The Tahoe Living Housing and Community Revitalization Initiative
debuted at TRPA on July 27th . View Here. It sounds benign, but it’s not. It’s more height, more density, and more coverage for residential projects. They say Tahoe needs 4500 more homes.

Density inside town centers would increase from 25 to 40 units per acre. Outside a town center -15 to 25 units per acre. All multi-family lots could have 3 units per lot.

Coverage would increase from 35 to 70%.

Height would go from 3.5 stories to 4 or more.

TRPA Chair, Cindy Gustafson, our Placer County Supervisor, sees no set limit to allowable height. Cindy thinks height should be determined case by case. If there is a rock cliff behind the structure, why not go even higher? She feels the Lake Forest area is ripe for more height, more density, more coverage as a new Town Center.

Alexis Hill, the Washoe County Commissioner for Incline said she would go back to the County to see about changing the existing zoning.

One Governing Board member suggested developing on protected Conservancy land so as Ms. Gustafson worried “there would be a better return on investment for the developer” since then the land would be free.

The lack of affordable or workforce housing is not unique to Tahoe, but Tahoe is unique and can’t be fixed with the same broad-brush policy used in urbanized areas. Our infrastructure on the North Shore is mostly limited to 2 lanes and the Lake doesn’t have a workable transportation option. Only 1.4% use public transportation.

New Governing Board members are encouraged to follow the previous policies of the existing aging Board and Executive Director…to have “consistent messaging”. Unfortunately, this leaves no room for critical thinking or correction of past errors. Previous failed policies, such as the 2012 Regional Plan, are doubled down on. To many of us it appears TRPA has been captured by the developers.

Lake Tahoe is being monetized by the developers with the help of the agencies. A culture of more, more, more is being promoted and the big developers get a free pass on everything. To make matters worse, development control has been given back to the Counties with disastrous results. Just look at Boulder Bay’s Mass Grading Permit approval by Washoe County – given without a project and approved by Alexis Hill.

$2.5 billion dollars have been spent on Lake Tahoe, lake clarity, affordable housing, traffic impacts, and traffic congestion. Yet everything is measurably worse.

TRPA is not mandated or capable of providing affordable housing. Encouraging more units, coverage and height has only encouraged developers to promote projects too large for our infrastructure and too big for prudent experienced developers. It has enriched planning attorneys and developers who flipped projects with entitlements. And, if history has taught us anything, we all know what “direction” and a “pilot project” in TRPA-speak really means. It means it’s the new policy. Look at how Community Enhancement Projects formed the 2012 Regional Plan. More height, density and coverage was approved back then also.

TRPA NEEDS TO TAKE A STEP BACK. TRPA IS NOT EQUIPPED TO FIX HOUSING.

This process has begun. Approval of a new environmental review. It must be stopped. Join our efforts, go to NTPAC.org and sign our petition. Get involved.

Ann Nichols