OLYMPIC VALLEY, Calif. – The Placer County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to approve seven Village at Palisades Tahoe Specific Plan items Tuesday night allowing Palisades Tahoe to move forward with the construction of a world-class village and base area. 

“I want to commend Alterra,” said Supervisor Cindy Gustafson, referring to Alterra Mountain Company owner and developer of Palisades Tahoe. “…I understand why you’re angry. I understand why you’re skeptical, but I believe this is the best program we can put forward. And with the commitments I heard tonight and continued monitoring the benchmarking that will come through phases of development, I believe that we can make great strides together. So, I do support moving forward.” 

The packed meeting lasted more than nine hours with extensive public comment for and against the project.

---

---

Since 2011, the plan has been downsized. 

It will have 1,493 bedrooms, 58% fewer than allowed under the current zoning. It restricts building heights and setbacks, more than doubles the acres of conservation preserve, and most of it will be built on existing parking lots and other disturbed land. 

---

---

“We appreciate the board’s decision, the extensive, comprehensive work of Placer County staff and their environmental consultants, and the involvement of the community in this process,” said Amy Ohran, Palisades Tahoe president and COO. “We’re excited to move forward with the much-needed creation of in-valley workforce housing in the first phase, and for our community to start benefiting from the infrastructure and other improvements this plan will deliver.” 

The Village at Palisades Tahoe Specific Plan encompasses 93.3 acres of land in Olympic Valley including the main village area of 84.5 acres and an 8.8-acre east parcel. The plan proposes up to 850 lodging units including hotel, condo hotel, fractional ownership, and timeshare units.

It has 287 new beds for employees in addition to 99 replacement beds. This deed-restricted employee housing will be completed in the first phase and kept in perpetuity. It is estimated to cost Palisades Tahoe $50 million. 

It also includes a maximum of 206,211 square feet of commercial space, including non-residential operations and the Mountain Adventure Center (MAC). The MAC is intended to be a year-round, state-of-the-art indoor/outdoor mountain training facility combined with a family adventure camp for the community, Team Palisades Tahoe ski and snowboard team, and resort guests. It may also include conference spaces, performing arts area(s), skier/guest services, employee spaces, and other resort amenities like a pool and soaking tub, a climbing wall, and agility activities.

There will be up to 450 new employee parking spaces, new day skier parking structures, extensive restoration of Washeshu Creek, new and expanded trails and trail enhancements, a new seasonal playground and dog park, and a new fire station in the west end of the valley. 

The plan funds transportation, tourism mitigation, and other Olympic Valley and regional priorities.

In addition, Gustafson suggested creating a dedicated website for the project.

“We continue to hear the lack of trust, unfortunately,” Gustafson said. “I think it would help the community feel that we are being accountable and transparent on all these committees that their voice is not one and done. That it is ongoing throughout the life of this project.”

Outgoing Supervisor Jim Holmes supported having a website, so people can see how the process is going.

“I agree with the suggestions that you’ve (Gustafson) made,” Holmes said. “There’s gonna be a lot of eyes on this project. Not only from our staff and environmental folks, but the community is going to have eyes on this. We need to make sure we’re following through with what was planned.” 

Supervisor Shanti Landon tallied the pro, con, and vague public comments that gave a balance of perspectives.

“While not perfect, there will be issues I’m sure that come up in some adaptive management that happens,” Landon said. “I really truly believe that the applicant has gone above and beyond in the requests that have been made to them, removing the water park, providing for a new fire station, putting millions into transportation and benefiting the area environmentally as well.”

Landon said she truly deep down in her heart really believes the entire community is going to benefit from this project.

“I hope that as a county and as supervisors, we can make sure that we hold the applicant accountable and that we make sure that they are holding to the standards that they’ve said they’re going to do,” Landon said. “So with that Supervisor Gustafson, I also support all of the requests that you brought forward as well, including the technical advisory committee.” 

Holmes commended staff and the applicant for addressing public transit, construction noise, hydrology, water quality, air quality, and wildfire evacuation. 

“I’m really, really pleased with the hard work that the applicant has done and our staff has done,” Holmes said. “I appreciate all the folks that came here and commented on this project. So anyhow, that’s where I land, and I am in support of this project.”

Supervisor Bonnie Gore said this project balances private property rights along with the concerns of the community. 

“The investment in our community here is sorely needed,” Gore said. “It doesn’t happen without somebody who’s able to come in and make development and pay for the infrastructure so that the funds are available for our community to do the infrastructure, to do the much needed projects that we need in this community.”

Gore said this is a beautiful place to live and that’s why so many of the constituents live here.

“You care about it, we care about it, but we wanna see this community thrive,” Gore said.

Gore said this is a balanced approach.

“We are finally getting to a place where a plan that was started 70 plus years ago is finally going to have an opportunity to move forward,” Gore said. “We’ll see some great investments in this community and a wonderful resort that people can come and appreciate and enjoy. And then our residents benefit from the impacts financially … so, I’m in support of the project.”

Board Chair Suzanne Jones asked Placer County Deputy CEO Stephanie Holloway to talk about financial community benefits.

“So all in all, if you take the inflow minus the revenue, minus the expenses, we come up with a $13.5 million net positive annual benefit to the county, to the community from this project,” Holloway said. “It is financially positive, financially beneficial … We talked already today at length at how those dollars get reinvested, not only in services, but how they get reinvested in housing and transportation. Specifically a big portion of the TOT (Transient Occupancy Tax) that’s generated does go to not just transportation projects, but programming, our TART system, microtransit. And so there’s a lot of services that are provided with those dollars as well.” 

Jones agreed with Gustafson about reducing STRs (short-term rentals).

“If we’re gonna build more lodging, I don’t see the need to maintain the short-term rental lodging as much,” said Jones. “Just kind of a one-for-one or whatever we think is appropriate. I do favor that. And I do really like the idea of a website for progress on the project and on the development and maybe something like a Q&A place where the constituents can ask you questions. I mean, you’ll get plenty of them, I’m sure.”

In response, Keep Tahoe Blue/League to Save Lake Tahoe’s policy director Gavin Feiger said the league’s definitely disappointed by the outcome.

“The environmental impact report, the environmental review refuses to acknowledge the obvious impacts to Tahoe,” Feiger said. “There is a development agreement that promises some benefits, which demonstrates that there’s impacts to Tahoe that need to be addressed. But the promises in that development agreement are nowhere near enough to alleviate the impacts from thousands of additional cars flowing from the project to Lake Tahoe.”

Right now, the league is looking at next steps, Feiger said. There’s still a couple more hearings coming up since there was one piece that they weren’t able to approve around fire evacuation and safety.

“We’re grateful to all of our Tahoe supporters for writing and speaking to the Board of Supervisors on behalf of the league,” Feiger said.

Executive Director Tom Mooers said Sierra Watch is weighing its strategic opportunities. 

“For us, what’s most important is to remember, even though we spent almost 10 hours hearing about Alterra’s checkbook and what payments they might make, we understand that Tuesday’s hearing avoided the heart of the matter, the massive size and scale of their development project, and what it would mean to Tahoe,” Mooers said.

It would increase traffic, pollution, evacuation times in addition to creating a greater need for housing, he said.

Mooers called out Alterra for removing the fire safety item from the board’s agenda at the last minute.

“Just like eight years ago when the supervisors approved this plan in 2016, this is not the end of the road,” Mooers said. “The supervisors’ decision just marks the next phase in our effort to keep Tahoe true. Stay tuned for our next steps down that path.”

For more information, go to future.palisadestahoe.com