Land Use, Business License, and Nuisance Codes Complaint Procedures

Complaint Procedures

Thank you for your interest in maintaining the standards required by Washoe County land use, business license, and nuisance codes. Since our Code Enforcement Officers (CEOs) cannot be everywhere at the same time, your assistance in identifying problem areas is invaluable. Additionally, Washoe County Board of County Commissioners’ policy is to undertake compliance efforts only when complaints are received and to not initiate “proactive” codes compliance. The information you provide on a code compliance issue will allow us to investigate the matter and to take appropriate steps if warranted.

There are several methods to report a land use, business license, or nuisance code violation or complaint:

Report the complaint on-line through Washoe311
Call the Code Compliance hotline at 328.6106
Mail a letter to:

Washoe County Community Services Department Attn: Code Compliance
1001 E. Ninth Street Reno, NV 89521

E-Mail us at Code-Enforcement@washoecounty.us

Washoe County encourages you to use the on-line complaint portal. If you cannot report the compliant on-line, then please provide the following information as part of your complaint:

Your name, address, and phone number;
The address of the potential violation;
The violator’s name, if known;
The type(s) of violation(s); and,
Any details that might assist the CEO when investigating the complaint.

You may report a complaint and remain anonymous. However, code compliance staff prefers to have your name, address, and phone number to initiate a compliance case. We will use your personal information to contact you if we have additional questions, to provide a status of the case, if we determine that the complaint is not within our jurisdiction (e.g., falls within the Reno or Sparks boundaries), or if the matter is not within our scope of authority.

Your personal information (specifically, your name, address, and phone number) becomes part of the public record pertaining to the compliance case and will be released as part of the case file when fulfilling a public records request from a citizen. In certain cases, your personal information may be treated as sensitive information if the compliance case is being handled through the criminal enforcement process. In these types of cases, your information will not be released pursuant to a public records request until the case is closed.