Greg Brooks appointed to Carson City Planning Commission
Submitted by Kelsey Penrose on Fri, 01/05/2024 - 9:00am
Carson City Supervisors voted unanimously to appoint applicant Greg Brooks to the Carson City Planning Commission Thursday.
There were three applications submitted in total from Brooks, Dawn Calhoun, and Maxine Nietz.
Brooks is the president of the nonprofit Better Cities Project, which is focused on “practical policy ideas for local government.” Prior to this he worked for 30 years on public engagement and education issues including planning and development, and previously worked as a journalist covering local government.
“Housing, planning, zoning and growth issues are a big part of my day-to-day work; part of the value I could bring to Carson City is a broader picture of what cities across the country are struggling with, prioritizing and solving,” Brooks wrote in his application.
Brooks said that he believes its important to create a practical, implementable vision for bringing more housing, particularly single-family starter homes and workforce housing, into the community.
Supervisors questioned the applicants on various items relating to the planning commission and its duties, including how to balance public opinion, what sort of goals the applicants have, and more.
Brooks said that he is interested in looking at property rights, and wants to support the ability of people to develop and improve their land and property. He said that “chasing a chimera of balance if it means sacrificing someone’s property rights is problematic.”
When it comes to growth management, Brooks said what’s most important is not voting “yes” or “no” on a ten story condo in the middle of downtown, but rather, how the project could effect everything connected to the system at large, especially infrastructure.
“Our infrastructure is struggling, but we aren’t alone,” Brooks said, and went on to discuss how nationwide, cities are dealing with how to upkeep their infrastructure issues and costs.
When asked what he believed were good and bad decisions recently made by planning, Brooks said that he was disappointed in the community at large when it came to the denial of the meat processing facility in East Carson, which was eventually overturned by the courts.
“I was disappointed to the community’s reaction to the (meat processing plant) simply because we have laws and ordinances regarding externalities,” Brooks said. “If something is too noisy, there’s a way to deal with that; if you’re impacting the water the air the environment around you we have ways to deal with it. There were many people who would not be impacted at all getting very enraged about it. That was disappointing to me.”
Brooks said he applauded the measures the city was taking to get construction costs under control as industries increase in pricing.
Supervisors were unanimous in their decision to appoint Brooks, stating that while they appreciated all of the applicants, they were most impressed by Brooks responses as well as his professional experience and qualifications in the field.
“A fresh set of eyes can be good for all of us,” Mayor Lori Bagwell said.
