After years of bickering over this controversial project, the Placer County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to approve the Village at Palisades Tahoe Specific Plan.
The plan will allow Palisades Tahoe to complete what it terms a “world-class village and base area to complement and support its world-class mountain.”
Palisades Tahoe believes the plan also stands to benefit the broader North Lake Tahoe community with significant funding for regional workforce housing initiatives, transportation, tourism mitigation, and other Olympic Valley and regional priorities. The plan proposes up to 850 lodging units, including a mixture of hotel, condo hotel, fractional ownership, and timeshare units.
Palisades Tahoe is owned by Alterra Mountain Company, a Colorado-based corporation that purchased the former Squaw Valley ski resort in 2010.
Local groups say enlarging the Palisades Tahoe footprint would lead to an uptick in traffic and the potential for lengthy wildfire evacuation delays and water supply issues. Another chief concern is gridlock on the modest mountain roadways leading to and through Olympic Valley. Reportedly, the plan could add possibly 3,000 daily car trips on nearby highways, according to one estimate.
The League to Save Lake Tahoe, which opposes the plan, said the amount of car traffic generated by a large resort in relative proximity to the Tahoe basin could jam up roads miles away near the lake and worsen the lake’s famous water clarity.
“This isn’t about just the fate of this individual development proposal, but arguably the future of Tahoe,” said Tom Mooers, executive director of the nonprofit conservation group Sierra Watch, which has fought the development for years. “Instead of talking about what makes sense for Tahoe, we’re in defensive posture against a project that pretty much everyone agrees is too big to move forward.”
The plan, which was downsized over time to incorporate community feedback, will result in 58 percent fewer bedrooms than allowed under the current zoning for the Village site – 1,493 vs. 3,554. It also restricts building heights and setbacks, more than doubles the acres of conservation preserve. The majority of it will be built on existing parking lots and other disturbed land.
“We appreciate the Board’s decision, the extensive, comprehensive work of Placer County staff and their environmental consultants, and the involvement of the community in this process,” said Amy Ohran, Palisades Tahoe president and COO. “We’re excited to move forward with the much-needed creation of in-valley workforce housing in the first phase, and for our community to start benefiting from the infrastructure and other improvements this plan will deliver.”
The project also includes new, dedicated in-valley workforce housing that will house up to 300 employees, up to 450 new employee parking spaces and additional new parking structures that will maintain day skier parking. It also involves extensive restoration of Washeshu Creek, new and expanded trails and trail enhancements, a new seasonal playground and dog park, and a new fire station in the west end of the valley.
Many skeptics view the project as a bid by an out-of-state corporation (Alterra Mountain Company) to exploit a celebrated ski area while leaving the local community with the burdens that comes with more visitors populating the historic valley.
Many Tahoe locals wearing purple shirts branded with “Tahoe Truckee True,” the opposition’s slogan, spoke out against the project. Some held up signs reading, “No Way Out” and “Alterra Proposes Pollution.”
However, Placer Supervisor Shani Landon defended the board’s decision.
“I don’t think that just the corporation is benefiting from this. I really, truly, deep-down-in-my-heart believe the whole community is going to benefit from this,” Landon said.
