If you thought development at Tahoe was nuts, you ain't seen nothin' yet. There's a new scheme in the works to intensify things at Kings Beach. It's a 6-story project with a 153 room hotel, 10,500 square feet of retail and restaurant space, townhomes (probably outside the price range of the locals) and down the road a bit, and just 74 units of workforce housing. The buzz is that the County and TRPA have already cozied up with a developer to get it done, even though it will require some serious bending of the erules. The design is very Bay Area, not Mountain Community - check it out on the project's slick website. It's not at all clear that there is adequate infrastructure to handle a project of this magnitude at the proposed site. Nor is there a way to get it done without major harm to the environment. Still, if you think the traffic and housing costs are bad now, brace yourself. Oh, and please contact the County with your thoughts.

The Northshore is constantly getting projects like this forced on it by outsiders. The North Lake communities don't really have a say when the decisions are driven by powerful interests miles away on the other side of the Sierras.  Why does the Northshore have less control in matters like this than, say Truckee or South Lake Tahoe? Oh, wait, Truckee and SLT are cities. They have Mayors, City Councils, and their own Planning Commisisons - unlike the North Lake communities.