Final comments sought on Heavenly’s summer plans
Heavenly Mountain Resort’s Epic Discovery is inching closer to reality.
The U.S. Forest Service is seeking comments on the final environmental impact statement and draft record of decision. People who submitted project-specific written comments during scoping or other designated comment period are allowed to comment this time around. People have 45 days to submit comments.
The documents may be found online.
Epic Discovery is the resort’s proposal to turn the mountain into more of a summer destination, including additional ropes courses and a mountain bike park.
I just read the transportation section of the report. Basically there is no parking (they suggest the parking garage and Harrahs)
There will be vehicles driving at the top of the mountain at 15-20 mph
Our current transportation system is below par and not really any way to fix it.
98% of day user are using cars (with no where to park) The remedy suggested is underground parking.
There is a lot of work that went into this so you would expect a lot of questions as well. My suggestion is to read the reports yourself and draw your own conclusions.
Really, the Forest Service is approving a plan to turn Heavenly into a year around amusement park? Are residents of SLT OK with this? With plans for a “sky cycle” and “mountain coaster” added to all their current summer activities, what’s next the tunnel of love, space mountain, and a water park? Outdoor concerts everywhere including Snowglobe in winter, amusement parks at our ski resorts, bike, running, and paddling races, retail centers that locals don’t use, etc, etc, etc.
Goodbye quiet mountain community of South Lake Tahoe…
Whip, the visitor counts are down about 40% since the late 90s, so we are a quieter mountain town since then.
Kenny your 98% of people driving is a bit high since quite a number of people will be staying at the hotels that are within walking distance to the gondola. The number of people who will be visiting these activities will still be a lot less than the winter visitors that are using the gondola. So my guess is that they are saying people will park in the same parking that the winter skiers do.
relo: I took the information from the transportation report I read and used their numbers.
reloman, I’d love a link to the historic visitor counts if you have one.
I’ve lived here nearly 40 years so it hasn’t been the quiet mountain town I moved to for a long time. But with the advent of big events like Snowglobe it’s a lot noisier in my neck of the woods regardless if visitation is down recently from the “late 90’s”, which I gather is due to recession, slow recovery, and a 4 year drought.
Whip if you go to the city website under tot reports they break out the annual room nights, last fiscal year there were 530k, in the early 2000s it was above 730k
TOT doesn’t count timeshares.
Lou you are partially correct. the timeshares do not have to pay TOT on owner stays which would include those owners that stay there when it is not their home timeshare. However timeshares do collect TOT when they have empty rooms to the general public and believe me they have a lot of those they rent. In one month Marriott Timber Cove pas over 60k and Grand Residency pays 55k in TOT
Visitor counts have been down for years. Tribal gaming, the recession and competition.