City Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

All right. This is the City of Reno Planning Commission. This is the meeting for Thursday, May 7th, 2026. The time is 6 pm. We will begin with the pledge of allegiance. Uh Mr. United States of America and to the republic for which it stands.

Uh A2 roll call. Madame clerk David Jockman here. Jacob Williams here. Christina Delviar is absent. Uh, Commissioner Manny Visera is also absent. Tina Gumpiani here. Carrie Roier here. Alex Velto here. We have a quorum of the Reno City Planning Commission. And item A3, public comment.

It should be noted for those in the audience that comments are to be addressed to the planning commission as a whole. Comments heard under this item will be limited to three minutes per person and may pertain to matters both on and off the planning commission agenda. Please note that the planning commission may not take action upon any matter not agendaized for possible action on today's agenda. When you are called on for public comment, please state your name for the record and begin speaking. The timer will begin when you say your name and you will be afforded three minutes. If you are an attendee in the Zoom meeting and would like to make public comment at this time, please raise your hand. Lastly, while in this room, please be respectful. Warnings will be issued by the presiding officer. If there is disruptive behavior and you'll be asked to leave chambers if the behavior continues. We did receive correspondents that were general in nature and not specific to any items on this agenda. These were forwarded to the planning commission and have been entered into the record. Uh with that chair, I do not have any requests to speak forms for opening general public comment. Okay, that moves us to item A4, approval of the agenda for tonight's meeting, May 7th, 2026. We will take the items in order. Can I get a motion to approve?

Move to move to approve. Second. Second. Second from Velto. All in favor say I. I I I. Meet uh agenda approved. Item A5, approval of the minutes. This is from our 15th April 2026 meeting. Can I get a motion to approve those minutes? Move to approve. Second. Motion and a second. All in favor say I. I. I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. We will move to item B, staff announcements. Mr. Elliott.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a couple quick announcements. Um, next Thursday, May 14th, council will be holding a special meeting to discuss data centers, including a potential moratorum and/or direction to staff for a code amendment. Also, uh, Commissioner Roire has tendered her resignation effective May 30th. We would definitely like to extend our our gratitude for her three years of service. Um, council is expected to appoint a new commissioner on May 20th that will join the commission on June 4th. That's it.

Thank you. That moves us to item C1. This is a staff report for possible action. Case number LDC26-000066. This is 2295 Putnham perimeter fence. We will start with a presentation from staff. Mr. Foster.

Good evening members of the planning commission. Jeff Foster, associate planner for the record. The case I'm bringing you tonight is LDC 26-66 and that is for the 2295 Putnham perimeter fence. The project site is about.19 acres in size located at the northeast corner of Putnham Drive and Peine Road which is west of Keystone Avenue. Uh it is built uh developed with a single family home and the request before you is a major deviation to increase the allowable front yard fences from 4 feet to 6 feet which is of course a 50% increase. As you can see the site is surrounded by single family homes in all directions and the key issues that staff analyzed are compatibility with surrounding land uses as well as public safety. On the screen are the master plan land use single family neighborhood along with three policies uh from the master plan that are in support of the proposed request and also the zoning which is single family 8 units per acre. Some background uh the single family home was built in 1965. The applicants purchased it about 5 years ago, and in the fall of last year, they replaced an old 4-ft chain link fence, which you can see in the photo on the left, along both front property lines with a 6-ft wood fence without having obtained approval. And they have now submitted a building permit uh request to bring this fence into compliance. Um, per code, a fence not to exceed six feet may be built on front yards not providing primary access with a minimum 5-ft setback from the sidewalk or planned sidewalk. In this case, for the secondary front yard on Peine Road, the applicants could rebuild a 6-ft fence 5t from the sidewalk without approval of a major deviation. However, since the sidewalk is approximately 4 feet above the foundation of the house, without building a retaining wall, the area

between the sidewalk and the fence would slope down approximately 18 to 24 in to the fence. And you can see that slope in the photo to the left. And this would create a potential safety concern as well as other issues. Turning to compatibility with surrounding land uses, while most of the homes in the area do not have front yard fences or fences taller than four feet, the request is not unprecedented. There are several nearby examples of front yard fences and walls taller than 4 feet. On the screen is an aerial showing the locations of these nearby homes, at least one of which has a formal approval from the city. The subject property is indicated by an orange marker and blue box. And the yellow markers indicate these nearby homes with six-foot front yard fences. Here's a sampling of those sixoot front yard fences from the previous screen, and there are others that are available in exhibit E in the staff report. Continuing with compatibility with surrounding land uses, uh it's worth noting that the applicant had already installed lighting along the fence, which as you can see in the photo on the left, does help with sidewalk visibility at night. And also, several neighbors, six in fact, have provided letters in support, and those are indicated by the blue markers on the image to the left. Regarding public safety, the fence does not obstruct vehicle sight distance per city sight distance standards. However, it was determined that the existing on street parking area adjacent to the site obstructs vehicle sight distance and public works recommended a red no parking curb be painted from the driveway to the intersection. Since this sight distance obstruction is not related to the fence, a service request was initiated for the city to paint the curb red and to maintain that and in fact this has already uh been done. The

engineering analysis also checked vehicle crash history and found only one crash in the last 5 years which occurred on Putinham Drive and was due to a driver failing to maintain their lane and striking a parked vehicle and had nothing to do with the fence. Um staff though did discover uh upon inspection that the fence panels adjacent to both sides of the driveway near the sidewalk create a potential safety concern due to poor visibility between uh vehicles exiting the driveway and pedestrians crossing along the sidewalk. Staff therefore recommended two conditions of approval which are on the screen. Conditions five and six. Specifically, condition five recommends that the southernmost fence panel located adjacent to the eastern side of the driveway be lowered to 3 and 1/2 ft, which is driver's eye height, or be removed. And condition six has a similar recommendation, or a mirror could be mounted in a location that provides sidewalk pedestrian visibility for drivers to see the sidewalk when exiting the driveway. Um, it should be noted that the applicants proactively implemented both of those conditions of approval already. Um you can see the photos on the right hand side there. Um and engineering staff did visit the site post uh those improvements and has concurred that they um do meet the intent of the conditions of approval. Um it should should be noted that no concerns were received from RPD or Reno Fire. And while not directly related to the fence, it is also worth noting that after the applicants contacted Reno Direct a few times, the city placed 25 mile per hour speed limit signs on Putinham Drive near their home. And in fact, I think the applicants will speak to that later. Um, Putnham is a primary emergency vehicle route, but since the fence does not interfere with the southbound vehicles turning left from Peine Road onto Putinham, as previously noted, it has no impact on emergency

vehicles. Here are the recommended findings for a major deviation. Staff can make all recommended findings. And here's the recommended motion. And I'm available for questions. And the applicant would like to speak at this point. Please state your name for the record.

Jean Johnson, 2295 Putham Drive. Um, I think that Jeff did a pretty good job covering u most of it. I think the primary reason we put this fence up, it's really a busy corner. Really busy. It's one of the two ways to get into a neighborhood. And people were driving so fast around this corner. Our fence had been hit. We our um corner planter area had been hit just from people going very quickly and also very noisily. Um, and another thing in that corner planner, we had a couple of incidents where people were resting there and fighting and wouldn't remove themselves from the area. And we're older people and I just didn't feel secure in my home and felt like we needed I know it's kind of the sort of thing that keeps honest people honest. when you put up a fence, it isn't um necessarily going to do that, but we hope so. That was um our hope on that thing. So there it's really really busy busy with pedestrians and I understand that and I understand about school children too because I was a school teacher for 43 years before I retired. So that safety is significant to me. I understand about kids coming by. But I also understand with that low fence, we had trash tossed over there, bags of dog poop tossed over there, just people coming by, I think around the corner. Oh, let me get rid of my empties here before, you know, just tossed over. That hasn't happened since the fence has been there. And that is a nice thing for us, of course. Um, I don't think I'm going to go through every little thing that I have here because, um, I did have a lot of a lot of reasons why, but I I would like to

put in a couple of, um, most important reasons. Paul Ellison from Traffic Engineering came out and um he walked through this whole process with me and he showed me referred me specifically to the driver's handbook page 29 and it says that you must come to a full stop at a stop sign and then I'll read it to you. If the view of the street is blocked, slowly move forward to determine if it's safe to proceed. and he put a pink dot on the road to show how far that would be, which would be approximately like a parking lanes distance out. And we all drive everywhere. Everybody makes left-hand turns all over this town. You know, you have to do this to be safe. There's very few places where you can just, you know, whip around a corner without stopping. Well, it's against the law for one. But you know, if you bought like a blue Honda Accord, you know how you see blue Honda cords everywhere? Because of this, this fence raised my consciousness. I started looking and seeing sighteline problems like almost everywhere. They're not called out, but it requires us to be safe, to slow down and pay attention. And that's the important part of this thing, I think. Um, okay, back to the driver's handbook. It said if no signs or markings exist, slow down, stop um if necessary at the point near C intersection where there's a view of approaching traffic on the through roadway. Give right away to pedestrians and any cross traffic before moving forward. That's just common sense, right? You know, this is what we need to do. So, um I had a couple addendum items on the day when um let me get his name right. Ellison. Paul Ellison was out there. We have a neighbor um Mike Piltchure who was uh he's a retired

battalion chief in Reno and he said he'd been observing the traffic pattern at that corner for many years. He I think he may have grown up there, don't get me wrong, but he has owned that home there for a very long time. He said um after the fence was erected, he saw that people were slowing down appropriately coming around that corner, not flying around that corner and also making a full stop because they have to now before a few people it was just a rolling stop and straight out into the traffic. So I did want to point that out. So he he saw it as a good thing, as something that got people driving appropriately for the area. I have a lot more things, but I don't want to waste um your your planning commission time. I think you get the good idea of what's going on here.

Thank you. We will now move to Did you have anything else you wanted to say? Okay. No, it's fine. Okay. Okay, we'll now move to disclosures from the commission and then we will go to public comment. Uh, Commissioner Velto. Commissioner Velto, uh, I own a rental property probably a mile by street, couple thousand feet as the crow flies. Uh, my ownership of that property property does not affect my decision and it wouldn't affect a reasonable person's ability to make a decision uh, in this in this matter. I'm also familiar with the area. Thank you, Commissioner Gient. No disclosures.

Uh, Commissioner Jockman, I spoke with uh, Mr. Bradshaw who lives three apartments, I'm sorry, three lots down from the site and I drove by the site. Commissioner Williams written reviewed materials and I also drove by the site this afternoon. Commissioner Roma, no disclosures. We will now close disclosures and move to public comment. Madame clerk, we did receive correspondence for this item. Uh, these were forwarded to the planning commission and have been entered into the record, but I don't have any request to speak forms in person and we don't have anyone on Zoom with their hand raised for this item. Do we have any request to speak in chambers? Yes, please uh step forward.

Sorry to be late. I think you're talking about the corner of Please state your name for the record. You John, you can do it at the podium, sir. Never done this before. Please state your name for the record and you'll have three minutes.

Johnrandle. I live in that neighborhood. I grew up there. Actually, Mike Piltchure never lived there. His kids lived in that house. It's a rental property of his and I drive through that intersection numerous times per day. And the fence does create a visibility hazard. It's a beautiful fence. Um but and that street used that used to be Keystone, but they changed it. Now it's Putinham. And um people do drive fast and people do cut corners. Um, that one's that doesn't seem like that's a super busy corner for that. But I believe that it does hinder the visibility, especially when you're going south looking to the east. And when you're coming west and you make the turn now, you're staying in the same lane. You're not crossing, but so you don't really, but it's still blocked visibility. And I live I live close to there. I know two other neighbors that put requests in for fences that are corner lot were denied. They asked for permission first and they went by the ordinance. So, I don't think that's fair. Um, I just want to go on record as as uh just stating that. And like I said, I' I've grew up in that neighborhood and moved back in probably 25 years ago. That's it. Thank you.

Thank you. Do we have any requests to speak in chambers at this time? Seeing none. And madam clerk, you said there is nothing online. Is that correct? Uh, no one online. Correct. Okay. We will close public comment and move to questions from the commission.

Um, I think this might be for staff. I have a question for you. Uh, you put up a picture of the mirror that the mirror that's there that this one. There we go. Um, is there a mirror on the So, is there a mirror on the other side? So, there are now mirrors on both sides of the driveway. Gotcha.

So, the the condition five um was to remove the southernmost fence panel down to driver's eye height. They actually did that which you can see the kind of the panel with the metal railing across the top and they inst uh implemented a mirror there. And then on the other side, uh, which would be the western side of the driveway, which is condition number six, rather than reduce the fence height, um, like they did on the eastern side, they they chose to just put the mirror, which again was part of the conditions of approval.

What about off coming off Peine down to Putinham? Because it seems to be the concern is that you're driving down Peine and maybe some visibility is blocked. Is there any way to address that visibility through a mirror or something like that?

Great question. Um, so I think so the upper left corner, it's not the greatest photo in terms of of conveying um the kind of the sight distance uh that uh has been brought up but or or the visibility triangle. But when you're coming down uh on Peine heading south and making that left, you can see that before with the 4ft chain link fence, anyone looking to the east or looking left could just kind of look across the corner, right? And you know, uh and see any traffic heading westbound on Putinham. With the fence, they obviously can't do that now. There's now a six foot solid fence that's blocking their site. However, um you can see the the fence um see the landscaping area with the tree in the left hand corner of the where the chain link fence is that landscape area is still there. So the fence doesn't come to a a you know a 90° angle which would uh also help to or uh would also obstruct vision. There's actually kind of a a cut off there that that helps you to see uh left but okay to answer your question directly there a mirror may help but the engineering staff and the engineering manager Doug Buck is here and can speak to this if you would like. um their engineering staff or public works staff went out did took all the measurements and determined that uh when you use proper technique you can uh come to a stop, move forward slowly, look to the left and look at any oncoming traffic and make your turning movement as you're supposed to. Um, so, so a mirror, I'm not sure that a mirror would do anything that can't already be accomplished with proper technique, if you will.

So, I'm I'm glad you you said that last part. I want to kind of ask you is in terms of just general planning, should we be considering the potential negligence of drivers or should we be assuming that the drivers are just going to follow the rules and approach it safely? Like, would that ever be a reason in your mind for planning to not put a higher fence up because we think drivers are going to drive irrationally.

That's a great question. Um, I'm not sure I'm not sure that that there's a great answer to that. Um, I mean, kind of worst case scenario kind of planning, I guess, lowest common denominator kind of planning. Um, I'm not sure that that's a great way to plan. Um, I mean, we have rules and regulations and standards for a reason. Uh and this is a case where you know there is a rule and a regulation and a and a standard um that uh that is in effect. And now with the red curb having been painted uh you know which removes a vehicle that would be parked directly in front of the upper leftand picture and I myself actually went out there commissionerto with uh our engineer who was assigned to the case and there that was prior to the red curb having been painted and there was a vehicle parked right there and it did actually cause more of an issue

but it wasn't the fence. the fence was not the issue. We came to the stop sign and looking to the left to eastbound. Um it was the vehicle that was parked right there that caused the issue where we had to kind of really kind of creep out there. But after that curb has been painted red, there's that condition no longer exists. So, I would submit that between the fence design, the location of it in terms of where it where it sits, and with the uh you know, the red curb that there are uh no issues with sight visibility triangles. um if people aren't driving the way they're supposed to or they're used to kind of, you know, looking across a 4ft chain link fence and just being able to kind of use it as a curve as opposed to a turn, you know, maybe that's an issue, but that's not what's intended, right? It is a stop controlled intersection there.

Yeah. Thank you, Jeeoff. I appreciate it. Uh, Commissioner Jockman. So, I'll just layer onto that just for confirmation about the sight distance for that uh approach to the intersection. This with the fence, it was confirmed that it meets all sight distance requirements for those approaching vehicles. Is that correct? That's correct. Both public works and engineering staff confirmed that in person. Perfect. Okay. Thank you. Y Commissioner Williams, I got one for you.

Sure. I driving around I I saw the examples that were used as far as the fences go in the neighborhood. Um, one thing stood out to me that was different from what we're looking at tonight and those fences that we used as an example. None of them cover the front doors. And so while they abut a street, right, and they look like they're covering a yard, they're not in they're not enclosing the front yard, per se. They all typically stop right at the thresholds of the corners, you know, that are parallel with the front door where this is dramatically different. This truly encapsulates the front of the house. Correct.

You are correct. Okay. Yeah. May I comment on that? Um, so absolutely you are com correct

Commissioner Williams. The what I would point out is that though none of the examples that are in exhibit E, um, are exact corlaries of the subject request. They are 6-foot front yard fences which are regulated in code and yet they exist. So, and I was not able to determine whether or not they were permitted or there was at least one that was permitted. Um, but the other five, it's unknown how they came to exist. Um, so maybe they just were never flagged for, you know, by code enforcement or maybe there's a permit that I just couldn't find. Um, so they are examples of six foot front yard fences that are currently regulated by code. um though only for the secondary front yard. It's not the primary front yard that covers that front door to your point.

Okay. So, I guess that's kind of where like when I think about a front yard fence, I think the fences that I looked at that we're using for examples are people whose property is facing a a roadway, right? Like they're just have those properties that abut a roadway and their backyard is here and their front yard's here and the roadway is in front of it. So I I guess the definition of a front yard fence is is difficult for me to understand in this correlation because like some people their backyard abuts that same roadway that the fence would have to cover. But if you drive around the neighborhood, you'll see other examples of where their backyard abuts the roadway. It goes all the way down the side of the house and then there's a hard transition from a sixoot privacy fence to a 4ft chain link which is consistent with the neighborhood.

Right. Like so when I just think on just basic terms about a front yard fence the privacy is draws a line for the backyard and then when it pressed that threshold it change it changes into and I think that's when I drive down seventh today when I was in that area historically that neighborhood is filled with these 4 foot chain link fences. I mean it was definitely a thing when that was being built right.

Yeah. Yeah. You're definitely not wrong. Um just uh for the the broader discussion here um while in fact all of these examples right here are the six-foot fence is on what one might consider your sideyard right because it's not the front of your house it's to the side of your house in the code any frontage along a street is considered to be a front yard.

Interesting. Okay. Um, and in fact it it acts as a front yard for setbacks, not just fence heights, setbacks and other things. You can't have an accessory structure in your front yard. So you couldn't put an accessory structure in those areas, you know, things like that. So there are um other things that come into play. So yeah, it's not a traditional front yard, but it is a front yard from the code's perspective.

Okay. Mind if I ask one more question? um if this became a trend, if this approval um enabled other homeowners to go do the same thing and we had we found ourselves in a community that had all of this replicated multiple times, at what point do we uh what point do we understand that while this maybe doesn't affect traffic, seems like it does to me um because people are altering the way they drive, Um, where would a planning commissioner say, "We have we have way too many frontage, six foot fences on all these roads that you can't see anywhere." You know, you can't see that there, you can't see at the next intersection, you can't see at the next intersection. Where would we start to realize that there's too many six foot fences alongside the roadway? I guess is kind of what I'm asking. And I know that's kind of a stretch of a question, but these types of permissions, right, they there's people that have been denied. They're going to come out and say, "Look, I want to do the same thing." And so where as a planning commissioner am I supposed to say, "Okay, one one affected this, but the one across the street is going to affect it twofold, and the one on the caddy corner is going to affect it there and again." So, I don't know. That's I'm I'm having a hard time if this catches on, becomes an approval. Yeah, we we have a planner um on staff who says who who doesn't like fences at all. Fences period, front, back, side, doesn't matter. You know, there's in in planning there's some thought that fences don't make good neighbors, even though you hear fences make good neighbors, right? Yeah. Um so um that's a that's a difficult question and I think we should evaluate each we you us should evaluate each case on its own merits

and it's my opinion um that in this case this fence well yes they got the cart before the horse they should have you know come in for a building permit and then we would have told them at the building permit review that you know that they have to get a major deviation to do what they want to do and then they would have come before you and you know done it the correct way. um that you know we should evaluate each case on its own merits. And again, it's my opinion that in this case, given the design of the fence um in terms of where it's located, how it cuts off that corn, how it does not cut off the corner, how the corner is still, you know, just the landscaping that it was. Um and with the um uh you know expertise afforded by public works and engineering staff having visited the site and done the exact turning movement you know that everyone who goes through that intersection needs to do that it meets the intent of or not it meets the the code requirement for visibility um and therefore does not cause an issue that we have heartburn over that we did have heartburn about the backing out of the driveway Okay. And we applied or recommending that we apply conditions of approval that have already been implemented that seem to work. So um you know that's yeah I don't know Mike did you have any other thoughts?

Thanks Jeeoff. The only thing that I would add is if you look in these kind of more established neighborhoods there's a lot of non-conformities but extend well beyond fences in terms of setbacks. And you know if just looking at those pictures for example the upper left there's there's numerous non-conformity. I'm not going to point them out specifically, but um in those established neighborhoods. So, it is more of a little case by case basis because it's not, you know, in our newer subdivisions where it's more of a uniform design. Yeah. Any other questions from the commission or we can move to deliberation.

Okay, deliberation. Commissioner Belto, um I think the fence just looks really good. Uh, and that's where I'm I'm struggling with. There's I I've we've had fence cases before where we've had to figure out, you know, what made sense. Um, I appreciate that Jeff referenced, you know, the Robert Frost quote because I probably would have said something like that while we were talking. Uh I at the same time I feel like a lot of these cases when people come in they've already done the action we look at it differently than if someone were to come in and ask for it a new and I don't know how that's shaping my opinion on this but I this is a a tough one because it seems like the city has taken steps to try to address some of the concerns but I I hear what you're saying Commissioner Williams and I open to being persuaded from your perspective perspective.

Commissioner Williams,

I I'll pick you back. Um I would just say a couple interesting things that were said. Um the homeowner in particular addressed that a lot of these issues that this fence fixes were crashes into the fence noise and speed right that made her feel it's like so in one aspect we're talking about a roadway that obviously has some sort of issues. I think the idea from my time in in the policing world like and David you can you can correct me if I'm wrong. We don't we don't build and design things on public roadways with the intent that everybody's going to do 35 miles an hour and follow all the rules, right? We design things so that they um they have some sort of threshold. And so to hear that this property because of the fence they're slowing down, that's great. But that means that people get nervous, right? because they can't see beyond the fence. That that's the correlation that I'm struggling with. It's like, so that fence is causing people to hesitate, which means they can't see what they normally would be able to see or what they feel comfortable in. And maybe they are speeding and that's the result. Um, it it's a hard one for me to put all that that together because I I just see it affecting things that we if it would have gone through the entire process, it we probably would have said no. I mean, a corner lot at a T intersection where there's known speed, known traffic issues, residents complain about it. Uh, it's not within the characteristic of the neighborhood. I mean, it is very The fence is beautiful. I would I would love to replicate it. I will agree with you that. I mean, I think it's design-wise it's very well done. I just I think this I think you're right. If it came before us, we would have probably had a a lot longer pause

about how to help them accomplish what they wanted to and how we could do it so that we weren't making big adjustments. Can I ask you a question? Do you mind, Chair? Commissioner Valto,

so um why isn't this like a visual speed bump? Like we have speed bumps that create some sort of nuisance as we're driving. I'm gonna talk like I'm a traffic engineer here. So, Commissioner Geograph feel free to correct me, but it like this is a visual some something visual that causes a driver to check themselves as they're driving on the road. Why isn't this the equivalent to some sort of like visual speed bump that forces people to be a little more attuned to what they're doing? If I'm thinking about this wrong, correct me. Tell me just a thought. I think it would be more to what's in the public right of way to you're you're getting at something called traffic calming and narrowing the width of the roadway to ultimately slow people down. I'm not convinced that a fence is going to do that in this location. It's just too far from the travel lane, but I I see what you're getting at. So, I'm I'm not sold on the fact that I think this is going to be a traffic calming measure. I guess what I'll say here, um this is Commissioner Jockman. I don't think I said that. But the findings that are before us in this major deviation, the first one, it will not significantly impact nearby property. Staff has clearly shown us that we have letters of support from all of the nearby properties that would be viewing what is the result of this application before us. So in my head, that is something that is hard to not find that finding. uh project changes enabled by the major deviation enhance the overall design of the project. I think that one's also pretty easy to make. I'll skip to the fourth one. It will not be material detr materially detrimental to the public health, safety or welfare. When I asked the question about sight distance, that answer allowed me to make that finding. Uh the third one is that it does not constitute a special privilege inconsistent with the limitations upon other properties in the vicinity and so forth.

And um you know this is the one where we have okay we have fences in a number of other locations. Uh that is pretty consistent with privileges that have been granted for other properties in the vicinity. I don't see a strong enough case to not make any of those findings particularly for what's under major deviation. Just sharing that in deliberation. Thank you. Do we have any other uh comments uh during deliberation here? Commissioner Williams, I guess when you talk about three, a a special privilege would be to me would be doing something first and then getting permission second when other people that go through the process may or may not have gotten denied. So I guess I guess three is my hangup. I mean I could I think I could argue that the impact and overall design, but I would argue that that's a little bit speculative because they could have also undertaken this application after having built the fence and received a recommendation of denial from staff. So, um I'm not I'm not totally there on that one. Commissioner Valto,

just to add on to that, they could also presumably do first and ask for forgiveness later the same way this applicant has. Not that they should should follow the rules, but um so I I'm comfortable making a motion unless we have more discussion. Uh please proceed. Uh the matter of case number LDC26-000066 based upon compliance to the applicable findings. I move to approve the major deviation subject to the conditions listed in the staff report and I can make the findings. Commissioner Gianini I second. We have a motion and a second. All in favor say I. I. I. I. I can't get there.

Any opposed? So I'm no.

Please state which finding you are unable to make for the record. one major deviation number one and major deviation two and three. The motion carries 41. That concludes item C1. We will now move on to item C2 tonight. Item C2 is a staff report for possible action. This is a recommendation to city council. Case number TXT26-00002. This is live entertainment temporary exception. We will for this item we will hear a presentation from Miss Fouse. And yes, don't feel obligated to stay here for the rest of this meeting. Miss Fouse, please proceed.

Good evening.

All right. For the record, Angela Fouse, assistant director with development services. The item before you tonight is tied to live entertainment. And if you've been following our city council agendas for the past couple years, this is not a new topic. Um, we kind of have two two sides to this this topic. One is business owners, business operators. We get a lot of complaints saying, "Why is it so hard to do live entertainment in an entertainment core such as downtown Reno? Why do we have to go through a conditional use permit? It costs, you know, $5,000, takes three months, there's uncertainty." So, we've gotten a lot of complaints, our council has is why why are we being so difficult rather than being a pro business community? On the other side of that is the residents in our downtown and Midtown area who say, "I moved to downtown Reno, knowing full well it was a 24-hour community, but it's the excessive noise." And it's noise from the bars, the EDM music. It's also cars and motorcycles and drunk people at three in the morning laughing and eating hot dogs from the hot dog vendor. Right? So, it's a number of things. It's not just one thing. It's just when you live in downtown Reno, this is what downtown Reno is. But the biggest complaint we're getting is the excessive noise. So, we talked to council uh in March and we said just here's an update on kind of where we're at on this topic. We had done a community survey and gotten some feedback and council said, "Okay, well, we're not quite ready to make any changes that are permanent. Um, we understand noise is an issue, so we're not ready to implement a noise ordinance just yet. We're also not ready to just throw out conditional use permits on a permanent basis. So staff, we want you to come back with a pilot program. They'd seen this in Miami Beach where it was something that was businessfriendly, but it was temporary to kind of try it out. So their specific direction was put

together a pilot program and think about how we can still protect residents and so we can try it out and see if it works. Now, just as a reminder, when we talk about live entertainment, it's anything related to uh bands or singing. If you go to a restaurant and they're strumming a guitar, that's live entertainment. If you go to a nightclub and there's dancing, that's live entertainment. If you go to a nightclub and maybe there's no dancing, but there's a live DJ, that's live entertainment. So, all of those things is what we're dealing with. The rules today, anything indoors, and this is citywide, this is not just downtown, but citywide. Any kind of live entertainment after 11 o'clock at night requires a conditional use permit. Doesn't matter if you're downtown Reno, Midtown, suburb, suburban Reno, everything is after 11 o'clock at night requires that conditional use permit. If it's outside, so maybe you have a a restaurant with a patio, you can have outdoor live entertainment until 10:00 at night. Anything past that is that conditional use permit. Now, within our downtown core, we do have quite a few special events or special activities. Those are separate. Those are kind of um individual standalone. We permit those completely different. We don't require a conditional use permit for just those one-off events. That's a separate permitting process. Some of the other things that we currently require in our code is if you do indoor live entertainment, we have limits on when you have to close your doors and your windows. In the summertime, a lot of these bars want to have their windows open, but come 10 o'clock at night, we require that you shut your doors and your windows. We also currently require that you have a queuing plan. So if you're a business that say is more of a a bar where you're going to have people lined up to get in, you have to have a plan for how you're going to do security and crowd control for people standing in line outside. And then any kind of outdoor live entertainment citywide that's within 150 ft of residentially zoned property does

require a conditional use permit. So those are the rules today. So again, why we're here is we're going to be talking about this pilot program. It does require a text amendment because we have to update our zoning code. The intent here is to look at how can we help these small businesses open up and operate with live entertainment faster. Um again, less less less less red tape to get through. Um but also put in some guardrails to make sure that we're addressing the the people that live downtown, the concerns we're hearing from them. So, specific to this text amendment, um this will allow us to allow live entertainment after 11 o'clock at night without a conditional use permit. So, you would no longer have to go through that conditional use permit. Now, this is only for 18 months. And why why we picked 18 months? We said, well, typically, you know, if we if we said go today, businesses aren't like lined up and ready to move to Reno tomorrow. So, this gives them time to say, "Okay, maybe I was already planning to open a bar in downtown Reno, and this is a great mechanism for me to be able to have live entertainment faster." Um, so again, just doing it for six months isn't going to do any good, but this gives us two good summers. And again, we see tend to see more live entertainment in the summertime. So, we wanted to kind of try it out and test it. Um, not just do it for one month and say, "Oh, it's winter and now we don't have any more live entertainment to worry about." So, that's not much of a test. Um, specifically this is only for indoor live entertainment. So if you want to have outdoor live entertainment, the same rules apply. You still have to go through that conditional use permit. This only impacts anyone with an indoor live entertainment. And we still require a cabaret license. That's not tied to zoning. You guys don't see cabaret licenses. That's something that goes through city council and it's something that we do through our business license department. That still stays with this. We all are also requiring a security plan. This is something that we have been implementing for the past probably year and a half. Um when a conditional use permit comes in, we say

before you come in for your cabaret license, give us a security plan. So this plan is not something that planning commission gets to look at. This is something that only staff gets to look at. And why is that? Because we work with our police department and our code enforcement department, our planning department. We say, "What are the issues that you guys see?" Um the police department in particular has a huge role in reviewing these security plans. Again, not something you guys as planning commission need to review. We haven't asked you to review them in the past, but it is something as part of this this pilot program that we will still maintain. We'll still we'll still keep doing that. We're also putting in some some kind of some hard stop gaps. If we have challenges and problems that you're not following your security plan, we are putting you on notice. we reserve the right to pull back your cabaret license. Now, we we've done that more recently on on one bar in downtown Reno, and we had constant problems. Um there was sex trafficking, drug trafficking, a lot of weapons, a lot of fights, underage serving, over sererving, constant problems. Um we we did make them go through a security plan. They didn't follow their security plan. We gave them multiple tries, multiple attempts to be better, and they were not. So, uh, we we revoked their cabaret license and then they're no longer in business. So, we're just as part of this pilot program, we're acknowledging when we have bad operators, we're telling them upfront, this is a pilot program. It's 18 months. If you don't operate within the security plans that we agreed to and you wrote for us, we reserve the right to pull it back. The other thing that's unique is we're only doing this in our downtown core, Midtown CPS. Now, these are areas that you can already operate a business 24 hours a day. The rest of the city of Reno, if you want to have any business, I don't care if it's Starbucks or a bar, anything after 11:00 at night requires a

conditional use permit. So, these areas, these entertainment areas today, you can operate a business 24 hours a day by right. So, you can have a bar and you can have music playing today. That's okay. But once you add that live entertainment piece, today we require that conditional use permit. And so I know we had this discussion on the oneup um conditional use permit where I think it was Commissioner Velto that said, "Well, that seems a little crazy. So you can have a bar at 6:00 a.m. with music." Yes. Yes, you can. But once you start dancing, that that's when we say no. That's correct. I know it seems silly. Um, so that's how we kind of came to the idea of let's just try this in the entertainment core because you can already operate 24 hours a day. That's nothing new. So the question then of well, what about existing residents? And again, the complaints we're hearing from them is excessive noise and lack of enforcement. What are we doing to protect them? From a noise perspective, we do not have a noise ordinance for downtown Reno. And that's something that is up to council if they choose to enact that. At this point, they have not chosen to enact a noise ordinance. So, this doesn't change that. Again, this is only for live entertainment indoors, not outdoors. And this is only for areas that already operate 24 hours a day. So, that doesn't change. Now, the the the big difference here in my mind is that we will be working on the bad operators. And this is any new business. If you're an existing business, this doesn't impact you at all. So any existing business that already has live entertainment, this doesn't impact them. This is only for any new business. And the idea is that again, we get in front of it as they come in. If they're not operating the way that their security plan says, we pull their their cabaret license and they go away. How does this impact existing businesses? Again, if you already are legally operating with live entertainment, we're we're not touching anything you're doing. You don't have a

security plan today because we didn't require it. Not touching that. So you can continue doing what you're doing. Um it's the new businesses that are coming in again that this is this pilot program impacts. Next steps then we did hold uh we held two virtual community meetings last week and uh there were very limited attendance. We had I think a total of 11 people between our two community meetings both people living in the downtown area and business owners operating. Um, and so again, kind of that that mixed feedback of some really support it because they want to be pro business, others aren't happy because they're still concerned about, well, what are we doing about the excessive noise? This does not address excessive noise. That's a separate topic that at this point, again, council council has not given us direction to create a noise ordinance. Um, but we do feel but because we put in these these guardrails, making sure it's only indoor live entertainment, making sure that we have that security plan and making sure that we have the ability to pull that back if you're not operating in a good way. We feel that this will be much more effective. Kind of next steps then if council decides to approve this text amendment is we'll spend the next 18 months and just track, you know, and then we may only get one business that comes in in that 18 months. So, it'll be very easy to track. Now, we may get 10 businesses that come in. So, we're going to rely on the neighbors. You know, if we start getting complaints, whether it's through calls to 911 or our calls to Reno Direct, we're going to go out there and say, "Are they being good operators or bad operators?" When we have, you know, consistent fights. When we have people lined up outside to get into your establishment at 3:00 a.m. and you're being loud and obnoxious, we have people puking and drunk people and fighting. That's not good. We are going to come after you. We're not going to immediately pull it from you your revoke your license. We're going to say this isn't working. We need you to go back and try again and we're going to work with those businesses again trying to be business friendly. Um but let's let's

see how this goes. So while I wish I could say that we had a metrics because that's one of the complaints we've gotten is well I need to know how this is going to be a success or a failure. It's a pilot program. To me if we only get good operators does that mean the pilot program is a success? Not necessarily. Just means we were lucky and we had good good operators. If we get one bad operator, would we call this program a a failure? No. Let's look at how we addressed it. If they are a bad operator, if we're able to work with them and say, "You're not operating the way we need you to operate and they change the way they operate," I would call that a success. So, in my mind, again, the whole point of a pilot program is to try it, see what works, see what doesn't work. And when we report back to council, the idea is to say maybe this was a really good idea and maybe we don't need that conditional use permit process anymore because we have all these other steps in place. That would be one win. If we go back and we say this was a complete failure and people took complete advantage of us, we'd say, okay, let's go back and maybe put in some different kind of regulations. Right? So, um, in my mind, this is something that we can try. Like I said, we've seen this in Miami Beach. They just adopted it, I think, in February. So, they're also kind of doing something similar to what we're doing, trying to encourage business. And again, this is a text amendment. So, this will actually be adopted in our zoning code and it will only be in place for 18 months. We'll go back to council before that 18 months and give them an update. And if they decide to make changes on on a permanent basis, that will come back before you guys as the recommending body on anything we do with zoning before it ultimately ends up back with council. So with that, that concludes my presentation and I'm available for questions.

Thank you. We will now go through disclosures. Commissioner Velto, Commissioner Valto, no disclosures. Commissioner Gianini spoke with city staff. Read and reviewed materials. Uh Commissioner Jockman uh used to live downtown in River Tower long time ago. Commissioner Williams, read and reviewed material. and Commissioner Roarmire. Any disclosures? Seeing none, we will now move to questions from the commission. Chair, are we doing public comment before? I apologize. No worries. Madam clerk, public comment.

I have at least um one in person. We did receive additional correspondents that were forwarded to the commission and entered into the record. If you are online and would like to make public comment on this item, please raise your hand at this time. We'll start with Naomi Suda in person. You will have uh three minutes. Please state your name for the record.

Thank you. Good evening, planning commission. My name is Naomi Tuda. I live at the Padio in unit 511 and I am also a member of the Padio's condominium association. And I really thank you for the opportunity to address you today on this matter. And I um am here to urge a no um uh recom against the recommendation from staff to um essentially make the conditional use permit process easier on businesses. Um I believe it's the idea was to save them money and time. Uh but you're talking about energi in favor of energizing downtown. Do we really want this kind of energy downtown in the entertainment district districts for um ostensibly what should be inside live entertainment from 11:00 p.m. to whenever and it's all great when everything when everybody follows the rules but um the problem is is when they don't what do you do we have a mixeduse downtown and I am a resident I moved to downtown knowing that it was lively that people would come downtown there would be music there would be restaurants I love that I love the ability to walk around and and enjoy all of those things. But there are also people who work the the next day. How late do you have the live entertainment indoors when it doesn't stay indoors? And that's the problem. Right now, this process eliminates the conditional use permit and it doesn't impact anything that's going on today. I understand that. But when we look at at how is the

conditional use permit itself working, we can help we can see some um hints about how would it would work if you eliminate that CUP in favor of the security plan. The guard rails that were mentioned basically exist now uh with the cup process. You've got a security plan. You've got um the same amount of enforcement uh that you're going to have if this should come into um play. Uh you've got the same amount of staff. Um but so the issue I is when people don't comply with their CUP, what happens? There is no staffing to really take care of it. There is no police presence to be able to address it. And this will just make it worse because there you won't even have the opportunity for the public to talk about the experiences and why they might specifically not want a business to have live entertainment indoors, especially if that if they're not following the CU that they've already been given. Thank you for your time.

Next up, we have um Art Rangel online. Thank you. Can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Go ahead.

Okay. For the record, Art Rangel, um, as a certified city planner myself, I'm really concerned that your development surface staff does not consider residential units in mixeduse districts as residential. Although master plan policy 3.1B adopted in 2017 provide for residential housing in the mixeduse downtown area. Now over 9 years later, residents and mixeduse districts still have no protection. Why is it that the downtown highrises and condos in these mixeduse areas which are predominantly residential are not considered residential? Why doesn't residential adjacency protection apply to these highrises and mid-rise properties yet they do apply to the MF30 highdensity residential zone? The land use is essentially the same. I believe your development services staff has forgotten the fundamental principle of land use zoning which is separation of incompatible land uses. We city planners learned this in our first year of planning curriculum. In addition, the staff is throwing out the cup process which was established to provide a mechanism through the public hearing process to bring the developer or the applicant together with neighbors to try to mitigate the anticipated uh impacts on the community. And now we're faced with this experiment which does not address the issue that Angelus has brought up which is a fundamental issue for downtown residents and that is the excessive noise. Nor includes a way to measure the success or failure of the pilot program. At the April 28th virtual meeting that she held regarding this topic uh which is now part of the public record. I asked Angela the following question. How would the city evaluate the success or failure of the experiment? Her answer was, I would say, that's up to the council. To which I

responded, but you're the professional. They are not. City councils rely on us planners to give them answers. I then asked specifically what metrics will be measured to see if this works or not. Her answer, there are no metrics. I then said given the city's budget issues I would like to see a costbenefit analysis as part of the metrics for these uses specifically the bad bad actors which in the past have cost the city an inordinate amount of money in police code enforcement business license building city attorney time again her answer was it's up to the council if they want to spend the money again I answered they are not the professionals housing and entertainment can coexist but Not if the entertainment continues until the late night, early morning hours in close proximity to the housing. Downtown residents and property owners can tell you nothing good happens after midnight. Some late night entertainment leads to rowdiness which leads to crime and a bigger strain on our depleted police resources in the city. Sir,

your time is up. This is not This is This should tell you why people do not want to invest. Sir, your time is up. It's perception not reality. Uh with that we do have do not have any additional comment for this item. Do we have any other requests to speak in chambers at this time? If so, please raise your hand. Seeing none, we will now close public comment and move to questions from the commission of staff.

Commissioner Williams. Miss Fouse, nice to see you. Couple quick ones. Um, the indoor requirement for this is that do we need to be more specific to delineate half indoors, partly outdoors, patio space, covered space? I mean, are we do we need to get that specific so that people don't take advantage of that?

No. And that's that's the um the staff reviews these, right? They still have to go through that cabaret license and show their security plan. So we have the ability to look at each establishment on a case- by case basis and so we can very clearly delineate indoor versus outdoor. That's not an issue on our end. Okay. Um the only the other thing I had was that um the distance measurement seems a little vague 300t from residential property when a lot of the policies that the plane department has is very specific like from the corner of XYZ. Do we need to firm that up so there's not any discrepancies about where the 300 feet is being considered?

So the um our our map that is included as part of um I think it's exhibit B is the actual location of all the parcels that fit within that criteria. So we looked at the zoning. Anything within 350 ft of residentially zoned property we kicked out. So um it's very black and white based on the the map that we have provided. Okay. So that map is already set based upon the 300 thing. We're not just going out there with these. Okay. Perfect. All right. Thank you.

Uh Commissioner Jockman, I'll just say one thing quickly on this one. The um you had a slide about what you would plan to track as a part of this pilot program. One thing I I believe I didn't see there which I think could be of value and have some insight would be about business revenues and how that might change as a function of time of day as a result of the pilot program. We have a budget deficit. Uh there's obviously some interest in doing this. We've had cups that came here before. Getting at that question so that council can be advised on revenues I think would be of value to them as we go through this process. It's a very good point. We'll add that to the list.

Any other questions from the commission? We can also move to deliberation at this time. Commissioner Belto, I think this is a great idea. I'm very thankful that you've brought you brought this to us. Um, I think most of my comments on this were made during our last cup discussion about downtown, so I won't uh kind of reiterate those, but I'm really happy to see that we're saying downtown's open for business, and I'd like that we're making it easier on businesses to succeed. Thank you,

Commissioner Gonfini. Hi, Angela. I'm also very, very happy to hear this. I think that this is a great opportunity for businesses to understand that we're here for them and that we're ready to enjoy their experience. I hope we can balance the needs of the residents and continue to find what works for them and um it's not an easy road to find that balance. There's a lot of variables to go into that, but I know that the city is doing their best to provide the best economic opportunities for the downtown core. Appreciate it, Angela. Thanks.

Uh Commissioner Jockman, I'll say one more thing. When I chose to live downtown, which was back in 2015, I knew there were casinos there. I knew there were entertainment businesses there. I knew there were live activities that were taking place and I chose to live downtown on that basis. Now I am not a certified planner but I do see the difference between zoning and residential adjacency and in our downtown urban core we have had businesses of entertainment uh uses there for many many many much longer than I've been alive. So, uh, it should not surprise anybody that these businesses have entertainment activities that involve indoor entertainment. I see no problem with this, uh, temporary exception, and I'm I I I do hope that we get some good insight and information out of it with regard to how it affects business on the revenue side as well as it moves forward. Any other comments or questions from the commission? Seeing none, we will entertain a motion should one be made.

I'm happy to make it. Commissioner Gantini, in the case of TXT26-00002 based upon compliance with the applicable findings, I move to recommend that city council approve the text amendment by ordinance. Commissioner Bell second. We have a motion and a second. All in favor say I. I. I.

I. Any opposed? Hearing none. Motion carries unanimously. That concludes item C2. We will now move to item D1, which I believe is also Miss Fouse. This is a staff presentation and planning commission training on the connection between the Truckucky Meadows Regional Plan and Reimagine Reno Master Plan. Miss Fouse.

Okay. Thank you very much. For the record, Angela Fouse, assistant director with development services. We had a a presentation or staff training a couple months ago on the topic of infill. And there were a handful of questions from this commission related to well, how do we define infill? And we had a definition. Well, what do we how do we decide if something is considered infill? Why aren't we putting that in the staff reports? And so I thought well let's have a broader discussion about how the cities being both sparks and wo look at infill and kind of as a region how we try and figure out where we want growth to go. So this is going to be very high level. This is not a 101 about regional planning. This is truly intended to be let's look at how as a region we look at where we want to see growth and where we want to see intensity and density. For those of you that sit on the regional planning commission, you probably know a lot of these things already. For those of you that don't, this may may provide you with some new information. But kind of the whole purpose of the Truckucky Meadows Regional Planning Agency is to look at land use planning at a regional level. And it started back in the 80s when Reno Sparks and Wo County were not getting along. And the state legislature stepped in and said, "I'm going to make you guys get along when it comes to land use. I'm going to make you have a separate agency that just looks at high level master plan land use decisions. And so it kind of forced the three jurisdictions back then to come together and say, well, where does it make sense to have density? You know, we had unincorporated Wo County, which typically is more a rural large lot. They generally don't have um connections guaranteed that you're going to tie into a sewer line or a water line. A lot of times you're on well and septic. And then we had the cities and we said,"Well, does it make sense to also have large lots in development and wells and septics in the

cities?" And so it really kind of forced us as a as a collective group to say, well, how do we want to grow over the next 20 years and where should we be focusing kind of that intense development? One big thing that has come out of the regional plan is the Truckucky Meadows service area. Now, if you look at that map, everything within that black boundary, kind of that that border area there is what we call that TMSA. And this is as a region where we've said at some point in the future, it makes sense to have municipal services, meaning police, fire, sewer lines, water lines, right? This is where as a region we want to grow. Now, that doesn't mean that every parcel within that area has to be developed at 30 units per acre. We also understand that like there's there's areas that make more sense for intense development in areas that over time we know we're going to grow into. So that TMSA boundary is really kind of a it's almost kind of our own um urban growth boundary so to speak of this is as a region where we all agree this is how we're going to grow over the next 20 years. Now within the regional plan there's this colored map and it's all about regional form and pattern. This is really kind of one of the the my favorite maps to look at in terms of density. So Reno and Sparks have the two downtowns, right? We have downtown Sparks, we have downtown Reno. Those are our mixeduse core. So by far that is where we want to see the most density. Now we also have what we used to call Todd transitoriented develop corridors. Um Virginia Street all the way from Stead down to the Summit Sierra Mall at one time was this giant Todd corridor and then Fourth Street and Praway. So if you start in Sparks on Prader or in Sparks on Prader Way and go all the way to Reno um that whole corridor was another big corridor and at one point we said that's where we want to see intense development those two kind of north south east west east west boundaries and

so over time we've kind of morphed that and taken that down and said whoa whoa whoa maybe we don't need that much intense development but still these are kind of our main corridors where we don't want to see large lot development in these areas. If you're going to build apartments that's where we want to see it. If you're going to build mixed use, that's where we want to see it. So again, kind of at a level one when we talk about density, that's where we want to see it. That dark blue area, that tier two and tier three. So like all cities, you start out with very dense, intense areas in your core. And as you go out, you get more of that kind of suburban and then rural development. So tier one, we talk about that a lot in our staff reports. If you're in a tier one area, generally speaking, kind of within the McCarron ring, which makes sense. It's an older area. We have police, we have fire, we have schools, we have water lines and sewer lines. It's an area that's already developed. So, when we talk about infill, that by far is probably one of our key areas where u where we try and focus development. that tier two also within kind of that that bluish area but more in our um suburban type areas is where we we still plan to grow but not at such an intense level and you think about like Verdi so we have a lot of single family development planned for Verdi that doesn't mean we can't have apartments and we can't have mixed use it would just be smaller nodes we don't want the entire area of Verdi to be 30 units to the acre but it makes sense to have a couple little nodes here and there and so that's what the intent of that that tier two really is. And then kind of those last two rounds that tier three and rural area. Tier three is an area that is mostly um low density. So we have a lot of tier three in the unincorporated WOO county, not so much in Reno and Sparks, but like I said, unincorporated is where we tend to see these large lot developments. And then anything in that um rural area is outside of the Truckucky Meadow Service

area. So again, an area that we aren't planning for growth. Yes, you're going to have farms out there and you're going to have a land, which is completely fine, but it's not an area where we're intending to see big developments happening. Now, the other interesting about this map is if you look at it, you think, okay, well, we also have the Renoad airport. Why are we showing the Renoad airport within that tier one? We don't have a lot of development out there besides an airport. But again, in in planning, long-term planning, that's an area where we're intending to see industrial at some point. So, it's been planned for decades, um that likely we're going to see industrial development. So, it doesn't have to just be density in terms of housing. It can be intensity as well. So, industrial 100% is is within that tier one and tier two. All along North Virginia Street, much of that is within that tier one, intended for again our more industrial type of uses. Now, when we look at the regional plan and how that impacts our roles as city planners, there's a couple things we look at, right? Their role is to help just bigger picture coordinate the region. They don't get to make land use decisions on things like zoning or um a conditional use permit. Now, they are very limited in their role and that is regulated by state law. Like I said back in the 80s when the three jurisdictions were not getting along and the government stepped in and they said very specifically here's the things that's in the purview of regional planning to regulate. If we want to change that it requires typically a change to state law. So for the most part the past 30 years or so it's worked well and we've been able to come together as a region um and and figure out at a master plan level what makes sense. So when when when we submit something to regional planning, a lot of times our regional planning commissioners will say like, well, how come we're not looking at the

setbacks or how come we're allowing, you know, a four-story building here? What shouldn't it just be a two-story building? Right? We I think sometimes we we get lost in the weeds on things and that is not the role of regional planning. That's not their purview. That's not what they're allowed to be looking at. they are looking at high level master plan amendment things or projects of regional significance as examples. Um we had a couple projects in the last year that again from your guys's perspective you looked at the detail because it was probably a conditional use permit or some kind of planned unit development. So that is your role as Reno planning commissioners, but when you put your hat on as a regional planning commissioner, you no longer get to talk about those things because that's not the purview of that body. So a couple things then again just high level when again going back to like where we want to see density and where we want to see intensity. It's big as a region. It's not just in our downtown. It's not just in those corridors that we talked about Virginia Street and Fourth Street. Um, Sun Valley of all places. That's unincorporated WA County, but that's an area identified to have a higher density and intensity. Most of unincorporated WA County does not allow apartments, which seems strange, but when you think about where we have apartments, you probably want it near transit, right? Where you have bus stops. You probably want it where you have sewer lines and water lines. You're not going to put an apartment complex in the middle of nowhere or they're on well and septic. Um, and Sun Valley from a from an unincorporated perspective really is kind of like their downtown. That's where they have apartments and that's where they have transit and they have all those commercial services. So, just again keeping in mind as a region, these are the things that um, good to know. It's not just downtown Reno and downtown Sparks where we want to see high-rise buildings. There's all kinds of different types of density and intensity that the regional plan calls for and supports. Um, as we're looking at development, I had that picture of

Amazon on there because we've had a lot of complaints recently about no longer just north valleys having all the industrial, but we're getting a lot of new industrial in the South Meadows area. And people are saying, why are we allowing industrial, you know, in Verdai and why are we allowing industrial in South Meadows? Again, if you go back to the regional plan, these were areas that were planned for high intensity. Um, so it's not like we just came up with this in the middle of the night and said that's where we're going to put the next Amazon. It truly is a 20-year plan that things have been thought through and that's where we have, you know, bus service and all these things that we we want to support where we have jobs and housing. Um, so just keep that in mind when we talk about density and infill. It's not just within the McCarron Ring. There's much more to it. And again, just on um you know, limitations at regional review, I do feel bad for regional because they are the kind of the last stop when a lot of these projects have been through all the public hearings. And so by the time it gets to them, everyone's heard about it and and had, you know, whether it's complaints about it or maybe you supported it, by the time it gets to regional, they only get to review it at a very high level master plan level. And a lot of times our our kind of partners at, you know, Sparks or Washoe County, this is the first time they've looked at a Reno project and they have a lot of questions not within their purview. So, um, from a from a practical perspective, by the time it gets to regional, if it's been approved at the minutia level, the conditional use permit level, really it should be saying, does this fit in with like the the vision of the master plan and goes back to that map that we looked at about regional form and pattern. Does it fit in within kind of those boundaries? Um, so unfortunately it kind of feels opposite. It feels like you should be starting high right at the high level and then work your way down to the detail by the time it gets to you guys. But it's the opposite. You guys get the detail. By the time it gets to regional, they get the high level. So that it is what it is. Um, but again,

it's um something that's mandated by state law and it's been a really effective tool I think in in helping us as the governments um come together, especially as the city planners. And I did take planning 101 just so you know that. Um it I think we all you know we are all on the same page too. We are one region when it comes down to it. And so um keep that in mind when you guys sit on that regional capacity. And that is it. Again trying to make you guys uh have some easy trainings. cuz I know by the end of the night you're all tired and uh I appreciate that you guys keep your eyes open long enough to pretend like you're interested. Thank you very much.

Do we have any questions? No, I just want to say thanks. You're welcome. Appreciate that very much. Absolutely. I will just say additionally, I just read an op-ed last week that kind of described us not having as a plan at all. And so it's nice to be reassured from this end that these plans have been in place for a long time regardless of what you know the opinion in the world is. So appreciate you explaining that and really reiterating that this is a plan that's been in effect for a long time. Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. That is all I have. Mike,

thank you very much. I guess that concludes this item. We do not take public comment on this as it's not a public hearing. Is that correct? Correct. Yes. Perfect. Okay, that concludes item D1. We will now go to item E, Truckucky Meadows Regional Planning Liaison Report. Commissioner Gonfentini. Uh the April 23rd meeting of the Truckucky Meadows Regional Planning Commission saw five items including both Lacage um resort and the TOGO battery storage facility, both of which were approved by unanimous approval from the body. And the next meeting is May 28th. Thank you very much. Now moving on to item F, future agenda items. Nothing from staff.

Item G, public comment. Madame clerk. I do not have any final public comment registered. Okay. Can I get a motion to adjurnn? Commissioner Williams, motion to adjurnn. Second. All in favor say I. I. Meeting adjourned.