Opinion: Lake Tahoe’s future depends on Regional Plan update
By Joanne Marchetta
While spring can be elusive at Lake Tahoe, the calendar reminds us that warmer days are approaching. Earth Day is just around the corner. So it seems fitting that the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency is rolling out an updated vision for the future of Tahoe where the lake and our communities are restored and sustainable.
With the advent of Earth Day in 1970, the environmental movement took shape and began to form my views. In my youth, I believed that people damaged the natural landscape and should be kept out of exceptional places. I still have a passion for the environment, but over a 30-year career, my youthful views are now more nuanced. I’ve grown to see that striking a sustainable balance where people and communities live in harmony within the natural environment as a fully functioning system is a necessity.
Joanne Marchetta
At Tahoe, our system is out of balance. The lake’s clarity has been degraded by past development in what we know now were sensitive lands and our highway network transports polluted runoff into streams or directly into Lake Tahoe. Our economy is in freefall and our communities are struggling. But we have an opportunity to restore balance to the system, which is the theme of our Regional Plan update.
On April 25-26, TRPA will release an updated draft Regional Plan. Public hearings and workshops are scheduled in May to explain what the updates mean for the future of Lake Tahoe. Word of mouth about its contents is traveling fast. Despite some of the rhetoric you may hear to the contrary, the plan could ultimately become a model for communities around the world. I hope you’ll keep in mind the overarching objective is to restore Lake Tahoe and deliver other environmental gains through a host of policy changes such as incentives for environmental redevelopment and the removal of existing development from our most sensitive areas.
First, the Tahoe basin is nearly “built out” and development caps and other existing growth control measures are staying in place under the draft plan. The draft does not propose any substantial new development rights. There are only about 4,000 development rights left of the basin’s approximately 50,000 parcels. The rate of development allocations to local governments is proposed to change very little through the update. In the draft alternative proposed by TRPA, a maximum of 2,600 standard residential allocations and 200,000 square feet of new commercial floor area is proposed for distribution over a 20-year period as long as environmental improvements continue.
The carrying capacities of the Tahoe basin are well defined and there are no blank checks being written to developers. All types of land uses in the basin will remain capped. No new tourist accommodation allocations would be created since enough already exist in the region for today’s market and there are approximately 300 unused tourist units remaining from the current plan that are carrying over. What this means is that to redevelop tourist units in most cases would require that they be removed from elsewhere and the site restored. To keep environmental improvements on pace, we need to become adept at doing more with less.
Without some modest policy changes, the next 20 years could lock in the status quo of our built environment, which is an outcome we can’t afford in terms of lake restoration or community revitalization. Amendments to TRPA’s land use regulations in town centers are a key component of our focused strategy to encourage the redevelopment of older, polluting properties. Proven incentives for walkable town centers include allowing the appropriate height, density, and mix of uses.
Here is what is proposed. Four-story buildings would be allowed in most of the basin’s town centers just as they currently are today. From Ski Run to Stateline in South Lake Tahoe, six-story buildings would be allowed just as already exist around the Heavenly gondola. And on the four parcels containing the South Shore casino properties, the existing height would be grandfathered in if renovations deliver other environmental benefits and reduce land coverage. No changes to height or compactness standards are proposed outside town centers.
Most development in the Tahoe basin occurred before TRPA’s current Regional Plan was adopted. The land coverage system has had the unintended consequence of locking grandfathered coverage rights in place. If land coverage rights could be transferred anywhere within the Tahoe basin, versus in the immediate watershed area under today’s rules, crucial relocation of pavement, roads and buildings from the most sensitive lands to more appropriate, non-sensitive properties could result.
Outside Lake Tahoe’s town centers — in the places we walk, hike and bike — few changes are planned other than continued protections and restoration. But certain recreation areas such as Heavenly have highly disturbed base areas that are in need of environmental redevelopment. TRPA is proposing changes to allow skier accommodations and employee housing if plans and projects can demonstrate a net environmental benefit.
Every person who cares for our lake and communities needs to have a clear understanding of the issues and proposals in order to help shape Lake Tahoe’s future. TRPA’s Governing Board is scheduled to act on the final plan at the end of 2012. To be engaged in the Plan, go online or send comments and questions to regionalplaninfo@trpa.org.
Joanne Marchetta is executive director of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency.
With all due respect, Tahoe’s future does not depend on any ‘Regional Plan Update’, even as TRPA thinks of any ‘mid-course correction’ in their 40+ years agency presence as such.
A “future of Tahoe where the lake and our communities are restored and sustainable” will require a paradigm shift in human behavior to shift impacts on the world around us – whether in Tahoe or not. . .
The need to ‘restore’ human responsibility to achieve regulatory results can only come about through an intrinsic understanding of the risks involved that confront us, absent making necessary changes.
We as a culture have continually bemoaned the lack of change, even while we’ve recognized over & over the importance of it to any future we think will now not be there.
As Daniel Defoe said long ago,
“Titles are shadows, crowns are empty things, the goodness of the subjects are the end of Kings. . .”
It should be apparent to those who would guide and control us to what they think is good for us is fraught with difficulty, absent correct orientation to the issues that truly face us – even when it remains uncomfortable to do so.
It is one thing to be in control of the so-called “science” that dictates change as interpreted by those relied upon to provide it. . .but it is quite another to understand the everyday changes that allow us to go in those directions can be done without the dreaded discomfort.
This is what true sustainability is about. . .easing any perceived pain with the reassurance of knowing that it will be good for the world around us, that gives us everything, and hasn’t asked for enough in return.
The very fact that change in our current world has to have a politically correct element means that some think they have to pick sides, even as the necessary changes are not reliant on language, color, creed, or geography.
It does not matter where you live, how much money you do or don’t have, what neighborhood you inhabit, gated or not, a world that functions better for all is in fact the only answer, if we are to thrive. Having that much more money makes no appreciable difference to the issues that will count.
The above description, surprisingly enough, also describes the very visitors that don’t come here as often any more – change can encourage them to come back; as long as their money is green, we can show them how to stay Blue. . . and all will be the better for it . . . by adopting the proper attitudes.
In that Joanne and the TRPA are correct – conservation will be the future, whether it is entirely admitted to or agreed to or not. To be able to show them how is a gift that only Tahoans could learn to share – if the spirit is there. . .
Tahoe can truly be a beacon for that, but only if we recognize the importance to those we love and those who follow that we need to know more than just how to ‘make a living’, especially when we remain pawns to those who think they want your share to be theirs.
Or that think that once they have your share, that the problem will be solved, when we all know inside that it won’t be.
To Joanne’s credit she is counteracting a certain long-standing bureaucratic mode – exemplified by quoting Dr. Lawrence Peter, of Peter Principle fame:
“Bureaucracy defends the status quo long past the time when the quo has lost its’ status”
Her leadership shift is in fact a recognition that TRPA presence has become proactive in changing the tide of Tahoe’s fortunes – that regulation is not, and can never be, an economic driver, without pragmatic & principled approaches that last (one of the meanings for becoming sustainable) – while counteracting opposition with the integrity & quality of the ideas.
To that end, their implied community outreach will hopefully be something other than agency spin, truer to current collaboration, as was stated well by the renowned Peter Senge:
“collaboration is vital to sustain what we call profound or really deep change, because without it, organizations are just overwhelmed by the forces of status quo. . .”
In Tahoe’s currently declining case, this is of course the same status quo that has since lost its’ status. . .or, at the very least, it’s economic vitality.
This cannot last, as it is not yet sustainable. . . in any true sense of the word.
Her Opinion pulls no weight with locals thinking, it would be better served if she helped improve New Deli.
The relationship of the TRPA and the basin people are eternally burning in hell for wasted journalism ,science,politics,economics,freedom of choice.
My castle is protected by the United States constitution,and I’m living in a community in the mountains,paying taxes,not a Federal National Park.
IF THE TRPA COULD MUSTER UP THE CASH ,WHY NOT BUY US ALL OUT ,I’LL GO BUILD ANOTHER CASTLE ON ANOTHER MOUNTAIN WITH BETTER VIEW .
UNTIL THAT HAPPENS I’m driving A UNSMOGGED CLASSIC CAR,DUAL ENGINES BOAT,RIDING BY BIYCLE IN THE FOREST AND MY DOG GOING TO CRAP IN THE WOODS LIKE A BEAR AND THERE’S NOT A DAMN THING YOU CAN TO ABOUT IT.
What ever happened to the Tahoe Prosperity Plan?
With the excessive government and the minions (the agencies and the new age chambers of commerce too) running everything and their overpaid leaders draining all the money from the system it seems like there is a lot less prospects for prosperity.
The regional plan update is a joke…. Tahoe does not need it… Were gonna go through all this junk of regulating private property installing crap BMPs and meanwhile we ride boats, install piers and recreate over every square inch of this place.. Solving the problem is easy… Want the answer.? It won’t take a billion… Joanne, please go join tony walking out the door…
She doesn’t have the talent to be like Tony,there’s only one trpa,It sucks!
With the United states needing engineering,machinist,math software designers kids choose to become mother nature child cause it’s a easy science degree.
Then they walk around trees figure out ,hey they use that to build homes,lets go the hard way build green pads out hay bails,mud,like the middle east people.
With all the millions of people out jobs they best build a better t-pee .
I see the point the pipe club making, but hell they need to take a look at the old sewer lines under the streets first,they been leaking so long they got a straight path to the water tables.
I’ll warn people in the earlier built cabins with foundation,I did all that bmp crap,didn’t make any difference,the only thing I noticed ,couple the neighbors also,the water goes down next to the foundation,you have to open your vents more often to keep a soil earth mold smell from coming back up.Never had any problems when water ran away from the structure,second home owners that aren’t around come back in the summer their cabins smell of mold.There’s got be something better designed that this BS.
I ended up digging back down putting plastic down so run back to it’s natural flow,down hill.
This almost bad as the chips in the driveway that help burn the homes in the Angora fire.
Amen hang ups … Our sewer infrastructure is getting old and may prove to be more of problem than anyone thought. Meanwhile Residential BMPs are installed everywhere and hardly ever maintained, therefore their purpose is short lived. Also, many dont need BMPs (ie. my house is out in the middle of the woods, nowhere near a water body), yet are required to install them. I don’t think anyone truly knows what they know. To many unknowns. Ones thing is for sure the lake is eutrophying and this appears to be from nutrients. The summer clarity is worse than ever and a recent diatom in the 5 micron range is to blame. How is this explained when regulating a <16 micron particle. The TMDL, the models and methods for tracking the useless data collection. Meanwhile the environmentalist in the basin are moving our Rivers and spending huge sums of funding on things with no benefit to the lakes clarity. We need boundaries and consistent regulation but the blanket approach used in Tahoe is killing the lake even further and perpetuating the issue to irreversible levels.. I don't care what lahontan or trpa say., do you think we can restore pre development clarity while running boats, marketing tourism and allowing leaky sewage lines to continue.. This problem is now actually going in the wrong direction at a faster pace. No regional plan can help that. Over regulation has crippled the economy, resulted in useless projects, Allowed polluters to continue polluting and put all the issue on the residential homeowner, meanwhile we continue doing the same thing over and over again and expect a differant result.