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Commission approves Washoe County School District plan for new elementary at Pine Middle School campus
Summary
The commission approved a conditional use permit for a new elementary school to replace Pine Middle and Smithridge elementary sites, with traffic mitigations, reoriented parent drop‑off, and lighting commitments to reduce neighborhood impacts.
The Reno City Planning Commission unanimously approved a conditional use permit on July 15 for a new elementary school to be built on the Pine Middle School campus that will replace existing neighborhood schools and consolidate elementary enrollment.
Leah Piccati, an associate planner with the City of Reno, described the proposal as a roughly 100,000‑square‑foot, two‑story elementary facility sited on a 16‑acre campus, with an anticipated usable enrollment figure used for traffic analysis of about 696–700 students and a maximum building capacity cited near 865. "For the purposes of the traffic impact study we used about 700 students," said Theresa Paulson, director of design for the Washoe County School District, explaining that special‑education program configurations reduce usable classroom capacity from the theoretical maximum.
The school design shifts the primary parent drop‑off area to Neil Road and separates bus loading on the Filbert side to reduce vehicle conflicts. Project mitigations shown to commissioners include raised midblock crossings, flashing beacons, pedestrian crossing enhancements and expanded parent‑pick‑up staging. The district and its consultants said parking for the project would exceed code requirements (93 proposed vs. 39 required) and that open landscaping and existing athletic fields would be largely preserved.
A nearby resident, Nicholas Moss, expressed concern about nighttime light spill and building height and asked that lighting be shielded to avoid shining into backyards. Stacy Huggins of Wood Rogers, representing the district, said the district would commit on the record to use shields or refractors on new fixtures and that field lighting is not being increased in a way that would change current field function.
Commissioners asked for and received clarification on enrollment numbers and traffic assumptions. Several commissioners expressed support for the project as a community amenity, and Commissioner Sean McCoy moved to approve the CUP subject to the conditions listed in the staff report; the motion passed unanimously.
The commission’s approval allows the project to proceed subject to the listed conditions, which include standard site plan, traffic mitigation and geotechnical requirements. The applicant agreed to work with staff to finalize lighting language and accepted a condition to include lighting shields to reduce spillover onto adjacent residential yards.
Next steps: final engineering, building permits and coordination with city public works for traffic and pedestrian improvements; the district will continue design and outreach as it proceeds toward construction.
