Councilperson Duerr has THIS proposal to reduce the zoning on the Lakeridge Tennis Club parcel from CC (as approved by the Council a year and a half ago) to MF14 – 14 units per acre, 2 storey maximum on the Council agenda for 13 January. This would reduce development potential on the site from the 350+/- units previously proposed to 119. What the owners purchased under the current approved zoning for $8.2M might be worth $3.5M under her proposal.
Can you remember ANY other case where a Councilperson has initiated a zoning change? And one that would certainly put the City of Reno at risk for legal action for “taking”?
The red zone is the site. Duerr’s proposal would be classic spot zoning. She might have gotten some traction at MF30, but to propose such low density on a site that the Master Plan states should be highly developed due to availability of infrastructure is just a knee-jerk reaction to her NIMBY constituents. Will the Council back her up?
REreno 
guykun said:
Maybe then we should make it a location for needed homeless shelters. The current constituents seem to volunteer for it 😉
Connie Good said:
You neglect to mention that this parcel was zoned “special use” before the buyer/ developer duped the public into “letting” it be rezoned to CC by promising pool/ tennis courts and continued membership!
Sharon Weiss said:
This property never should have been zoned CC in the first place. The previous SPD was part of a thoughtfully planned community. There was a total failure to acknowledge that McCarran / Lakeside intersection already operates at LOS of “F”; the average density in the area is 11-14 du/acre; there are serious fire evacuation route concerns for the area, as could be seen during the recent Pinehaven Fire; and a dramatic increase in density through an already congested part of town endangers public safety. These are just a few citizen concerns that neither the developers nor the City fully appreciated previously. And this is anything but a knee-jerk reaction. The citizens of Reno are simply asking for responsible planning, from considering the existing neighborhood to the number of projects already underway that will impact these crucial intersections in the near future; the previous site plan review grossly underestimated the parking they would need to accommodate active adults 55+, ALL of whom will obviously drive, as people with means do. They also underestimated how many active adults 55+ in the US have adult children living at home; those young adults will also drive and this number is likely to increase on the heels of COVID-19. The citizens of Reno can’t help it if the developers didn’t think things through and/or underestimated the concerns of the existing neighborhood. In requesting that the zoning be changed from SPD to CC in the first place, the developers’ representatives downplayed the significance of their request by suggesting that all they were doing was changing, “colors on a map”. As it turned out, changing colors on a map means a lot. Naomi Duerr is doing the responsible thing by bringing these issues to light.
geopower said:
If that stretch of road is LOS F that’s just more proof that traffic LOS ratings are garbage used by road departments to increase their capital budgets beyond what repairs require. If it’s so bad, why didn’t NDOT improve it in their current rebuild of W McCarran? Increased density on McCarran should be the default. Adjacent land use is MF 30 built 40+ years ago. MF 14 would be spot underzoning. When a person buys a house, they buy their own space, not the right to ensure that the traffic and streetscape will never change for the rest of their life. Cities evolve, and if they’re growing they should evolve to be denser over time.
Eric Andy said:
It’s amazing to me how much better how roads in other cities can handle traffic? Maybe NDOT needs to buy better asphalt?!
This boils down to anger over a lost swimming pool, and a few lost tennis courts. So the city will fight this, lose, and spend a bunch of money on litigation. Rinse and repeat.
D Geo said:
My guess is that Duerr is trying to appear as if she is against the current zoning for political reasons. Many of her constituents are not happy with what happened to Lakeridge and that isn’t good for her. Her proposal would be a “taking”, which would likely not hold up in court, so I’m pretty sure this will go nowhere, but she will be able to claim that she tried.
It is well known in the development community and at the city planning department that developers often come forward with amazing wonderful projects to try to get a zone change. The problem is that once the zoning is modified, there is never a guaranty of that wonderful project coming to fruition. The land owner can do whatever they want that is allowed in the new zoning. I can’t imagine that Duerr and the city planning department didn’t have had some idea that this could happen in the first place. If they truly didn’t, shame on them and hopefully lesson learned. Regardless of what gets built there now, Reno has lost a very nice facility that families enjoyed for generations. It’s a shame it couldn’t have been saved.
REreno said:
https://mynews4.com/news/local/lakeridge-club-site-developer-blasts-attempt-to-rezone-property-as-illegal-taking
It’s already getting legal.
Paul said:
Shenanigans in zoning / re-zoning in Reno are a given. Still, 350 high-density senior apartments seem like a reasonable land use given that the parcel is on McCarran Blvd. Far better there than sprawling north of Spanish Springs.
Note to buyers in subdivisions adjacent to recreation facilities: If your deed doesn’t grant perpetual access to the recreation parcel, or provide for indirect ownership through the HOA with a covenant that the HOA must maintain said parcel for the benefit of the residential component of the development, you’re pretty much out of luck.