Letter: League praises Martis Valley West vote
To the community,
Thursday night’s vote by the Placer County Planning Commission to reject the proposed development at Martis Valley West is great news for all who love Lake Tahoe.
By voting to not adopt the Martis Valley West Specific Plan and to reject its inadequate environmental review, planning commissioners showed that they had clearly heard the valid concerns expressed by hundreds of community members and stakeholders, who for months have expressed alarm that the proposal offered no solutions to the negative impacts of the project.
The League to Save Lake Tahoe has repeatedly expressed grave concerns about the project, notably its addition of significant traffic impacts — and traffic-related pollution — to the Lake Tahoe Basin. Approval of the project would have set a dangerous precedent. Developers must not be allowed to get off the hook of proposing projects that threaten Lake Tahoe without providing solutions or adjusting their proposals to reduce such threats.
We encourage the Placer County Board of Supervisors to heed the wisdom of their planning commission and to demand that the Martis Valley West project’s proponents go back to the drawing board to develop a project that represents better community planning with stronger safeguards to protect Lake Tahoe.
This decision should send a message that while lake-friendly redevelopment has a welcome place in Tahoe’s future, principled decision makers will reject projects that significantly threaten the lake’s clarity, including those coming down the pipeline in the near future.
Darcie Goodman Collins, executive director of League to Save Lake Tahoe
We encourage all Lake Tahoe residents to stay tuned for the date and time of the Board of Supervisors decision hearing on the Martis valley West Parcel Specific Plan and hope they also make the right decision to deny the project
If denial is upheld the developers will scale down the project until it get approved. They throw a lot of mud and some will stick.
If no one wants anything built buy the land from the developer. Problem solved. Orherwise it potentially opens the door for a takings lawsuit.
It was never zoned to be built on. Problem solved. Use it for what it was zoned for.
You are correct: the land is a Timber Production Zone (TPZ). The developer should propose the project on the east parcel where the 2003 Martis valley Community Plan Update slated it to be built. That said, there still be be impacts to the Tahoe Basin that need to be mitigated with teh increase of visitors to to the Lake
I don’t disagree but would the local community be anymore welcoming to a timber production zone? If it is proposed for the east parcel same issues. Buy the land issue solved.
It’s already and has been TPZ for many years.
Buying the land that isn’t zoned other than TPZ isn’t necessary. Would you expect the folks at South Shore to buy the land for where eminent domain is being exercised for the Loop Road so the folks that live there now are guaranteed a place they can afford to live?
Should be no problem unless the zoning is changed. I think the loop road is a different beast. A federal project not a private sector project?
The private sector want the public sector to pay for it, nice.
This is CRAP! The land around here is apparently ZONED to suit certain people at certain times according to the MONEY and Who is who.
Isn’t this exactly why we the people have elections? Hopefully we are electing and paying TRUSTED persons to read, understand, and take care of these business issues for the whole or should we say HOLE?
HOLE #2 looming