Sierra Club Tahoe Area Group's letter to:

On behalf of our over 1,000 members of the Sierra Club’s Tahoe Area Group, we request that the Latitude 39 Residential Tower Project be pulled from the consent calendar and that a public review process be initiated for this project. Latitude 39 proposes construction of a new seven-story, 95 foot tall structure with 40 new luxury residential condominium units and ground floor commercial area totaling 230,145 square feet.

Lack of Public Process

The public has not been made aware of this project, which points to an extreme lack of transparency that has led to anger and distrust among the community. As already noted by some of you in previous Governing Board meetings, the level of distrust is at an all-time high. The types of back-room negotiations with the developer for this project is a classic example of why that distrust exists.

The first time the public hears about these types of projects is a week before they are proposed to be adopted and only if the members of the public happen to review the 100s of pages of the Governing Board Agenda Packet where the details of the project are located. Furthermore, the Initial Environmental Checklist (IEC) prepared by the developer is not even included in the Packet; it is provided only by a link, which can easily be overlooked. This lack of transparent governance in a place like Lake Tahoe is very disappointing and unacceptable.

Section 1.7 of the IEC states that a presentation was made to “the property owners within the HDTD [High Density Tourist District] as well as management of the Lake Tahoe Resort Hotel and Heavenly Mountain Resort” on January 18, 2022. Unsurprisingly, attendees were in favor of the project. Also unsurprisingly, the IEC, prepared by the developer, checks all the boxes with a No, indicating no environmental impacts.

The recent Placer County Commissioner meeting on December 8, 2022, regarding the County’s proposed Tahoe Basin Area Plan amendments, showed the level of distrust and concern with Placer County and TRPA by many residents who opposed this type of fast-tracking process and backroom deal making with developers. In Placer County’s case, County staff worked for 2 years with certain business interests without including the public, only to try to fast-track the amendments skirting CEQA regulations in the process by using categorical exemptions for wide-reaching and potentially significant environmental impacts from transportation, noise, air quality, greenhouse gas emissions, water quality, and scenic resources.

The deterioration in the public review process has also occurred because of “stakeholder working groups,” whereby selected individuals or organizations are included in these working groups to discuss and make decisions about a variety of issues to the exclusion of the general public. The most recent example of this back-room deal making is TRPA’s “Threshold Update Initiative Stakeholders Working Group,” which met December 12, 2022. The only public notice was a posting in the newspaper on November 25, 2022. No information about this important meeting was provided on the TRPA website despite the fact that a select few will be making important decisions about revising environmental threshold carrying capacities. The information posted once in the Tahoe Tribune states that “Possible Direction /Action” will be taken. This is an example of an egregious lack of public involvement in important decision- making processes involving critical environmental issues.

Lack of Workforce and Affordable Housing

After allowing an increase in density for accessory dwelling units to placate business interests claiming the need for workforce housing, this project allows solely luxury development. Why is the TRPA allowing more and more luxury development and large mega-mansions (those on Herbert in South Lake Tahoe, for instance) if affordable and workforce housing is what is needed? If increased density in town centers is allowed, then there should be a reduction in the allowance of luxury residential developments. There should be, at a minimum, a substantial workforce housing component to all large development projects like this one moving forward if workforce housing is truly needed. Instead of allowing more development of ADUs and residential high-rises, how about installing rent control ordinances?

Development Boom

It appears that there is presently a massive development boom being allowed without regard for the limited carrying capacity within the Tahoe Basin, which is what the TRPA is mandated to control. The present level of development is unsustainable. People who live in the Basin are tired of gridlock on the roads and TRPA continuing to allow more and more development with no regard to the subsequent increases in density, the Basin’s carrying capacity limits, sustainability and Lake Tahoe’s declining water quality.

Transportation and greenhouse gas emission impacts alone should send this project back to the drawing board and the public be provided ample opportunity to evaluate a much more thorough review of cumulative impacts of increased development. Although the project is in the HDTD of the South Shore Area Plan, nothing in the IES for this redevelopment project indicates how this project would “improve environmental conditions.”

The community does not want the rural nature of Lake Tahoe to be redesigned into another Vail or Aspen. Comments such as “they don’t want to see North Tahoe become like South Lake Tahoe” at the recent Placer County Commissioners meeting also serve to point out the undesirability of the mega-development that has been allowed to occur on the South Shore. Basin residents generally do not want to see the level of luxury development that is currently in the works in Placer County.

The same can be said for those that live in South Lake Tahoe and Stateline. The Tahoe Area Group provided comments to Placer County prior to the commission hearing. Some of the same points we made in our comments to Placer County apply to this project, including the high fire danger and evacuation concerns in an increasingly populated Basin with limited roadways in and out of the area, the need for cumulative impacts analysis and the need for greater emphasis on the health of the lake as opposed to appeasing high-end developers.

The current trend toward placating developers is contrary to the Tahoe Compact, which states that the TRPA was established because “increasing urbanization is threatening the ecological values of the region and threatening the public opportunities for use of the public lands.” We contend that current trends toward ever more urbanization and crowding in the Basin is contrary to the purpose of the TRPA.

Specific issues with the Latitude 39 project

The format of TRPA’s IEC is fundamentally flawed from the outset due to the lack of analysis of transportation, density, greenhouse gas emissions and water quality impacts. This parcel was previously in a Stream Environment Zone (SEZ) as noted on TRPA’s map. Therefore, there is likely groundwater at shallow depths. The IEC provides no substantiating evidence of groundwater depths for the site but claims that groundwater will not be intercepted at the proposed depth below ground surface for the project, eight (8) feet. A Soils/Hydrologic Scoping Report is referenced, but not provided. What time of year did the groundwater assessment occur if at all and why is this not part of the IEC? Water quantity is also an issue that has not been adequately addressed in the IEC. In a multi-year drought, is it really time to make more demands on our water supplies? Other types of analyses are also not provided or were not performed. Appendix A, Scenic Evaluation Report on page 69 is blank. Likewise, Appendix B, Air Quality Emission Modeling Results, and Appendix C, LSC Transportation Study, are also blank.

Lastly, mitigation measures should not be allowed to be bought. Between allowing development rights to be traded and mitigation measures to be bought, the public is left scratching their heads as to how these complicated schemes and banking systems truly help Lake Tahoe, which is in an ever-increasing environmental free-fall (see UC Davis Report).