After more than a year of work poured into the Master Plan update, Carson City Supervisors will finally vote on adopting its draft, marking the first major update since 2006.
The Carson City Board of Supervisors meeting will be held Thursday, May 1, 2025, beginning at 8:30 a.m. in the Bob Crowell Board Room of the Community Center located at 851 E. William St.
The Master Plan will act as the city’s blueprint for the next 20 years, which will guide decision making for growth, housing, economic development, natural resources and aesthetics among other goals and priorities.
See our full deep dive on the proposed plan in our December reporting here:
The first Master Plan was adopted by Carson City in 1958, followed by five additional updates — this will be the sixth update since its inception.
As part of the Master Plan update, work began in October 2023 to provide outreach and gain input from the community.
Since then, city staff has engaged in dozens of “listening sessions” meeting with the public, and both the Board of Supervisors and Planning Commission have held a number of meetings on its evolution.
Feedback from the community included a desire to protect open space and make sure it’s accessible, concerns with vacant buildings (especially the Ormsby House), the desire for new and diverse businesses to come into the city, positive response to the development of downtown and South Carson Street, and concern over the underutilized or unkempt properties north of downtown and on Highway 50.
The community also provided feedback that it wants future development to be compatible with existing neighborhoods, and expressed concerns over “declining neighborhoods.”
Residents said they want Carson City’s history to be honored, “During the listening sessions, there was a great deal of pride in the city’s historic and cultural resources,” the digest said.
Updates to the plan
Well managed growth: The updated master plan provides a greater linkage to the City’s growth management ordinance and assigns certain responsibilities to the Growth Management Commission; includes an urban service boundary that shows those properties served by both water and sewer; states the rezoning of land for intensive development outside of the urban services boundary is discouraged, and; creates a linkage with the hazard mitigation plan and discourages development in hazardous areas.
Open space: the updated master plan includes continuing to reinvest in established parks and recreation facilities, continuing to explore opportunities for cooperative park development where there is a sustainable funding source for maintenance of new parks, and continue to seek opportunities to enhance regional parks infrastructure convenient to all major quadrants of the community.
Economic vitality: The master plan update promotes a collaborative approach to economic development including coordinating planning efforts with major employers to ensure compatibility with their facility master plans and expansion efforts, leveraging statewide economic development efforts, and developing a strategy for attracting new and retaining existing businesses in Carson City.
Gateway corridors and downtown: The master plan update calls for the continued implementation of complete street improvements on William Street and North Carson Street and includes an expansion of the downtown area, recognizing there may be sub-areas within the downtown, thus different design standards.
Livable neighborhoods: The master plan update [calls for the adoption of] residential adjacency standards for infill projects next to residential neighborhoods, as well as updating language to allow greater flexibility in modifying legally non-conforming properties.
History and culture: The master plan update includes action items to update information about previously documented resources and to work with various tourism groups to expand heritage tourism opportunities.
A connected city: The master plan update includes the ongoing requirement of constructing on-site sidewalks as part of development projects, and of providing multi-use paths consistent with the Unified Pathways Master Plan. It also promotes road construction consistent with the City’s transportation plan.
View the Master Plan below:
Have a comment? Send it to publiccomment@carson.org ; to be included in the minutes, you must include your full name and send it in by 3 p.m. the day before the meeting.
Interesting in watching virtually? You can watch at www.carson.org/granicus, by tuning into cable channel 191, or via YouTube. We will also update this story with the stream via YouTube when it becomes available for easy viewing.
View the full agenda below.
