Washoe County forecasts indicate a net plus of 100,000 people living in the area over the next 20 years, bringing Northern Nevada to the half a million mark before the halfway point of the 21st century.
The County Commission recently approved a new master plan which tries to combine keeping access to our beautiful surroundings while having infrastructure and sufficient, adequate housing to match our ongoing population growth.
With accessible housing already in short supply, and income gains not matching the rise of rent costs and home values, that need will only escalate to tens of thousands more units.
Not surprisingly, real estate figures to be a booming industry in the coming years, along with finance and services.
But what about the people already currently here? How can they enjoy all that Northern Nevada has to offer without feeling they are being priced out, as was repeated at the start of public comments at a City Council meeting today?
The priority should be to create the conditions for a range of housing opportunities and choices, but especially for the working class, students and seniors now struggling on their fixed income.
This means an aggressive combination of incentivizing affordable housing, and not luxury units, exploring partnerships with non-profits to build new accessible housing, implementing rent stabilization and other measures to protect tenants, boosting protection laws to prevent discrimination and unfair eviction practices, pursuing more community land trust models, having policies to prevent the loss of existing affordable units, by providing assistance for maintenance and renovations, revising zoning to allow for higher density developments, developing more supportive housing for seniors, establishing more programs to assist seniors on fixed income with home repairs, having more down payment assistance programs and rental subsidies for low income individuals and families, and expanding housing voucher programs.
Those should be our absolute budget priorities.
Until our elected officials walk that walk instead of just talking it occasionally, and then spending hours meeting with developers and listening to their demands, rather than to what is being said during public comment, our housing crisis and gentrification will only sharpen, while the Biggest Little City loses its edge and soul. The walk also needs to involve the community every step of the way, so that it’s a collective effort.
At Our Town Reno, we would also like to see more walkable and vibrant downtown and midtown type spaces, more public transport, even free, as other cities are trying out, while allowing residents to foster distinctive neighborhoods, homegrown and quaint, with thriving, small locally owned businesses, rather than being marketed into artificial, gaudy, money grubbing, shallow districts.