On Wednesday, the Reno City Council met to hear plans and public comment regarding an ordinance that would allow Accessory Dwelling Units to be built on plots with 5,000 square feet of land at a minimum.
After hearing public comment and discussing with council members, we were able to speak with Senior Management Analyst of the city of Reno, Grace Mackedon, who made the presentation of the plan, about some of the decisions.
"Some of the changes that (we) would like to see is prohibition on short-term rentals taken out," she said.
This would allow for these local ADUs to be rented on a short-term basis, or in other words, for less than a 28-day rental.
Some other amendments to the plan, which the city council brought up, would include size restrictions, which affect the ADU being attached or detached from the main residence, as well as not making up 50% of the overall plot of land.
This plan to ordinance ADUs was unanimously voted against in 2018, whereas it was unanimously voted for on Wednesday.
Mackedon touched on this as well.
"We are really mindful of how many times it's been tried and failed," she said. "Reno's a very unique place. And so, I think we get a lot of very passionate opinions and a lot of passionate people at these meetings, which is great. So, we wanted to make sure we gave everyone ample opportunity to participate."
After hearing from the public, some discussions were had regarding notifying neighbors when one of these ADUs is being constructed.
Mackedon discussed how important the effect on neighbors is and how it plays into these plans.
"Change is always scary," she said. "But especially when you're increasing density in some of these neighborhoods, I think people are nervous of what's going to happen, how it's going to change their neighborhood character. We're very careful when we drafted this ordinance to make sure that there were protections in place for things like architecture."
While some ADUs in Reno might already be illegally built, Mackedon also mentioned how the city will be able to work with homeowners to retroactively legalize them.
"Maybe there's people who are illegally building ADUs, or they built a guest quarters and then added the kitchen after the fact," she said. "We already have that process code. If you didn't know you needed a building permit for a fence building, we allow you to come in after the fact and permit that building, provided it meets all of our standards."
With this unanimous vote to move forward, this ordinance will once again need to be reconvened at the city council sometime this fall, where it will be discussed once more and voted on again.
This means neighbors could be seeing ADUs or "granny flats" in their neighborhoods as early as 2026.
