Olympic Valley MAC meeting 8/17/24
There was a big turnout for the meeting about "Downtown Olympic Valley" (officially The Village at Palisades Specifc Plan) on August 17th. The meeting was a joint meeting of the Olympic Valley Municipal Advisory Council (OVMAC) and the North Tahoe Regional Advisory Council (NTRAC). As Moonshine Ink summarized the meeting, almost 300 locals were there in person, with another 150 online. That's kind of remarkable for a nice Saturday in the summer - except maybe it's not, given the hordes of weekend tourists in the basin.
Alterra Corp. was once again looking for approval on its proposal to redevelop the existing Palisades Tahoe ski resort base area as an 85-acre resort community with hotel space, condos, and timeshares for up to 1,493 resort bedrooms, along with 297,000 square feet of new and replacement commercial space and an indoor waterpark. The County, which had previously approved the development, had to rescind its approval because a lawsuit by Sierra Watch was successful at calling baloney on the environmental analysis. Due to the lawsuit, the court instructed revision of specific parts of the Environmental Impact Report (EIR). The meeting on 8/17 was for the MACs to take public comment on the revised EIR.
After 6 hours of public input and discussion, the OVMAC voted to recommend denial of Alterra's revised Environmental Impact Report. OVMAC's advice to the Supervisors included: 1) the community is substantially opposed to the project, 2) the County and the applicant should evaluate a reduced-size plan and 3) the community wants a collaborative solution. The County has posted the recording of the meeting on its website.
Getting a thumbs-down from the OVMAC doesn't mean the project is dead. The project's next step is a hearing before the Placer County Planning Commission on 9/5/2024 at the North Tahoe Event Center in Kings Beach. After that, the project will go before the Board of Supervisors. Some people say the Supervisors have never met a development project they didn't like. Time will tell if that saying is applicable in this case. In the meantime, local opposition to the project remains high:
“If it’s another 10 years of grassroots organizing and legal challenges to stop Alterra from ruining Tahoe, if Placer County were to approve it, we would pursue further litigation.”Tom Mooers, Sierra Watch Executive Director (Melissa Siig, "What’s Old Is New: The Palisades Village Development Project Is Back", Moonshine Ink, January 18, 2023)
