The private owners of the properties lining both sides of Stevenson Street between West First and West Second Streets are back with a request for the City to abandon the street and allow them to convert it to a mix of public and private parking. You might already have seen Mike Van Houten’s post about it in Downtown Makeover here.
If this item sounds familiar, it’s because we’ve heard versions of this request a few times before. As Mike writes, we saw a proposal to convert the block into a park-like space in 2020, when City Council asked the applicants to work with the City on a Development Agreement to govern the proposed deal. That never happened, and then last summer, news broke of another proposal—this time, prioritizing private parking and a handful of public spaces—still with no Development Agreement to specify what would be constructed on either side and how the public would benefit.
And now they’re back with another proposal that would turn the street into a public/private parking lot with a northbound access lane running through the center. There are a lot of materials included alongside the Staff Report, which contains an overview and recommended motion to approve the request with a list of conditions.
What’s the proposal and how is it evaluated?
You can see specifically what’s being proposed for this approximately 32,000 square foot area in Exhibit E: Signage and Parking Management Plan.
This plan would create a parking lot with 68 perpendicular parking spaces along the street, interspersed with trees (required by code when creating a parking lot). A total of 22 of those spaces would be permanently reserved for paid public parking, while 23 spaces would be reserved for private use by the adjacent landowners and 23 would be shared public/private until the west side of the street is developed, at which time they would be dedicated to private use by that development. So ultimately, that’s a total of 22 spots for the public and 46 for exclusive use by the adjacent properties.
Before I get into my analysis, you need to know that street abandonments are unusual when it comes to the disposition of land because they can be decided by Reno City Council in a single meeting with a majority vote (which in this case means four votes).
However, to grant an abandonment of the public right-of-way, the Council needs to be able to definitively make one finding: that the public will not be materially injured by the abandonment. That’s a more difficult finding than it may initially seem. It doesn’t mean physically injured, or even financially injured; legally, material injury means “harm which is not inconsequential, immaterial, or unimportant.” In other words, would the public be worse off if this request were granted?
Trying to determine the answer to that is complicated not only because it’s extremely difficult to prove a negative (that there will be no such harm), but also because a large number of people who would be impacted by this action do not live or own property in the vicinity. They don’t get a little postcard indicating that this is up for a vote. They’re a constantly changing group of people that certainly includes clergy, workers and parishioners of St. Thomas Aquinas Cathedral; students, staff, and parents connected to the Honors Academy of Literature; tenants and clients of the businesses located in the historic Twentieth Century Club building; and tenants, guests, and patrons of neighboring apartments and nearby businesses.
But due to the street’s location opposite the Truckee River in the heart of downtown, those potentially affected also include residents of the entire region and endless streams of visitors who flock to this area on any number of occasions.
As a result, anyone who is presuming to determine whether “the public” will be materially injured needs to base that determination on as many facts as possible. So let’s add a little more information to the mix, shall we?
Context is critical.
One of my primary goals in the Brief is to provide context to help all of us more thoroughly and accurately evaluate the matters that come before us. That context is especially necessary when it comes to this particular abandonment request since the Staff Report evaluates it from a very narrow perspective. The discussion concludes that the City would ultimately benefit by gaining more public spaces on the street than exist now (there are currently 11 metered spaces, but more on that below); that a vehicular easement would still allow traffic to move through one-way from south to north; and that they’d get a few benches, trash cans, and landscaping out of the deal. The City estimates the potential reduction in maintenance costs at $2400-$3000 per year (which is easily offset by parking meter revenue).
In a vacuum, that might sound like a good deal. But streets don’t exist in vacuums, and neither do individual City Council decisions—this one included.
Read the rest at The Barber Brief.
