Sierra Club Tahoe Area Group's letter to:

• Kaye Moroles-O'Neil, Douglas County Community Development 
• Julie Regan and Kimberly Caringer, Tahoe Regional Planning Agency  

Subject: Douglas County South Shore Area Plan Town Hall 

Representing the Tahoe Area Group of the Sierra Club, please see the following comments on  Douglas County’s South Shore Area Plan amendments presented to the public on June 13, 2024. 

The Sierra Club objects to the proposed 85 feet of height for the new hospital in Highway 50  next to Kahle Drive. This astounding height is beyond what is allowed by the Tahoe Regional  Planning Agency (TRPA) in their Phase 2 housing amendments, which is being contested by the  Mountain Area Preservation. Although the December 2023 Phase 2 amendments are being  challenged in court, the building must not “exceed a total building height of 56 feet.” Please  revise the height maximum for the proposed hospital. 

The height for a new hospital in this location is also unwarranted given the much lower  population located in the Douglas County portion of the Tahoe Basin, 5,600 in 2020, versus a  population of over 30,000 in the El Dorado County portion surrounding the current Barton  Hospital. It would make much more economic and environmental sense to expand the Barton  Hospital given the population disparity in these two Counties within the Tahoe Basin. It also  makes more sense from a scenic standpoint since the site in Stateline is much closer to the Lake  and is . Building a massive hospital in Douglas County would only increase the Vehicle Miles  Traveled (VMT) in the Basin and create more nightmarish traffic gridlock and further  environmental degradation to Lake Tahoe. 

The hospital proposed at Stateline is in formerly SEZ (previously Kahle Meadows) habitat. As  such, the proposed site will be prone to flooding and interception of groundwater if  underground facilities are planned. The nearby Tahoe Beach Club was allowed to build an 

underground facility and is currently undergoing severe problems groundwater interception  and requires pumping to remove the groundwater, creating greenhouse gas emissions. If the  proposed hospital plans include underground parking or other underground facilities, these  plans should be examined carefully by an independent hydrogeologist. Furthermore, if any pumping of underground facilities will be required, this plan should be eliminated and no  underground facilities should be permitted. 

The Sierra Club also objects to the proposed South Shore Area Plan amendments that would  remove current affordable housing in lower Kingsbury and expand the town center to include  more tourist accommodations and entertainment. This is completely nonsensical and  antithetical to the lengthy, voluminous discussion surrounding the need for affordable housing  the Basin, for which the TRPA has proclaimed is the alleged purpose of TRPA’s housing  amendments. The 30 long-established mobile homes on Manor Drive off Kingsbury Grade Road  provides necessary affordable housing. Conversion to a “Commercial Town Center” would  displace people who likely work at minimally paying jobs in the casino area and require them to  move out of the Basin. This would in turn require them to commute to work, further increasing  the VMT at a time when reducing VMT is necessary and required. The people living in this  mobile home park should be allowed to stay. We do not need additional tourist  accommodations and entertainment in this area. 

We additionally ask that the amendments to the South Shore Area Plan (SSAP) be provided to  the public in a red-line, strike-out version on the County’s website. Without this, it is impossible  for people to distinguish between what was previously in the plan from 2013 and what is new.  Please make it easier for the public to understand what is being proposed. 

Please also confirm that no federal money is involved in any of the proposed projects that  would result from these amendments to the SSAP. 

Thank you for your consideration of these comments for the South Shore Area Plan amendments. 

Tobi Tyler, Sierra Club’s Tahoe Area Group Vice Chair  

Email: tylertahoe1@gmail.com