Tackling Housing Affordability and Land Supply
Zoning: Current Challenges and Solutions
Housing affordability and land supply are, foremost, public policy and social concerns. Until 2016, Reno was a place where both residential rents and single-family homes prices matched up relatively well to wages. But around 2016, I had a sense that a community could lose that edge quickly. Little did I know how hard this trend would hit our area, as housing prices in Reno have accelerated at an unprecedented pace.
Though the federal government provides mortgage and subsidy programs, housing is mostly a local government issue. This is true even now when the federal government has provided a lot of financial resources to cities to address the problem. Even after these funds are spent, the overall percentage of the housing stock that is subsidized will still be small.
Because local governments have a primary role in developing housing solutions without direct subsidies, many communities are focusing on zoning as both an obstacle and tool to address housing challenges. As a city planner, I am well versed in zoning and welcome the focus.
A big question people have about zoning is how it is employed to advance desired land use patterns and accommodate growth demands. For example, when I arrived here in 1998 as a planner working with Reno's zoning ordinance, I was pleased to see plentiful zoning for multi-family housing. That was good and is still true today because some communities restrict apartments, preferring single-family housing exclusively. Specifically, Reno zoning allowed residential housing in most commercial districts.
Flash forward to 2022 and the population growth that’s accompanied Reno’s recovery from the Great Recession. Today, the amount of land available for both single-family (and all its permutations, including townhomes and condominiums) and multi-family housing is a concern. The Reno Master Plan, adopted in December of 2017, was an attempt to address this concern. However, the ball has been dropped in executing the promising path outlined in the Plan.
A few weeks after the Master Plan's adoption, I sat down with the City Manager's office to discuss what I believed were the most crucial steps to implementing the Plan. Specifically, there are policies related to monitoring and understanding the land supply, such as:
4.1A: HOUSING OPTIONS
Monitor and periodically update the Land Use Plan to ensure the city has an adequate supply of land designated for wide variety of housing types based on demand.
IMP-2.4a. Periodically monitor the city's land supply in relation to goals and policies of the Master Plan and make publicly available an inventory of developable employment and residential land by type within the city's sphere of influence.
IMP-4.2a. Develop targets for mixture of new permitted housing types and track progress on increasing diversity annually.
The reason these policies are important is that while the private sector constructs housing, local government has an enabling role. In particular, local government needs to ensure sufficient infrastructure is in place and can provide adequate police and fire services.
Mathematically there is an abundance of permitted housing units within the City of Reno to meet projected housing needs. But many of these units, like ones in the far reaches beyond Stead, are unlikely to be constructed because of inadequate infrastructure and public safety coverage.
While these are legacy issues, if the City Council wants to ensure an adequate land supply for all types of housing, it will need to adopt a methodology to understand what land is viable for housing development—something the City is not doing. This analysis would start with looking at both raw land and infill sites and rating viability for new housing based on public infrastructure and services.
This analysis would then guide the City as it makes public investment decisions in infrastructure upgrades and services like police patrols and fire response. The analysis needs to also evaluate the type of housing that could be supported by different land areas.
This is important because the region is deficient in affordable units on small single-family residential lots, townhouses, and condos. We have, though, an abundance of larger more costly single-family properties. The City should be directing infrastructure and services to land where affordable units will be built and away from areas that will result in more expensive homes. But the opposite is occurring!
As an example, hillside development requires intensive grading to ensure stability for the structures built on slopes. Likewise, building in floodplain areas requires the importation of fill material to elevate building lots above flood levels. Both scenarios increase home costs.
The Reno Master Plan urged the City to focus development away from foothills and floodplain areas. This is because the urban core is where, all things considered, more affordable residences can be built. The City has not, though, adopted proven infill strategies and continues to approve an excessive quantity of expensive single-family development.
The City should also understand how much land is needed for housing when property owners apply to change a property’s zoning. To illustrate, in the past seven years millions of square feet of warehouse distribution facilities were built on Reno lands that were rezoned from residential uses or could have otherwise been committed to housing.
In 2020, when the zoning code was being updated, I advocated that the mixed-use zoning districts should not permit both housing and warehouse/distribution. I also advocated that the lands for each of these uses be identified on the zoning map. This is a basic city planning strategy because the two uses are so different that they don’t typically co-exist in one zoning district.
My argument did not gain traction. I believe this is because warehousing advocates — those who thought warehousing would deliver economic development benefits and others with real estate interests associated with warehousing — had an outsized voice in the zoning code update. As a result, instead of adding suitable housing in viable locations we are fulfilling market demand for warehouses.
If our community wants market demand to dictate land-use patterns, we are on the path. But I’m not convinced that’s what the citizens of Reno want. Yes, more warehouses can have economic benefits like job creation and property tax revenues. But given Reno’s housing situation, I've yet to see an analysis that convinces me the economic benefits of warehousing and distribution justify using land for this purpose to the degree that Reno has.
What I do know is that I regularly receive emails from citizens concerned about Reno’s housing shortage, not the abundance of warehouses. One Reno resident emailed the City Council this month because her daughter who “qualifies for a loan of $450,000 cannot find a house or a condo. As soon as something decent comes up, it is sold immediately.” She goes on to mention investors who come in with cash offers for over asking price are buying up property to use as rentals and wonders if there is a way to regulate the market.
This resident's concern, while anecdotal, is genuine, and the City should have better strategies to address these problems.
For example, there is a pending rezoning request in the Virginia Lake area that would, in part, eliminate twelve single-family building lots in favor of zoning for apartments. It is difficult to determine whether the greater public benefit is more multi-family zoned land or retaining single-family building lots. If only the City was monitoring the remaining land inventory and assessing its housing needs! If it did it would be in a better position to make zoning decisions.
How rezoning applications are evaluated needs to shift. Unfortunately, the Planning Commission and City Council are focused upon the reasonableness of an applicant's request and whether the proposed zoning is compatible with the surrounding area. The focus should instead be on whether the zoning in place is appropriate in the first place, and whether changing the zoning advances the public interest as related to reserving adequate land for housing.
Isn’t a shift in thinking a deprivation of property rights? No, it is a legitimate decision-making consideration and plenty of case law backs that up. In fact, it is a central consideration when one thinks holistically about the zoning map.
A zoning map is essentially a puzzle with each parcel being a piece. Together, the pieces are put together to create a picture. Each piece is essential to create the image. Creating a vibrant community requires that every parcel be zoned and developed efficiently and wisely.
Land-use planners and City of Reno officials used to understand and consider zoning more holistically. Sadly, this concept has been forgotten.
The City needs to immediately analyze the supply of land for housing in relation to the full spectrum of Reno’s housing needs. The data derived from this analysis will not be the sole solution to housing affordability — perhaps the most complicated urban issue of our times — but what we’ve been doing isn’t working. Multiple focused approaches are necessary to gain ground on this complex problem.
Please stay tuned, and thanks for reading!
Jenny Brekhus is the Ward 1 Reno, NV, City Council Member. When this newsletter expresses opinions and views without other attribution, they are her own. They do not reflect official views or positions of the City of Reno or the Reno City Council unless otherwise noted. This publication and any response it generates communicated through any channel may be subject to disclosure under Nevada Public Records Act if it substantively refers to City of Reno business.