Lake Tahoe agency sued over higher-density housing policies
An environmental group is suing Lake Tahoe’s planning agency in the hope of halting new policies designed to promote higher, denser affordable housing developments around the lake, which the group says could ruin the character of Tahoe’s mountain communities.
On Friday, Truckee nonprofit Mountain Area Preservation filed a complaint in California’s Eastern District Court in Sacramento, alleging that the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency violated its guiding mandate to protect the lake basin’s natural resources against excessive or harmful development.
What triggered the lawsuit was the agency’s recent approval of building policies meant to stimulate high-density workforce housing construction in town centers and multifamily neighborhoods around Tahoe.
The policies, adopted in December and slated to take effect later this month, allow for concentrated apartment dwellings, up to five-stories tall, while rolling back parking requirements on new residences, among other provisions. They’re intended to “encourage builders to construct duplexes, triplexes and small scale multi-family homes” that would foster walkable, workerfriendly communities, according to the planning agency.
Tahoe has struggled to adapt to the pandemicfueled spike in residents and visitors, which pushed real estate prices further out of reach for local workers and strained its modest public infrastructure. Rent is prohibitively expensive, public transit is infrequent and traffic congestion on the region’s highways is a constant headache.
The preservation group agrees it’s important to build affordable homes but believes the planning agency’s vision will add to the basin’s problems, according to MAP’s executive director, Alexis Ollar.
“When you put together unlimited density, higher heights and 100% lot coverage, you’re talking about the mass and scale of development that you see in cities, not mountain communities,” Ollar told the Chronicle.
Any new building proposal would be subject to local permitting processes, which have typically barred large-scale developments in Tahoe. Still, Ollar expressed skepticism that the new provisions would entice builders to pitch duplexes over projects that generate more lucrative returns, like luxury second homes and ski condos.
“We’ve heard from developers that the new policies are still not enough to build the workforce housing we need, that construction costs are so high that they just don’t pencil,” Ollar said. “We’re supportive of workforce housing but we’ve seen projects move forward in areas that don’t have stringent provisions and they turn into ski leases.”
In a Friday statement, the preservation group also noted concerns about traffic congestion and wildfire evacuation, air and water pollution, possible loss of scenic views and other impacts. It also contends that the planning agency is operating under outdated guidance from 2012 that doesn’t take into account Tahoe’s current challenges and that the new policies violate the agency’s housing code.
In a statement provided to the Chronicle, the planning agency’s Executive Director Julie Regan said the agency had been made aware of the lawsuit and “will respond appropriately” when it receives the official filing. She reiterated that spurring more affordable housing in balance with Tahoe’s natural environment “is a high priority” for the agency and that the new policies “are consistent with TRPA’s strict development caps and environmental standards.”
Earlier this winter, a coalition of citizens groups in North Tahoe mounted a similar legal challenge to stop a new development plan intended to incentivize affordable housing in Placer County.