Lawsuit prevents Homewood from starting development
By Kathryn Reed
Homewood Mountain Resort’s desire to reinvent the West Shore ski resort is an “ill-conceived, inadequately studied, and environmentally-disruptive development project … threatening one of our nation’s iconic landscapes.”
At least that is what documents filed Jan. 5 in U.S. District Court in Sacramento say.
An artist's rendering of what Homewood's owners would like it to become.
Earthjustice on behalf of Friends of the West Shore and Tahoe Sierra Club is suing to stop the project that was approved Dec. 14 by the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency Governing Board.
Defendants in the suit are TRPA, Placer County, Placer County Board of Supervisors, Homewood Village Resorts and JMA Ventures. The latter is the San Francisco-based company that owns the ski area.
While approval of the project has been unanimous in every vote taken by everybody that had a say in the development and master plan for the ski resort, it has always been controversial.
Today the area is a throwback to years gone by. The resort, when one drives by on Highway 89, looks like something a Warren Miller movie would show to reflect skiing of yesteryear. What Art Chapman, JMA’s CEO, envisions is a five-star resort.
There is no doubt the look, feel and type of visitor would dramatically change. That’s what Chapman wants to happen. It’s not what the Friends of the West Shore want.
“We welcome a revitalized Homewood Ski Area, but the current project is simply too large,” Mason Overstreet, conservation director of Friends of the West Shore, said in a statement. “A smaller resort in scale with the surrounding community would still bring in hundreds of jobs for residents and millions of dollars in revenue. We must be careful not to destroy the beauty that attracts visitors to Lake Tahoe in the first place.”
The plaintiffs want the environmental documents to be declared invalid.
The lawsuit says, “… the Environmental Impact Report and Environmental Impact Study (EIR-EIS) prepared jointly by TRPA and the county failed to properly study and mitigate the project’s effects on traffic, air quality, water quality, noise, scenic resources, groundwater, and soil conservation, in violation of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and the Compact. Thus, the Homewood amendments and project stand to make matters worse.”
Joanne Marchetta, TRPA executive director, said in a statement, “It’s unfortunate that this lawsuit could divide the community at a time when we need to work together more than ever. TRPA continues to believe that lawsuits are not the best path to sustainability in the Tahoe basin.”
A major issue for challengers is TRPA’s allowing amendments to its codes – essentially disregarding the current Regional Plan, which in effect is the bible by which TRPA is supposed to live by – and by de facto, everyone in the basin’s law book.
The 1987 Regional Plan was supposed to be updated in 2007. The current date for expected approval is December this year, with draft environmental documents associated with it released in March.
Some of the changes expected in the Regional Plan Update – like to the height and density rules – are being incorporated into projects through amendments. Such amendments were part of the Boulder Bay project that passed TRPA muster last April and does not face a legal challenge.
The Governing Board and TRPA staff believe the project would be a boon for the environment. That was the overriding reason for approving the development.
Maybe they should just shut down Homewood, and send it back to nature. The people in the area can surely drive to Heavenly, Kirkwood, Squaw, Alpine, or Northstar.
Get one of the environmental organizations to buy out the owners, reimburse them for their investment loss.
The groups like the “Friends” of the West Shore and the Sierra Club are the environmental problem in Tahoe. And Earthjustice is just a bunch of carpetbaggers here to exploit the locals.
Amazing how these groups are able to stop a project in its tracks in spite of years of studies and governmental agency approvals. No wonder everybody hates lawyers.
Don’t shoot the messenger!!! Lawyers represent clients and there are strict rules against lawyers and parties who file frivolous complaints! The lawyer must have investigated and found sufficient grounds to sue. The courts will decide one way or the other based on the evidence. Also, there is no stay in proceeding with the project, unless a hearing is held before an independent judge who makes a finding that the suing party “has a likelihood of prevailing on thevmerits.”. If no such finding is made, then the project may proceed, even though litigation is pending. Deb@tahoecivillawyer.com
Wouldn’t these Friscoites be serving mankind better by demanding Frisco be turned under like Rome did to Carthage.
Joking aside(?) until we institute loser pays in lawsuits, like Europe, anyone can file a lawsuit with little consequence.
It’s about Timeshares
like the Hole in the Ground
like the Edgewood
like Boulder Bay
like Tahoe Shores
like the place next to Lake Village
like the 100 acres of 6 storied Buildings
they want to put in our town
Chief Slow, no timeshares are in this project.
“What Art Chapman, JMA’s CEO, envisions is a five-star resort.
There is no doubt the look, feel and type of visitor would dramatically change. That’s what Chapman wants to happen. It’s not what the Friends of the West Shore want.”
This is a misleading statement. Where does it say, anywhere, that a 5-star resort has to be massive and out of scale with the surrounding community. The Friends just want a scaled-down project, which doesn’t equate to “no project at all.”
I find the environmental documents to be completely biased towards the project proponents. Just because TRPA and the County are suppose to be the parties that the docs are prepared for, guess who pays all the bills? The project developer does. So, of course the environmental documents will be written in a matter that supports the preferred project alternative.
I hope that the developer and the community can now come to realistic alternatives that everyone can compromise with. Isn’t that what the public planning process is suppose to be all about, reaching a compromise that favors both the environment and the local economy?
Agreeing with Joanne Marchetta that “lawsuits are not the best path to sustainability in the Lake Tahoe Basin”, I now have to add that ‘Sustainability is its’ own best path” to sustainability in the Lake Tahoe Basin, and there still isn’t much of it . . .
Calling oneself “sustainable” doesn’t make it so, as that plays into the cynical ‘bumper-sticker/buzzword’ end of the spectrum, when scientifically-vetted examples abound that are never seriously looked at here, as that doesn’t seem to be politically-correct (i.e., acceptable “to the Board”), so the “tail keeps wagging the dog”.
As someone who was part of the conceptual design process for Tahoe’s only LEED Platinum building, now running at 45% energy usage of a “typical” 40,000 sq.ft. building (without a ‘day in/day out’ laboratory like the one @ SNC), one can not get that kind of performance from just any design professional that wants to call himself “green”.
Same with “projects”, whether Boulder Bay, Sierra Colina, Edgewood, or Homewood. . .
It’s difficult to conceive of a Board approving something when they don’t know what it is they’re looking at – “Staff” told them it was O.K. will not do it – especially when there’s too many “out there’ now that know the difference.
John Singlaub charted TRPA direction a few years ago away from potential litigation, but the existing legal structure is still operating from an “environmental” (confrontational) standpoint and doesn’t have much ‘sustainable’ sensibility to it. . .
The sensibility here is so “poverty-stricken” that it is thought that we are pandering to developers money with “half-baked” approvals, rather than the true business reason for sustainable development: not leaving any money on the table while not hurting the surroundings, either. . .
If a “boon for the environment” was “the overriding reason for approving the development”, that is, I believe, diametrically opposed to a sustainable stance, as it appears to be more about the economy (i.e.,”money”) than about the environment – at least that is the perception to those otherwise uninformed.
Someone like Peter Calthorpe should be invited to sort it out, to find out for sure. . . and offer better explanation than a simple “approval” provides.
Good location for 2012 Snow Globe??
This was just sent to Lake Tahoe News. It is a statement from David Tirman, executive vice president of JMA Ventures, owner of Homewood Mountain Resort:
“We were disappointed but not necessarily surprised by the appeal recently filed by the Friends of the West Shore and the local chapter of the Sierra Club on the Homewood Mountain Resort project. Five public hearings were held on the project, all of which resulted in unanimous votes of approval of the master plan. The project is considered to be among the most progressive and wide ranging environmental initiatives attempted in the Lake Tahoe basin. The master plan is being designed to LEED-Gold standards and the land restoration work, which is slated to continue with the implementation of the master plan, was given a Best in Basin environmental award by the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency in 2010.”
The project, which is aimed at keeping the iconic, 50-year-old ski resort on the west shore of Lake Tahoe open, went through a 5-year public input and environmental review process, comprising more than 100 public presentations to a combined audience well in excess of 1,000 attendees. We actually made numerous attempts to engage the project appellants in meaningful discussions about the project, but to our frustration those initiatives went largely unanswered. The environmental impact report which is over 2,000 pages long, cost in excess of $1 million to research and prepare. For the appellants to state that the Master Plan was inadequately prepared and reviewed is an unfortunate distortion of the facts.
These environmental groups have to start focusing on what’s really important. For example…, the environment. Being obstructionist helps no one…
Stopping redevelopment is fighting for 1970’s infrustructure and fighting to keep status quo. Status quo is urban blithe,worsening lake clarity and a failing economy. Stopping redevelopment will never benefit our community we need to embrace redevelopment.
Redevelopment is a way for developers to get the gov. to give away public property rights so they can line their pockets. I’ve walked the walk, so if you need first hand info. I have it. Its a failure. Check the news in sac. the last few days and you will see the coruption thats occured.
The truly unfortunate part of this is that if the litigation becomes too costly/time consuming/ect. JMA will sell Homewood and another corporation will swoop in. They have presented a way to improve the jobs/lives/economy with a minimally environmentally invasive way in a time when we need it. JMA cares (sort of) but does Vail??