Letter: TRPA wrong to allow hockey academy

To the community,

The proposed zoning change from single family-residential, to recreation business needs to be denied by the TRPA board.

Whatever happens at an exit from a highway like Highway 50, onto an artery road like South Upper Truckee Road, determines what happens in the neighborhoods off that road. It is called sprawl and TRPA needs to fight the sprawl in Tahoe that has been the ruination of so much of California.

This is a major change, a gigantic business development, in a rural residential neighborhood, with the proposed project not having been noticed to the area residents.

The impacts on people, infrastructure and the environment have not been determined on the proposed project.
An old permit (21 years) couldn’t possibly foresee what the impacts will be from this entirely new use that is inconsistent with any previous use or surrounding uses.

The “initial environmental checklist” that TRPA did that determined that an EIR is not necessary is unacceptable with the scope of the project to include 21,617 new square feet of building coverage that would take the coverage to a total of 66,903 square feet and necessitate a new waterline across Echo Creek.

Saying there are no negative impacts is ludicrous and unacceptable.

Sprawl of this type (a business by any name is still a business) needs to be prevented in the Lake Tahoe Basin.

Please deny the zoning change.

Linda Witters, Meyers