CTC, S. Tahoe land swap may add parking to Harrison Ave.
By Kathryn Reed
The first of two votes was taken Thursday to put sensitive land into the California Tahoe Conservancy’s hands and developable property in South Lake Tahoe’s control.
The Conservancy board at the March 15 meeting at Lake Tahoe Community College agreed to give South Lake Tahoe 19 acres in exchange for 33 acres. The City Council is expected to vote on the land deal March 20.
“We will trade properties that don’t belong in the Conservancy’s hands and we get highly sensitive property,” CTC Deputy Director Ray Lacey told Lake Tahoe News.
The lot at the corner of Modesto and Harrison avenues is likely to become a parking lot. Photo/Kathryn Reed
The conservancy could restore the property it will acquire and in one case improve the floodplain along the Upper Truckee River. The city could create parking for Harrison Avenue businesses and possibly sell another parcel.
Two of the four parcels the city will acquire are on Highway 50. One is next to the Tahoe Daily Tribune that the CTC came to own in 1988 in a deal that involved about 100 properties.
For years the city has talked about turning that into parking. Hilary Roverud, development services director, would only admit conceptual planning shows the dirt lot becoming paved.
However, City Councilwoman Angela Swanson, who is also on the CTC board, told Lake Tahoe News, “The Harrison Avenue plan depends on the Tribune land swap.”
About 50 parking spaces could go there.
Another parcel the city will get is the old Unocal site next to IHOP. The Conservancy acquired that last fall.
Roverud would not say whether the city intends to keep the parcel, develop it or sell it.
A parcel the city has managed for years but has been under CTC ownership is the grassy area by Regan Beach where weddings are often conducted.
“It will remain deed restricted and the public will continue to have lakefront property,” Lacey explained.
The last property in the swap is the community ball field by Lake Tahoe Community College. Ownership came to light during the brouhaha of the SnowGlobe music festival New Year’s weekend.
“It’s a community asset and makes more sense to transfer that asset to the community,” Lacey said.
The land the Conservancy will be getting includes where the former drive-in movie theater on Glenwood Way was and the acreage adjoining the Upper Truckee River west of Sunset Drive.
The Conservancy is likely to restore more than 100,000 square feet of coverage at the old drive-in, with about 12,000 square feet being in a stream environmental zone.
Another agenda item Thursday also involved how the Conservancy manages land. The board adopted the Asset Lands Program Guidelines.
Four properties are part of this equation, with no others being considered. This was stressed so people don’t think the Conservancy is going to be in the habit of selling land to keep itself afloat.
Most of the 5,000 parcels the CTC owns could not be sold based on the money used for their purchase.
Lacey said, “Asset lands are parcels of land within the Conservancy’s ownership which are not essential to carrying out Conservancy goals and which could have significant market value.”
To be sold are the drive-in site the CTC traded that day with the city. A single-family home could possibly go there. The Conservancy will retain restoration credits.
Part of the Lyon’s Ranch that was acquired in 2008 will be sold. Possibly two houses could go there. The CTC is keeping what it needs for trails and river access.
The vacant lot between Tahoe Valley Pharmacy and the Factory Stores at the Y will be sold.
The last piece is the Tallac Vista facility near Heavenly. CTC took possession in the1980s as part of a legal settlement that resulted in 150 condos not being built there.
When these properties hit the market they will be available to anyone.
The City Council is expected to vote on the land deal March 20.
WHO YOU KIDDING, THEY ALREADY VOTED,BROWN ACT JUST BROWN.
Parking and a new gas station at the Y. Might be hope for this town after all.
Let’s call a spade-a-spade…we are the next Aspen and hopefully you own your home a reasonable commute to your government job!
For me, such actions make me lose trust in CTC and their overall goals.
If you have to sell conservation lands to the highest bidding developer to fund your people and your organization, your organization is upside-down.
Are these lands deed restricted?
What about CEQA?? Is this not a state undertaking subject to analysis??
This is a terrible idea and incredibly short sighted.
Any potential land exchange between CTC and any government or non-government entity will need to be more heavily scrutinized, because there is no longer any guarantee that these lands will be conserved.
What’s next, the Forest Service urban lots?? I’ve lived in my neighborhood for 15 years, and the urban open space is what makes it so nice. I could easily see CTC picking up a few urban lots in some “swap” then selling 5 years later because they “no longer contribute to the CTC mission.” Whatever that is…
….shame….
Walter, where do you think all the SNPLMA money came from? All those vacant forest service lots? Once they’re worth enough money and the government has the need, they are GONE.
Walter Google Burton Santini. What you are describig cannot happen.
Agree. New laws get through Congress all the time. Just saying that the Burton Santini Act protects those small forestry parcels in Tahoe assumes a new law wouldn’t be put in its place.
Overall, I think this article is missing the bigger story: CTC disposing of land that the public assumed was “preserved” as open space. When does it stop? I agree with Walter, what other lands does CTC want, and why?
Unfortunately, I think CTC just showed us their cards and end-game strategy. When times are tough, they will attempt to sell land and use the guise that these lots “no longer are essential to meet the agency’s mission”.
Yikes,not the old drive-in!I used to work there. Changing the marquee atop the commercial building at the corner of 50 and Herbert and then worked as a security guard at the drive-in and just a general gofer for whatever was needed.
I’d like to see a restoration of this property by re-paving the humps, putting up a screen, projection booth and snack bar…”lets all go to the lobby and get ourselves a treat”.
Okay,I know thats not gonna happen.Nowadays most people sit at home and watch a movie. Nobody goes to drive-ins anymore. Shame, really.
So yeah, that land should be restored to its natural state.Just kinda sad to see another bit of “Old Tahoe” be mowed down.
Take care, Old Long Skiis
the Concervancy has sold other parcels in the past to developers
Randy Lane and his crapy condos on the beach
Mcintyer 5 bedroom palotzo’s on Cold Creek and Tahoe Mtn.
in 2007 the Concervancy tried to buy the Grocery Outlet to tear it down and make it a meadow
don’t be surprised in the future with the things they do
Spend millions to up grade El Dorado beach and parking is a bad idea? Must be part of our bike and bus everywhere gang.
Before Singlab was running the TRPA he was a big wig at the BLM in Northern NV.
Remember the land sale in Douglas County for the car dealerships??
What is wrong with parcel consolidation between the agencies and city??
Look at how many lake front parcels have been purchased for millions that have limited or no public access.
Old long skiis,those were the stickiness floors in the heads know to man!Like walking on glue floors.
Yes it was fun,whole truck load,couple bucks, bring you own beer,popcorn,tight body partner that liked all hands ,I did many push ups in that place.
Plus, we hand buddy that had a house right across from the screen, when they went modern (no speaker on poles, radio waves). We all sit in the back yard with lawn chairs, pony keg,bbq up burgers,dogs,put two transistors radios on each side the yard enjoy.
Now days people tend to live in their own bubbles,have no idea how share good times,be free.
When the Conservancy had not yet formed as a presence at South Lake Tahoe and my family had no idea that it would become a powerful state agency presence, it along with others sold our individual lots and larger land parcels to the Trust for Public lands and later the Conservancy with the understanding that the lands would be bought by the Conservancy for two purposes: environmental restoration and recreational access. By access my family understood very little and learned what it meant in the the toughest of ways. We and others knew of informal Forest Service trails in our neighborhood but these parcels, now as then, largely remained land left to itself. That for us is what access meant. One example is the lot at the end of Argonote and El Dorado Avenues. Now, it is planned that these smaller neighborhood lots could be transferred from the Forest Service to the Conservancy. Then the idea of access will change as it has on every other buildable piece of property the Conservancy owns. A parking lot there would provide immediate access to the meadow but also more traffic, more neighborhood disruption.
Our family knew that some of the lots we sold were buildable but a lottery system then in place prevented us from remaining in business. It seemed to us a good deal, then, that the Conservancy would bank all buildable credits belonging to these lots and that they would remain, like the sensitive parcels we sold to the Trust, forever free from development of any sort. They would provide open space between houses that would otherwise be crammed together; They would provide within a neighborhood islands of inviting respite for plants and animals that need a dryer native habitat to thrive. This was our family’s expectation, but back then we did not have the skillful lawyers that would have placed legal restrictions on the property’s use. If we had known what the Conservancy would do, we would have run the other way. The same for some former lot former lot owners we know.
The Conservancy presence was at first modest; now they have their own fifty space parking lot – always full – but I have yet to see a bike rack on their property. And they are yet conquering. We all know now that the Conservancy is the City’s commercial and commercial recreational partner. In their latest Harrision Avenue land swap — property that my family sold to the Trust — they have traded a buildable parcel to the City knowing that this bit of never touched land will be paved and up to fifty cars parked there. That area will be commercially overbuilt, requiring more parking lots attracting more traffic. And we will remain a l950s sort of a town without the transportation plan that would make us more innovative and which we so desperately need.
I expect the migration of parking lots and other Conservancy development to move back into Al Tahoe because it offers to tourists everything that they desire. But the Conservancy will be an often disruptive presence in other neighborhoods as well — muscling their way with broad smiles and warm handshakes as is their way. Affected neighbors will have to fight back or get what’s dished out to them. The folks at the end of San Francisco Avenue fought back and now they have some peace and quiet back. Otherwise the streets would have substituted as a transportation plan, a parking lot.
This article is a bit of the unhappy history of South Lake Tahoe’s recent development as I have experienced it.
Gloria Harootunian