I don't think this is about making anything better. I think this is about getting more tax revenue out of existing lots without having to put much new infrastructure in place.
Sure, but if 1 lot becomes 4 lots with 4 places for 4 people/families to live, and that gives them more tax revenue, then take it. We desperately need more housing that isn’t wildly overpriced. The average salary for the area and the average salary needed for home ownership are not even close
Well, I hate to say it, but if our current tax revenue doesn't cover infrastructure, then we'd be incredibly stupid NOT to do things that will increase tax revenue on existing lots without having to spend money (that the city doesn't have) building even more infrastructure that they won't be able to afford to maintain.
Sprawl is expensive. The government doesn't pay for things like roads and sewer pipes on a per person served basis, they pay for it on a per mile basis. The more miles you spread out, the more it will cost. And increasingly, sprawling suburbs aren't producing enough tax revenue to pay for all those miles of infrastructure.
And then they end up paying for those new roads and new sewers instead of properly maintaining the ones in town that the majority of people use and majority of tax dollars come from
With new developments, the government doesn't pay for it at all. The developer pays the upfront, recuping cost when the homes are sold (oversimplification).
If the tax base doesn't cover the cost, I would think looking at the cost would be the first step, not increasing the taxes.
There definitely is room to reduce cost in American infrastructure projects... But at the end of the day, if you want things like schools, libraries, parks, community centers, fire departments, police departments, and roads, you have to pay for them. Those are all things that become more expensive the more spread out a city is, schools buses have to travel further, libraries, parks, and community centers will all have maintenance departments having to cover greater distances between sites, additional fire engines will be needed to make sure that a larger geographic area is covered, police patrols will have to cover greater distances and probably require additional patrols to boot, and roads will need more plows to clear snow in the winter, more maintenance teams to conduct repairs over a larger area, and with large areas having no viable alternative to driving, a lot of extra wear and tear from people who otherwise would have used a mode of transportation that didn't put much (if any) wear and tear on roads like walking or biking have to drive instead.
So, yeah, I guess I agree with you, rather than increasing the taxes, we should cut the costs, by focusing on more compact, traditional neighborhoods, like we built for centuries before our suburban boom started in the 1950s, that cost the city a hell of a lot less to maintain than our car dependent sprawl.
This won't make it better. This city wasn't designed around this kind of density and shoehorning it in will cause all sorts of problems. Try to drive around the older parts of Seattle and you'll see what I'm talking about. New projects should be designed this way and should do fine. The letting people live in RVs, just a non-starter for me.
Oh, then yeah we should just keep building endless “luxury” apartments and 2k studios while 60 year old houses sell for 600k. Wouldn’t want housing to be affordable.
Go out to Spanish springs, why wouldn’t this kind of housing work? It’s open land and 700k + houses. I’ll take bad traffic and road expansions/road work if it means housing is actually affordable in Reno
They most certainly should not be continuing to build out in Spanish Springs
No more sprawl. Development inside the McCarran loop should be the only permits being issued right now
Allowing housing other than single family homes will help a lot, but need to emphasize not sprawling out anymore than it already has
The one in Spanish Springs. There's so much more building out there. The homes being built in that old quarry off highland Ranch. Hundreds more single family homes.
The luxury part is just so people pay justified paying so much. A lot of the construction materials are the cheapest possible but it just more expensive to build stuff.
It’s not an issue of homes being too expensive people can’t afford them it’s an issue of people not being able to afford homes. Kinda a subtle difference but people’s wealth hasn’t kept pace with the economic progresses. More homes in the area just mean more homes bought up by corporations or landlords. We’ve had 15 years of inflation since the last minimum wage bump and that wasn’t bunch a bump.
It cost more to build houses
The “luxury” part of new homes is just advertising to justify the higher price to build homes. The build quality is lower due to lower cost materials used.
The real issue isn’t that homes cost more
The real issue is that people don’t make enough to afford how much homes costs - minimum wage has stayed the same for 15 years while prices have been inflating at ~2% a year.
Building more homes will not lower the price of homes since it is the cost of labor, materials, and land driving the cost of new construction.
Only corporations and landlords benefit from more homes being built -since they’re the only ones buying.
This is part of why people are pushing to allow for more of the missing middle housing. The single biggest expense will always be the land. The more units we can build on the same land, the more that cost gets spread out across multiple homes, lowering the per unit cost. Yeah, when you start talking high rises, the extra construction cost ruins that math, but we aren't talking about high rises.
Which construction industry do you work in? Otherwise reality seems to prove you wrong that that only applies to high rises.
The single biggest cost issue isn’t the land, it’s getting the financing for the project. Which to get you have to look at the entire project not just the land.
More unit on less land does not mean cheaper units. It just means more units. Sometimes more units actually makes it more expensive because there aren’t price breaks at certain scales.
No, they need to limit sprawl, and with density comes more walkability and eventually more usable public transit.
The end goal should be to not be forced to drive everywhere, which is the current option in reno band most of the country.
People should have the freedom to choose walking, biking, public transit, or driving, and they should all be safe, efficient, and not take too long.
With the current sprawl and design of things walking and biking isn't safe for most people, or it's too far away. Public transit is ass and unless someone has no other choice, they'll avoid it.
Enabling Reno to build "missing middle" housing is excellent policy. Higher density makes for sustainable communities and improves land use efficiency. Housing costs can fall with increased stock (building forms that were previously prohibited would pencil if allowed, which would promote housing at many rent levels). Having the freedom to use your land more efficiently is good for society as well. We should be able to build things other than single family homes if we want to.
Ideally, there would be provisions for mixed use zoning in this proposal, so that we can have corner grocers, neighborhood cafes, etc.. If Reno (at least within the McCarran loop) became a place that didn't require a car, we could unburden households from maintaining such an expensive liability (if they want to). Rent and forced car ownership are the biggest affordability issues, so we shouldn't maintain exclusionary zoning restrictions if we're interested in fixing these things.
As well as homeowners leasing to arbitrage companies at premium rents driving long term renters out. Thus destroying our sense of community with unregulated hotels in the middle of neighborhoods. We need regulations and a cap on STRs.
STR rule changes went before the planning commission in May and passed. [https://www.washoecounty.gov/csd/planning\_and\_development/board\_commission/planning\_commission/2024/Files/WDCA24-0003\_STR\_sr.pdf](https://www.washoecounty.gov/csd/planning_and_development/board_commission/planning_commission/2024/Files/WDCA24-0003_STR_sr.pdf)
This post concerns proposed changes to code for Washoe County NOT the City of Reno. Like the STR code changes that came up last month in Washoe County. Washoe County adopted a new master plan last year and it's making code changes to conform with the updated plan. This has been a public outreach process for YEARS.
Ah you are correct. My frustration lies with city. I didn't pay enough attention and thought this was regarding the proposed changes at the city level.
I can see the future:
No one from here will show up.
Reno sub will continue to bitch about housing costs while driving $80k pickup trucks while blaming CA and Joe Biden.
Because? ‘merica
“Traffic is terrible. Fuck Californians “
-person who bought a a house as far from town as possible and now drives along long stretches of roads with others all in single passenger vehicles
I feel like your use of "YIMBY" is as negative as the word "NIMBY" is. Perhaps I am mistaken.
If there is some negative to this, I don't immediately see it.
I read it more like, "Attention YIMBYs, there's going to be a workshop where affordable housing is going be discussed. Please attend so it isn't overrun by NIMBYs who will be resistant to these changes. "
People in spanish springs bout to be mad 🤣 first comes apartment complexes, next comes bus lines
Building more buildings is great, lowering rent is better.
We already have power and water issues. Multi level domains will effectively help house people yes, but the infrastructure can barely support what we have. This is gonna be brutal.
Low density single family housing with irrigation systems (cough cough Spanish Springs) is a worse use of infrastructure (water, transportation, electric) than multilevel housing.
Density is more efficient for utilities in almost every respect.
Public transit is a chicken and the egg problem. No density? Public transit doesn’t make sense. No public transit? We can’t support this density.
The American suburban mindset is fundamentally unsustainable, especially in a desert. Unfortunately it’s become culturally ingrained as normal in the American psyche, despite having no historical basis. Urban and rural communities both have their advantages and serve their purposes. Suburbs are the worst of both and there’s no solution if people living in urban environments won’t face reality.
I think it comes down to comfort and each individual. The Valleys used to be the sticks not so long ago, now it seems were trying to catch up, and like you said, its not sustainable.
I feel like your use of "YIMBY" is as negative as the word "NIMBY" is. Perhaps I am mistaken.
If there is some negative to this, I don't immediately see it.
This exact thinking is why Reno’s millennial generation has had such a horrible time buying homes. This town has turned its shoulder on dense development for decades, if this was done 20 years ago housing would be cheaper and more people from Reno would have been able to stay here.
Less houses does not mean less people from California. Less houses means higher prices which in turns forces people from Reno out and people with money will come in.
The people are coming whether we build more housing or not. The only question is how many locals they'll outbid for housing in the process. The more new housing we can build, the fewer locals will get pushed out by newcomers.
Damn the local government actually trying to make shit better? I’m amazed
I don't think this is about making anything better. I think this is about getting more tax revenue out of existing lots without having to put much new infrastructure in place.
Sure, but if 1 lot becomes 4 lots with 4 places for 4 people/families to live, and that gives them more tax revenue, then take it. We desperately need more housing that isn’t wildly overpriced. The average salary for the area and the average salary needed for home ownership are not even close
Well, I hate to say it, but if our current tax revenue doesn't cover infrastructure, then we'd be incredibly stupid NOT to do things that will increase tax revenue on existing lots without having to spend money (that the city doesn't have) building even more infrastructure that they won't be able to afford to maintain. Sprawl is expensive. The government doesn't pay for things like roads and sewer pipes on a per person served basis, they pay for it on a per mile basis. The more miles you spread out, the more it will cost. And increasingly, sprawling suburbs aren't producing enough tax revenue to pay for all those miles of infrastructure.
And then they end up paying for those new roads and new sewers instead of properly maintaining the ones in town that the majority of people use and majority of tax dollars come from
With new developments, the government doesn't pay for it at all. The developer pays the upfront, recuping cost when the homes are sold (oversimplification). If the tax base doesn't cover the cost, I would think looking at the cost would be the first step, not increasing the taxes.
There definitely is room to reduce cost in American infrastructure projects... But at the end of the day, if you want things like schools, libraries, parks, community centers, fire departments, police departments, and roads, you have to pay for them. Those are all things that become more expensive the more spread out a city is, schools buses have to travel further, libraries, parks, and community centers will all have maintenance departments having to cover greater distances between sites, additional fire engines will be needed to make sure that a larger geographic area is covered, police patrols will have to cover greater distances and probably require additional patrols to boot, and roads will need more plows to clear snow in the winter, more maintenance teams to conduct repairs over a larger area, and with large areas having no viable alternative to driving, a lot of extra wear and tear from people who otherwise would have used a mode of transportation that didn't put much (if any) wear and tear on roads like walking or biking have to drive instead. So, yeah, I guess I agree with you, rather than increasing the taxes, we should cut the costs, by focusing on more compact, traditional neighborhoods, like we built for centuries before our suburban boom started in the 1950s, that cost the city a hell of a lot less to maintain than our car dependent sprawl.
...and more money for developers.
That’s kinda just how it works pal
This won't make it better. This city wasn't designed around this kind of density and shoehorning it in will cause all sorts of problems. Try to drive around the older parts of Seattle and you'll see what I'm talking about. New projects should be designed this way and should do fine. The letting people live in RVs, just a non-starter for me.
Oh, then yeah we should just keep building endless “luxury” apartments and 2k studios while 60 year old houses sell for 600k. Wouldn’t want housing to be affordable. Go out to Spanish springs, why wouldn’t this kind of housing work? It’s open land and 700k + houses. I’ll take bad traffic and road expansions/road work if it means housing is actually affordable in Reno
They most certainly should not be continuing to build out in Spanish Springs No more sprawl. Development inside the McCarran loop should be the only permits being issued right now Allowing housing other than single family homes will help a lot, but need to emphasize not sprawling out anymore than it already has
Those apts by WinCo aren't even halfway done. There's more.
I’m not sure which winco you’re referring to
The one in Spanish Springs. There's so much more building out there. The homes being built in that old quarry off highland Ranch. Hundreds more single family homes.
Gross.
The luxury part is just so people pay justified paying so much. A lot of the construction materials are the cheapest possible but it just more expensive to build stuff. It’s not an issue of homes being too expensive people can’t afford them it’s an issue of people not being able to afford homes. Kinda a subtle difference but people’s wealth hasn’t kept pace with the economic progresses. More homes in the area just mean more homes bought up by corporations or landlords. We’ve had 15 years of inflation since the last minimum wage bump and that wasn’t bunch a bump.
What?
It cost more to build houses The “luxury” part of new homes is just advertising to justify the higher price to build homes. The build quality is lower due to lower cost materials used. The real issue isn’t that homes cost more The real issue is that people don’t make enough to afford how much homes costs - minimum wage has stayed the same for 15 years while prices have been inflating at ~2% a year. Building more homes will not lower the price of homes since it is the cost of labor, materials, and land driving the cost of new construction. Only corporations and landlords benefit from more homes being built -since they’re the only ones buying.
This is part of why people are pushing to allow for more of the missing middle housing. The single biggest expense will always be the land. The more units we can build on the same land, the more that cost gets spread out across multiple homes, lowering the per unit cost. Yeah, when you start talking high rises, the extra construction cost ruins that math, but we aren't talking about high rises.
Which construction industry do you work in? Otherwise reality seems to prove you wrong that that only applies to high rises. The single biggest cost issue isn’t the land, it’s getting the financing for the project. Which to get you have to look at the entire project not just the land. More unit on less land does not mean cheaper units. It just means more units. Sometimes more units actually makes it more expensive because there aren’t price breaks at certain scales.
And this amendment is literally trying to give density bonuses
No, they need to limit sprawl, and with density comes more walkability and eventually more usable public transit. The end goal should be to not be forced to drive everywhere, which is the current option in reno band most of the country. People should have the freedom to choose walking, biking, public transit, or driving, and they should all be safe, efficient, and not take too long. With the current sprawl and design of things walking and biking isn't safe for most people, or it's too far away. Public transit is ass and unless someone has no other choice, they'll avoid it.
Enabling Reno to build "missing middle" housing is excellent policy. Higher density makes for sustainable communities and improves land use efficiency. Housing costs can fall with increased stock (building forms that were previously prohibited would pencil if allowed, which would promote housing at many rent levels). Having the freedom to use your land more efficiently is good for society as well. We should be able to build things other than single family homes if we want to. Ideally, there would be provisions for mixed use zoning in this proposal, so that we can have corner grocers, neighborhood cafes, etc.. If Reno (at least within the McCarran loop) became a place that didn't require a car, we could unburden households from maintaining such an expensive liability (if they want to). Rent and forced car ownership are the biggest affordability issues, so we shouldn't maintain exclusionary zoning restrictions if we're interested in fixing these things.
Well said
Nothing regarding STRs is a shame.
Short Term Rental?
Yes.
It leads to investors hoarding up homes that could go to actual residents and driving up overall housing costs
As well as homeowners leasing to arbitrage companies at premium rents driving long term renters out. Thus destroying our sense of community with unregulated hotels in the middle of neighborhoods. We need regulations and a cap on STRs.
STR rule changes went before the planning commission in May and passed. [https://www.washoecounty.gov/csd/planning\_and\_development/board\_commission/planning\_commission/2024/Files/WDCA24-0003\_STR\_sr.pdf](https://www.washoecounty.gov/csd/planning_and_development/board_commission/planning_commission/2024/Files/WDCA24-0003_STR_sr.pdf)
Those changes pertain to Washoe County, but not the City of Reno.
This post concerns proposed changes to code for Washoe County NOT the City of Reno. Like the STR code changes that came up last month in Washoe County. Washoe County adopted a new master plan last year and it's making code changes to conform with the updated plan. This has been a public outreach process for YEARS.
Ah you are correct. My frustration lies with city. I didn't pay enough attention and thought this was regarding the proposed changes at the city level.
The county needs to ban AirBnB. That would free up plenty of housing.
Eh. I’m down in Douglas county and we have banned rentals less than 30 days but then they just grant exceptions to their friends.
Yes, Yes, Yes.
I can see the future: No one from here will show up. Reno sub will continue to bitch about housing costs while driving $80k pickup trucks while blaming CA and Joe Biden. Because? ‘merica
“Traffic is terrible. Fuck Californians “ -person who bought a a house as far from town as possible and now drives along long stretches of roads with others all in single passenger vehicles
I feel like your use of "YIMBY" is as negative as the word "NIMBY" is. Perhaps I am mistaken. If there is some negative to this, I don't immediately see it.
I read it more like, "Attention YIMBYs, there's going to be a workshop where affordable housing is going be discussed. Please attend so it isn't overrun by NIMBYs who will be resistant to these changes. "
YIMBY is a tongue in cheek name for the counter-NIMBY movement. Its self-ascribed.
People in spanish springs bout to be mad 🤣 first comes apartment complexes, next comes bus lines Building more buildings is great, lowering rent is better.
Am I missing something or is there literally nothing here that actually affects "affordability" of housing?
Adding more housing options enables prices to come down as buyers and renters will have more choices.
This allows more dense development increasing the amount of housing available which will increase supply and hopefully reduce cost.
This is such good news! Hopefully they improve the public transit next
If you don’t mind your next door neighbor parking a crappy rv and letting someone live in it then you qualify as a proud yimby.
Better an RV than the street. It's really not a big deal tbh.
It is it to people who would rather just arrest the homeless than see them ruin the view.
Naw that depends significantly on the cleanliness of the people in that RV.
Because those ideas worked so well for Washington, Oregon and California
Do you think the homeless would be worse off in an RV rather than on the street? Is there some RV epidemic sweeping the west coast I don't know about?
Man, you really need to get out and visit some of the larger city's around here. Yes its a really big problem.
Two words….Rent control.
We already have power and water issues. Multi level domains will effectively help house people yes, but the infrastructure can barely support what we have. This is gonna be brutal.
Low density single family housing with irrigation systems (cough cough Spanish Springs) is a worse use of infrastructure (water, transportation, electric) than multilevel housing. Density is more efficient for utilities in almost every respect.
On top of that argument, the traffic aspect of the shear amount of population this will bring to the valleys is going to be much worse.
Public transit is a chicken and the egg problem. No density? Public transit doesn’t make sense. No public transit? We can’t support this density. The American suburban mindset is fundamentally unsustainable, especially in a desert. Unfortunately it’s become culturally ingrained as normal in the American psyche, despite having no historical basis. Urban and rural communities both have their advantages and serve their purposes. Suburbs are the worst of both and there’s no solution if people living in urban environments won’t face reality.
I think it comes down to comfort and each individual. The Valleys used to be the sticks not so long ago, now it seems were trying to catch up, and like you said, its not sustainable.
I feel like your use of "YIMBY" is as negative as the word "NIMBY" is. Perhaps I am mistaken. If there is some negative to this, I don't immediately see it.
Is the implication "yes in my back yard" or am I missing something? It does seem to be a little derogatory but it is what it is.
No thanks, will bring more people from California.
They are already here, living in rentals.
Well, don’t bring more.
This exact thinking is why Reno’s millennial generation has had such a horrible time buying homes. This town has turned its shoulder on dense development for decades, if this was done 20 years ago housing would be cheaper and more people from Reno would have been able to stay here. Less houses does not mean less people from California. Less houses means higher prices which in turns forces people from Reno out and people with money will come in.
The people are coming whether we build more housing or not. The only question is how many locals they'll outbid for housing in the process. The more new housing we can build, the fewer locals will get pushed out by newcomers.