles and I said where would this area sign apply to and it was said only Jacob's buildings only Jacob's property ities and I mean if it was to say I mean to my colleague's point here that we now have a Harris District you know I'm using that example because we don't have a haris but if we conversely had a row District you know or started renaming streets the row Street or Harris Street or Cala Street or whatever I would I might have a problem with that I think I would so I tend to like um if we're going to have area identification signs I tend to like them to be generic uh Geographic based this is an area downtown Midtown whatever but I I do rebel against the idea of like I call this this is my place by putting up a neon line district and I think they've they further hurt their case by trademarking that I do because that does represent a certain business and I don't know that anyone on you know I don't know unless unless it was right there unless the bus is name yeah because that's what we were worried about in midt h right because that there isn't one business named that right right Midtown right there might be a Midtown Bar right Midtown eats exactly Midtown Hair Cuttery right so you would want to say you know Midtown district and you would want to protect it as much as possible we have seen um in Midtown many many times where um people have wanted to use that um or register it before we did right and I mean quite honestly like anyone can be registered but yet they're the front face right you know there's like even news out or whatever it might I don't know if you call it a news outlet but like you know if you look at peon it's Mr chesne but it's you know someone else is running it like candy candy green right so like when you say those things you know other people can be behind and and with the project um or in the district so that's where I think the difference is there isn't a business name the ne online business NE online um you know yeah so that's where I see it different right it identifies a place not a business and I'll go one step further Just DE right the concept of downtown de having deani downtown right that's what they're calling it I don't know if they're going to have an arch or a way finding sign theone but it and I hope they do right right people want to find it anyway but I get it now we get it now it's this is about and John maybe you just clarified this is about the law aspect of the ruling saying the the restrictive yeah I just just to bring the conversation back to the point what what the council's being asked today is whether or not um the city attorney's office has authorization to file a notice of appeal in this particular case we can always come back in a Clos session and get specific Direction about any one of these issues in terms of briefing or there thereabouts I but I it's really not a discussion today about like who owns the sign or whatever I mean that's kind of that's maybe interesting on a certain level but that's not really what you're being asked today so if we can just bring it back to a yay or nay I'd appreciate it so I'll just but I wanted to caveat like everything everything has conditions everything has but whereas if then I'm telling you where I'm at the issue I want to appeal yeah is that one um and then finally just on the issue of signs generically um you know I I would like to see a program where we actually establish these signs and the city does them if they're official City districts they should be putting up a Midtown sign I me we not a they but we totally it's official thing so I think yet to be determined so I agree with that so that there's standards there's guidelines everyone knows what they are they're not uh promoting one particular business so with that I'm happy to make a motion um I would like go ahead councilman Martinez thank you so much and I just want to preface by saying that I'm not a lawyer but I do think that the council has done a good job of hearing our constituents you know and making sure that we are giving some direction to our attorney's office and limiting you know some of the things that we seek to appeal in this process and making sure that you all know that really the concern is with the third part that came out of of the court in the conclusion um and really from what I read in NRS 27821 um which doesn't coincide um with the conclusion that was given by judge steinheimer but I just want to put that on the record and kind of mention why um I would be supporting in uh or supportive of staff's recommendation on this item thank you okay thank you so much uh councilwoman Taylor go ahead did you have a question oh I'll second oh okay did you make the motion sorry no I'm going I'll make the so I motion to approve staff recommendation second I have a motion in a second all those in favor say I I all those opposed opposed motion carries all right thank you so much good job okay next and with that we are moving to item H1 mayor and Council comments any comments from Council Members none all right go ahead a Qui comment Martinez thank you so much I do want to appreciate uh director ulot for spending some time with me the last couple of days we are uh looking forward to bringing some recommendations for our youth city council and bringing that Council back online and so look forward to an agenda item in the near future about that so we can get that youth city council back up and running thank you so much all right thank you so much that is exciting good job okay anything else no I'm going to send it back to you Mr clerk okay that brings us to our final public comment period uh we have no one in the room registered to speak uh for the record we did receive five comments General nature or not directly associated with an agenda item after 4M on October 24th these comments were voicemails and or written correspondents received via reno.gov online public comment form or by email to our office and copies of these comments have been distributed to the Reno city council and are available to the public on the reno.gov meeting portal they represented two in favor one in opposition and two concerned and that is the close of our closing public comment period and looking for a motion to adjourn all right a motion to adjourn I have a motion second all those in favor say iose motion carries unanimously there you go all right thanks every what else