Supervisors unanimously approve Palisades Tahoe development

On By Littum

OLYMPIC VALLEY, Calif. – The Placer County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to approve seven Village at Palisades Tahoe Specific Plan items Tuesday night, allowing Palisades Tahoe to move forward with construction of a world-class village and base area.

“I want to commend Alterra,” said Supervisor Cindy Gustafson, referring to Alterra Mountain Company owner and developer of Palisades Tahoe. “…I understand why you are angry. I understand why you are skeptical, but I think this is the best program we can present. And with the commitments I heard tonight and continuing to monitor the benchmarking that will come through development phases, I believe we can make great progress together. So I support moving forward.”

The packed meeting lasted more than nine hours, with extensive public comments for and against the project.

Since 2011, the plan has been reduced.

It will have 1,493 bedrooms, 58% fewer than allowed under current zoning. It limits building heights and setbacks, more than doubles the area of ​​conservation area, and most will be built on existing car parks and other disturbed land.

“We appreciate the board’s decision, the extensive, extensive work by Placer County staff and their environmental consultants, and the community’s involvement in this process,” said Amy Ohran, Palisades Tahoe president and COO. “We are pleased to move forward with the creation of much-needed workforce housing in the valley in the first phase and for our community to begin to benefit from the infrastructure and other improvements this plan will deliver.”

The specific plan for the Village at Palisades Tahoe includes 93.3 acres of land in Olympic Valley, including the 84.5-acre main village site and an 8.8-acre east parcel. The plan proposes up to 850 lodging units including hotel, condo hotel, shared ownership and timeshare units.

It has 287 new beds for employees in addition to 99 replacement beds. This deed-restricted employee accommodation will be completed in the first phase and preserved in perpetuity. The Palisades Tahoe is estimated to cost $50 million.

It also includes a maximum of 206,211 square meters of commercial space, including non-residential operations and the Mountain Adventure Center (MAC). The MAC is intended to be a state-of-the-art indoor/outdoor year-round mountain training facility combined with a family adventure camp for the community, Team Palisades Tahoe ski and snowboard teams and resort guests. It may also include conference rooms, performing arts area(s), skier/guest services, employee spaces, and other resort amenities such as a pool and hot tub, a climbing wall, and agility activities.

There will be up to 450 new employee parking spaces, new day skier parking structures, extensive restoration of Washeshu Creek, new and expanded trails and trail improvements, a new seasonal playground and dog park, and a new fire station at the west end of the site. valley.

The plan funds transportation, tourism mitigation and other Olympic Valley and regional priorities.

In addition, Gustafson suggested creating a dedicated website for the project.

“We continue to hear the lack of confidence, unfortunately,” Gustafson said. “I think it would help the community feel that we are accountable and transparent in all these committees, that their vote is not one and done. That it is ongoing throughout the life of the project.”

Outgoing Supervisor Jim Holmes supported having a website so people can see how the process is going.

“I agree with the suggestions you (Gustafson) have made,” Holmes said. “There will be a lot of eyes on this project. Not only from our staff and environmentalists, but the community will be looking at this. We need to make sure we follow through on the plan.”

Supervisor Shanti Landon spoke the pro, con and vague public comments that provided a balance of perspectives.

“While it’s not perfect, there will be issues that I’m sure will come up in any adaptive management that happens,” Landon said. “I really think the applicant has gone above and beyond the requests that have been made of them, removed the water park, provided a new fire station, put millions into transport and also benefited the area environmentally.”

Landon said that deep in her heart, she truly believes that the entire community will benefit from this project.

“I’m hoping that as a county and as a supervisor we can make sure that we hold the applicant accountable and that we make sure that they’re up to the standards that they’ve said they’re going to do,” Landon said. “So with Supervisor Gustafson, I also support all of the requests you’ve made as well, including the technical advisory committee.”

Holmes praised the staff and the applicant for addressing public transportation, construction noise, hydrology, water quality, air quality and wildfire evacuation.

“I’m really, really pleased with the hard work that the applicant has done and our staff has done,” Holmes said. “I appreciate all the people who came here and commented on this project. So anyway, this is where I land and I support this project.”

Supervisor Bonnie Gore said this project balances private property rights along with community concerns.

“The investment in our community here is sorely needed,” Gore said. “It’s not going to happen without somebody being able to come in and do development and pay for the infrastructure so that the funds are available to our community to do the infrastructure, to do the much-needed projects that we need in this society.”

Gore said this is a beautiful place to live and that’s why so many of the voters live here.

“You worry about it, we worry about it, but we want to see this community thrive,” Gore said.

Gore said this is a balanced approach.

“We’re finally getting to a place where a plan that was started more than 70 years ago will finally have an opportunity to move forward,” Gore said. “We’re going to see some great investment in this community and a wonderful resort that people can come and appreciate and enjoy. And then our residents benefit from the impacts financially … so I support the project.”

Board Chairwoman Suzanne Jones asked Placer County Deputy Executive Director Stephanie Holloway to talk about economic community benefits.

“So all in all, if you take the inflow minus the revenue, minus the expense, we come up with a net positive annual benefit of $13.5 million to the county, to the community from this project,” Holloway said. “It’s economically positive, economically beneficial … We already talked at length today about how these dollars are being reinvested, not just in services, but how they’re being reinvested in housing and transportation. Specifically, a large portion of TOT (Transient Occupancy Tax) that is generated, for not only transportation projects, but programming, our TART system, microtransit. And then there are a lot of services that are delivered with those dollars as well.”

Jones agreed with Gustafson to reduce STRs (short term rentals).

“If we’re going to build more lodging, I don’t see the need to maintain short-term rental lodging as much,” Jones said. “Just kind of one-on-one or whatever we think is appropriate. I’m all for that. And I really like the idea of ​​a website for progress on the project and on the development and maybe something like a Q&A site , where voters can ask you questions. I mean, you’ll get plenty of them, I’m sure.”

In response, Keep Tahoe Blue/League to Save Lake Tahoe political director Gavin Feiger said the league is certainly disappointed with the outcome.

“The environmental impact report, the environmental assessment refuses to acknowledge the obvious impacts on Tahoe,” Feiger said. “There’s a development agreement that promises some benefits that show there are impacts to Tahoe that need to be addressed. But the promises in that development agreement aren’t nearly enough to offset the impacts of thousands of additional cars flowing from the project to Lake Tahoe.”

Right now, the league is looking at the next steps, Feiger said. There are still a few hearings coming up as there was a piece they were unable to approve around fire evacuation and safety.

“We are grateful to all of our Tahoe supporters for writing and speaking to the board on behalf of the league,” Feiger said.

CEO Tom Mooers said Sierra Watch is weighing its strategic options.

“For us, the most important thing to remember is that although we spent almost 10 hours hearing about Alterra’s checkbook and what payments they had to make, we understand that Tuesday’s hearing avoided the heart of the matter, the enormous size and scope of their development project, and what it would mean to Tahoe,” Mooers said.

It would increase traffic, pollution, evacuation times in addition to creating a greater need for housing, he said.

Mooers called out Alterra for removing the fire safety item from the board’s agenda at the last minute.

“Just like eight years ago, when regulators approved this plan in 2016, this is not the end of the road,” Mooers said. “The supervisors’ decision marks just the next phase in our efforts to keep Tahoe true. Stay tuned for our next steps along that path.”

For more information, go to future.palisadestahoe.com