By SANDY EVENS HALL
From sidewalks to new lodging development, the evolution of Tahoe City has not been an overnight affair. It has been a long, slow, and often challenging process for many committed citizens, organizations, and agencies.
Let’s take a little trip back in time to explore the intentions that have led us on this path. In the mid-1990s, a group of community-minded people got together to bring in a team of consultants to analyze the competitive gap between North Lake Tahoe and other resort communities in the West. This team outlined some very measurable competitive disadvantages that the area faced and proposed a strategy to catch up. This resulted in the creation of the North Lake Tahoe Resort Association in 1996 and the passage of an additional 2 percent of Transient Occupant Tax (TOT) to help pay for the services and amenities identified.
In 1997, many of these same people came up with the idea of changing the mud holes in front of businesses into sidewalks, complete with curbs, parking, and landscaping. The vision of this group went beyond having safer and more convenient navigation for pedestrians. They were thinking much farther into the future and believed that public infrastructure investment would lead to private investment by local business owners and developers.
Fast forward to 2012, and in spite of the public investment in sidewalks, additional Common Beach improvements, the Lakeside Trail, and more, there was still no significant private investment as had been envisioned. A glimmer of hope appeared in the drafting of a new Regional Plan from the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency that would provide some incentive to private investors in order to achieve environmental gains. It was passed on Dec. 12, 2012, opening the doors for revising the county area and community plans around the lake.
Also in 2012, approximately 45 acres serving as the Tahoe City Golf Course became available to purchase. A consortium including the North Lake Tahoe Resort Association, Placer County, and the Truckee Tahoe Airport District joined the Tahoe City Public Utility District in raising the $4.7 million necessary to purchase the land. As stated in the memorandum of understanding between the funding partners, the “NLTRA invests funds to provide infrastructure and to promote the economic vitality and redevelopment of the area.”
A further goal stated in the memorandum for NLTRA and Placer County was to “provide a potential site for the construction of visitor amenity capital improvements within walking distance of the downtown Tahoe City businesses, services, and recreational amenities.”
We recognized that with the new regional plan there were opportunities to utilize this 45-acre parcel for the benefit of properties in the commercial core area of Tahoe City such as providing increased density, coverage, and parking via transfer of development rights. To recognize these assets, changes to the area plans being drafted by Placer County were required. Negotiations to bring only the land under the golf course clubhouse into the town center took many meetings and resulted in a deed restriction on the remainder of the golf course land in perpetuity, restricting it to recreational use.
In addition to the regional plan incentives, Placer County adopted an economic incentive plan that further encouraged development through financing of parking and tourist accommodation units.
And that brings us to the present moment where the Placer County Area Plan and the proposed Tahoe City Lodge are completing their environmental review process and moving toward adoption. This new hotel, made possible by using some of the development rights from the golf course property, represents a start of the private investment that was envisioned but not realized for the last 40 years. Because of the thoughtful contribution of many citizens through a multitude of meetings, I believe that the arduous process of evolving to this point in time has been worth the effort. The intentions of many to improve the vitality in the core of this small community stand to reach fruition and will reverberate through the North Lake Tahoe region for decades to come.
~ Sandy Evans Hall is CEO of the North Lake Tahoe Resort Association.
