After 26 years of trying to get a bike trail connecting Kings Beach to Tahoe City, residents thought a deal had been reached recently between Placer County and the North Tahoe Public Utility District, allowing years of work and planning to become a reality. However, it looks like the deal may have fallen through, with the public utility district scheduled to discuss the issue in closed session on Nov. 12 as Moonshine Ink went to press.
In 1988, the California Tahoe Conservancy gave the NTPUD a $1.86 million grant to acquire land and build a 6.7-mile multi-purpose trail. Two years later, the utility district bought the Firestone Property, which is an 85-acre piece of land on top of Dollar Hill adjacent to the Highlands neighborhood, to build the trail. After securing easements, conducting environmental impact reports, and holding meetings, the PUD said funding dried up and the U.S. Forest Service required additional environmental documents, so the project was halted. In May 2010, the NTPUD returned $587,000 of unspent grant money back to the conservancy and turned over the environmental work to the CTC.
In the meantime, Placer County secured $3.4 million in federal grant funds to build the trail and asked the utility district last spring for the property, which the district denied. On Sept. 30, the conservancy sent the NTPUD a letter stating that the district had until Dec. 1 to submit “either a signed agreement between the NTPUD and the county acceptable to the conservancy, or NTPUD’s own work plan, schedule, and commitment to fund the project,” or risk having the conservancy take back the property.
“Given the NTPUD’s lack of progress on the project, we have no choice but to conclude that NTPUD is no longer committed to the project or to fulfilling the conditions of the grant, and to seek to recover our grant funds, the property, or other appropriate remedies,” stated the letter from CTC Executive Director Patrick Wright to NTPUD General Manager Paul Schultz.
In an Oct. 20 interview, Schultz told Moonshine Ink that the district was still interested in building the bike trail and maintaining the property. He said the Dec. 1 deadline would not be enough time to prepare a work plan for the trail, so other avenues would need to be considered.
“It’s been misconstrued that we didn’t want to do a bike trail,” Schultz said of returning the funds to the CTC. “That was not our intention when we handed over the money. We didn’t know they were going to take over … The bike trail is a great asset to the community. We’d like to be part of it. Mostly, we want a bike trail.”
County Involvement
Placer County stepped forward several years ago and said it wanted to be the lead agency on the project, which would require a transfer of ownership of the Firestone Property. The county estimates it will cost $4.4 million to design, acquire right-of-way, and construct the 10-foot wide trail. In addition to the federal grant, the county has $285,000 in transient occupancy tax (TOT) funds, $200,000 in county dedication fees, and $500,000 in CTC acquisition grant funding. If the property ownership can be resolved, the county hopes to start construction in summer 2015 with completion expected by that fall.
However, residents of the Highlands neighborhood, which is adjacent to the Firestone Property, believe the county has ulterior motives for the land. Placer County has been looking for a new location for its sheriff’s substation and court facility currently located at Burton Creek. While the county drew up a conceptual plan for a substation on the site, it says it has no intention of putting a jail there.
“While we asked an independent consulting firm to explore and offer a variety of ideas that might be suitable for the Firestone property,” which included a substation, “no one involved with the county has raised an idea of a jail, nor does a jail make operational or financial sense at Firestone, or in North Tahoe,” the county stated in a FAQ sheet.
For its part, the Highlands Homeowners Association asked the NTPUD to keep control of the property so there was no chance of having it developed. Current zoning allows for a variety of uses on the site — not just open space — opening up possibilities for development in the future.
“We would like the PUD to take over the property, because that is the best guarantee we have to keep it as is,” said Ray Garland, president of the Highlands Homeowners Association. “If it goes ultimately to the county…that is our concern.”
Property Ownership
The county and the utility district have been going back and forth with negotiations for months. Schultz said the PUD wanted grant funding for ADA upgrades in exchange for the property.
The PUD and District 5 Supervisor Jennifer Montgomery had come to an agreement in the first week of November that the utility district would take over the property and the county would try to transfer the federal grant funding to the PUD, or the county would build the trail and then hand the land back to the district. However, as of the morning of Nov. 12, there were talks that the deal was off, though it was unclear what happened in the negotiation process.
“I thought we had it resolved,” said Steve Kastan, Tahoe field representative for Montgomery. “So, here we are.”
NTPUD board member Sue Daniels also said she was surprised, but said more information would be given at that night’s board meeting. The CTC’s Wright said nothing has changed on the conservancy’s part and the Dec. 1 deadline is still in place.
“Our primary interest is getting the trail built,” Wright said. “We are less interested in who owns the property and we just want the trail built.”
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