On Thursday Placer County’s fast-tracked code amendment process was paused for the moment. Instead of voting, the Planning Commission decided they needed more information.  Whew!  There were overwhelming objections to the lack of environmental analysis, 71.5’ high buildings, more density, reduced parking and continuous building walls up to 500’ long (more than the length of a city block) to name some top complaints eloquently outlined by Mountain Area Preservation, North Tahoe Preservation Alliance, Tahoe Area Sierra Club, League to Save Lake Tahoe, Friends of the West Shore and Tahoe Sierra Clean Air.  Scores of private citizens showed up and called in to comment.  Excellent local effort.

John Hester, the big gun from TRPA, showed up.  Turns out Placer County has been working in concert with TRPA on this disastrous experiment for years.  TRPA wants these code amendments all around the Lake.  Placer County was to be the “poster child” for these ill-conceived ideas.  The public has had a mere 1.5 months to sort through 800 pages.

And no one at the County spoke to most of the 30+ locals that participated for 2+years in the Area Plan teams hashing out the density, height and uses.  They spoke to 7 developers.  Anyway, when the team’s work was done Placer County ignored the Kings’ Beach Team’s desire for 48’ maximum height on the mountain side of SR28 and 36’ on the lake side.  The Community must fight again to save our towns from becoming Miami.

Beside TRPA, support came from the other primary author of this bad plan, the Prosperity Council.
The Downtown Association, Mountain Housing Council, and a few developers of the 14 projects currently on the books spoke in favor.

Stayed tuned.  We have to continue to stand up.  TRPA on Wednesday, 12/14 at 9 am will begin the process of changing the Regional Plan. The Regional Plan Implementation Committee will be on zoom or send comments to Jacob Stock at jstock@trpa.gov.