Letter: Placer County must stop Squaw development
Publisher’s note: This letter was sent to the Placer County Board of Supervisors this week and is reprinted with permission.
To the Placer County Board of Supervisors,
We are local businesses and nonprofit organizations writing to encourage responsible decision-making for Squaw Valley and the Tahoe-Truckee region.
Each of us shares a deep commitment to the natural resources, recreational opportunities, local businesses, and visitor experience that define life in North Lake Tahoe.
Those values, however, are at risk.
KSL Capital Partners is proposing development in Squaw Valley of a size, scale, and scope North Lake Tahoe has never seen.
Their application to Placer County asks for entitlements to develop more than 1,500 bedrooms and the equivalent of four city blocks of 100-foot tall buildings − as well as a 90,000 square foot indoor amusement park with fake rivers, waterslides, an arcade, indoor skydiving, and more.
All told, the project is so big, it would take 25 years to complete.
Squaw Valley is not an island; it’s an integral part of the greater North Lake Tahoe community, economy, culture, and environment. And any development approved for Squaw Valley would impact the entire region:
- KSL’s proposal would have unacceptable impacts on our natural resources, including Squaw Creek, Granite Chief Wilderness, our starry night sky, and even the clarity of Lake Tahoe itself.
- Proposed development seeks to funnel visitors indoors− to an indoor water park designed to “compete with the Lake”, instead of celebrating and respecting the region’s greatest asset: the great outdoors.
- Local businesses, many of which already struggle to survive slow winters and ongoing drought, would be eclipsed by 300,000 square feet of new commercial development.
- And the famed Tahoe visitor experience would diminish under the weight of new highrises and the estimated 8,000 new daily car trips they would add to our region’s roads each summer Sunday.
Our opposition to KSL’s proposal is echoed by hundreds of comment letters submitted to Placer County in response to the project’s Draft Environmental Impact Report. Of the 338 comment letters submitted by local jurisdictions, regulatory agencies, private organizations, and individual citizens, nearly all − 97 percent − expressed either outright opposition to KSL’s proposal, pointed out flaws in the environmental analysis, or both.
Those letters represent a widespread understanding of what’s at stake here in North Lake Tahoe and, also, a deep commitment to securing a better outcome.
We do not oppose all development. But the question before us is: do we want this development? Our answer is no.
We urge the Placer County Board of Supervisors to reject KSL’s proposed development and, instead, encourage landowners and the community to work together to create a blueprint that makes sense for Squaw, Tahoe, and beyond.
Sincerely,
Tom Mooers, Sierra Watch and 42 other entities
I am almost surprised that other resort operators in the Tahoe area are not signing on to object to the scope of this project, but they see a need to stick together I suppose.
California is growing for sure, but the affluence needed to support this level of Disney style “resort” may be decades out. Or never if there is a god.
It is also possible that a portion of their largess is throw away amenities so they can use them as leverage to get what they really want with less permit hassle. I have more than a little experience about how well this can work for developers.
It is clear to me that the lack of multi-lane freeways like the Hwy 80 corridor may well be a significant asset in saving Lake Tahoe from similar proposals, and keeping it a small town longer.
I cannot visualize a six lane Hwy 50 anytime in the future, and I draw some comfort from this.
“I cannot visualize a six lane Hwy 50 anytime in the future, and I draw some comfort from this.”
I agree with the limitations posed by freeway access but I wish I shared your optimism about how far away such a thing might be. I think the incremental changes to Hwy 50 (curve reduction, widening of shoulders, etc), not to mention Hwy 89 on the west shore, serve as groundwork for making it easier both physically and politically for additional highway re-construction. It always amazes me how everyone loves rural areas and then works as hard as possible to make them like a city. Clearly this level of development in Squaw is all out of proportion to any real current or near future demand, but as a real estate venture it doesn’t have to make operational money, just find an eventual buyer who thinks they can get rich(er). That has basically been the downfall of ski towns around the country. They were once about skiing – now the slopes are but one more “amenity” – maybe not even the major one really, to elevate real estate value. The idea that you would really want to take a 2-4 hr drive on a narrow mountain road to “get away” has gone the way of the rotary phone it seems.
Everyone should write to the Placer County Board of Supervisors to protest the KSL development in Squaw. Such overdevelopment will ruin the mountain experience for future generations as well as ruin it for our lifetime as the construction continues for 25 years.
You can make a difference in helping to preserve some of this country’s beautiful outdoor areas.
Disgusting. Placer County needs to go to Hell.
We are looking for similar support from Tahoe Area conservation groups in opposing both the Martis Valley West Parcel Specific Plan and sister development Brockway Campground on the same ridge by same applicant: Mountainside Partners (formerly East-West partners)