On Wednesday, Reno officials will decide whether to reverse a 14-year-old policy that was supposed to incentivize redevelopment.
During its regular meeting on March 12, the Reno City Council heard a proposal to change an obscure part of city code: Sewer connection fee credits.
“In staff’s analysis, we do not believe that this has spurred the development that was the original intent,” said Assistant City Manager Ashley Turney, who introduced the measure.
Normally, city staffers put together a slideshow explaining why council members should support policy changes. But Naomi Duerr, who represents Ward Two, appeared blindsided.
“The first I learned about this topic was when I received the agenda,” she said. “We don't generally change rules unless we've had a thoughtful process where staff have come and said, ‘This is a problem. This is how we propose to fix it.’”
Developers pay a fee every time they connect a project to city sewers. But when they build where something else used to stand, the city subtracts the amount it cost to connect the original building from the current fees.
That can save developers hundreds of thousands of dollars per project, but they have to break ground within five years of knocking down an old structure.
According to Turney, the proposal would remove the expiration date for all empty lots — and enable some projects to get off the ground.
“We do have one particular project that is in the downtown core — that is an estimated 300 apartments in our downtown area — that, but for these expired credits, their deal would pencil,” she said.
The sewer credit deadline was originally meant to speed up redevelopment and stop landowners from sitting on empty land. Now, city staff say the opposite is true: That removing it will spur new construction. But critics warn that, in a city struggling with a stubborn housing shortage, the change could lead to even more buildings being torn down.
“It was a good idea for a couple reasons: One is that it encourages something being constructed in a timely manner. But the other is that it would tend to discourage premature demolition,” said Alicia Barber, a local historian and author of the Barber Brief, a development-focused substack.
She’s concerned because developers, and the city itself, are already quick to knock down old buildings. But replacing them can sometimes take decades.
“You can even go back to the days of the Mapes hotel,” she said. “The theory there was, demolishing that hotel would make the site more appealing to potential developers. And of course, that was about 25 years ago.”
Nothing was ever built on the site of the old hotel. It’s now known as the Believe Plaza.
But Turney said the sewer credit expiration dates haven’t panned out — especially now, as builders struggle with inflation and the potential impact of new tariffs.
So she said city staff have been considering removing them for the last year.
“This policy change wouldn't be just for one particular project, but we do anticipate some units to come out of this rather quickly, if it passes,” she explained.
Turney hopes the council approves the change at its next public meeting, on March 26.
“If it's something that we can change, that gets us a few hundred units sooner, and it doesn't hurt anything? Let's go,” she said.
The city council last considered sewer credits four years ago — but back then, the result was very different.
Mega-developer Jeff Jacobs was asking for an extension of sewer credits he’d amassed by demolishing dozens of buildings — including weekly motels that used to be last-ditch housing for some of Reno’s poorest residents.
Duerr recalled Jacobs’ request during the March 12 meeting.
“We all agreed that 20 years was too long, and — you remember, you were here, Council Member Reese — we decided on a five year extension. We didn't say forever,” she said.
Duerr ultimately voted against the proposal to remove sewer credit expiration dates. So did Ward Four Council Member Meghan Ebert. But it passed anyway.
The city council has to vote on it one more time before it takes effect. If it passes, Jacobs — and every other developer looking to build on a previously-occupied site — will be able to use his sewer credits whenever he wants.
