Homewood dispute settled; project to start in 2015
By Dale Kasler, Sacramento Bee
Developers and environmentalists said Thursday they have settled a lawsuit that blocked a major redevelopment of Homewood Mountain Resort.
The settlement means the project, which will cost $400 million to $500 million, will break ground in spring 2015, said Art Chapman of JMA Ventures, the owner of Homewood.
The settlement came a year after a federal judge in Sacramento halted the Homewood project from going forward, saying the environmental impact statement needed revision. Under the settlement, the project will be scaled back somewhat. Under the settlement, JMA agreed to put certain parcels of land off-limits to development and cancel 13 of the housing units.
While the project was approved by Placer County officials and the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, it was hit with a lawsuit by the Sierra Club and Friends of the West Shore. U.S District Judge William Shubb halted the project last January, saying there were environmental deficiencies.
Just what isn’t needed on the west shore. Bringing in a new high-end multi-million dollar tourist destination and the traffic and disruption and paving over a large meadow will have serious negative consequences not to mention highway 89 is not well maintained and has a number of dangerous turns. This is another for profit for developer project that will be out of place and should have been denied. The west shore is the last of old Tahoe and should be very restricted from these kind of tourist developments.
Ah. YOU don’t like it, so you want government regulation to back you up and bully private companies into submission.
If the project ‘isn’t needed’ the private company wouldn’t be doing it. They’re not in the business of throwing money away. They think there will be a demand for their product. They can’t FORCE anybody to buy what they have to sell (unlike obamacare) so I suspect they’ve done enough research and planning that they’ll succeed.
I say, go for it. People on the west shore need jobs, too. Or do you believe that only independently wealthy people should be allowed to live there?
Good Job Dogula
Dog, your rhetoric is so bla bla bla. I bet it will be another hole in the ground end game. And do you really think the developers are gonna hire west shore workers? They are the wealthy folks you are putting down who are certainly not gonna dig diches for minimum wages. You live in a delusional world. And everyone I know that gets to have health care through the ACA are very glad for the opportunity. Its people like you that keep the foxnoise rhetoric going. Shame on you…move to russia if you think its so awfull having environmrntal oversight or programs for people that dont have the resources that you seem to have. Hope you dont have to collect SS or medical when you are an old woman. Wouldnt want you to be a hypocrit.
If it were put to a vote on the west shore, this project would fail, people come to the mountains for many reasons, seeing a huge new hotel and more houses isn’t usually one of them. Because a developer wants to build a project isn’t a reason to approve it although their lawyers will disagree. It reminds me of Mammoth Lakes and the town council approving a huge condo project in the flight path of the airport and the lawsuit from the developer that about bankrupted the town after the project was denied. If every developer was given the green light I can imagine every inch of land paved over. The majority on the west shore are second home owners who will not have any need for employment as they live elsewhere where incomes support their lifestyle. Who will work there? From what area or country? Then there is the cost of housing for employees which doesn’t exist for lower wage jobs on the west shore and will entail long commutes on a dangerous road for what I can see will be a real problem. I don’t see this tourist project contributing any quality of life to the area except to the out-of-town developers profits.
I wonder if there is something I’m not understanding about the development crowd. I see no emphasis on passive, non emission energy sources for buildings.
Around half the energy used in this country is for buildings. If every building in this country got off fossil fuels, maybe we will not import oil from countries who’s official policy is to kill all who don’t submit to them. We are paying these sharia law states $s to promote their stated policies of exterminating all peoples on this planet who don’t bow to the koran.
Not only are fossil fuels polluting our environment, the infrastructure needed to obtain, process, and distribute them is huge. Let’s save our fossil fuels for mobile devices(autos, airplanes, ect..), be more energy self sufficient, pollute less, have fewer health issues by using technologies such as passive solar. Who knows, it most likely will save $s, and we will be more comfortable and healthier.
Perry, I have a passive solar house. I do not pay for heat.
IT DOES NOT WORK ON MOST PARCELS.
1) If there are trees, it does not work
2) if there is an obstruction to the south, it does not work
3) if you need a non-glare coating on glass, it does not work
4) if you have more than two stories then you must have solar mass throughout the building. Unless you are a billionaire, that does not work.
So I think what you are missing is that IT DOES NOT WORK.
In some instances it does function well, I know, I have one. But for 90% of lots in Tahoe with trees, it does not work. It can never work on west shore because of the obstruction to the south.
Also highway 89 around Emerald Bay is not only closed for long periods of time, it has a high danger factor from the slope degree above it which is a natural land/snow slide route not to mention the S turns. The highway from the Tahoe City side is backed up for miles at the light many weekends and has it’s own dangers and gridlock. I can’t see how adding hundreds of vehicles to highway 89 to a new out of town developer’s tourist/hotel project will not be a very dangerous and bad idea. The people who live near these projects and pay taxes to support the infrastructure should be able to vote on these developments. Imagine people trying to get to/from their properties and trying to avoid the hotel created traffic nightmare.
‘Moral Hazard’ (appropriate name’):
(1) “If there are trees, it does not work”. . .there is Federal law allowing the removal of trees if solar is involved – the idea behind it is that it is better for the ecology to cut some trees than to either ‘dig a ditch’ or ‘string some more wires’ to the site. . .
(2) “If there is an obstruction to the South”, a good designer will tell you that. . .before you start. . .
(3) Windows (fenestration) is different than solar; ‘non-glare’ suggests you are trying to have the sun stream through the windows to utilize the thermal mass of ceramic, concrete, etc. for extra heat, not electricity. . .
(3) “if you have more than two stories (?), you must have solar mass throughout the building” – solar and using thermal mass is best combined with adequate insulation for best effect. . .in the situation you describe, either that wasn’t done or you’re correct – better to design the house from the ground up. . . especially if this was a D.I.Y. gone astray or no-one mentioned the use of a HRV system to dissipate the heat from that ‘glaring’ window (too hot inside, needing ‘cool air circulation’). . .
Perry is right to bring up the ‘Development Community’, as the 3 areas (Northstar, Homewood, and Squaw) are supposedly planning “units” in the hundreds (totaling thousands) and there are many competent design firms that can easily deal with these issues on the side of energy-saving – thereby saving a lot of what Liberty is talking about doing (on a fast track, I might add) by removing 48,000 trees and doubling their voltage capacity.
That needs to be looked at again, as the Developers will be “leaving a lot of money on the table” and all Liberty rate-payers (north & south, too) will be on the hook for essentially obsolete design. . .projects can designed to be energy self-sufficient, as Perry implies. . .