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If you’ve been to the Tahoe area recently, you’ve probably heard buzz about the Village at Palisades Tahoe Specific Plan. Originally introduced in 2012, this contentious redevelopment project has been argued in the court of public opinion and the California Court of Appeals for 12 years. The project would transform the base area at Palisades Tahoe into a year-round resort destination, adding nearly 1,500 bedrooms in condos and hotels, and a 90,000-square-foot indoor recreation facility. After approval by the Placer County Board of Supervisors in 2016, the project was halted by a successful legal challenge led by the Sierra Watch in 2022. The plan was reintroduced to Placer County in the spring of 2023 and has been working its way through the county approval process once again.
Like most redevelopment plans, the Village at Palisades Tahoe Specific Plan includes many public benefits, designed to offset detrimental effects of the project and to enhance the appeal of the project to the community that will host it. Here, these benefits would include major infrastructure projects like several hundred beds of workforce housing, a new fire station, and substantial monetary contributions to regional planning and transportation agencies. Yet, despite these olive-branch-shaped aspects of the project proposal, much of the community remains opposed to the Village at Palisades Tahoe Specific Plan. Wildfire risk, housing shortages, traffic concerns, and the overall size of the project are some of the main sources of opposition from the community.
On October 20, 2024, Dee Byrne, former President of Palisades Tahoe, wrote an open letter to the community published in the Sierra Sun advocating on behalf of the project. Byrne argues that the Village at Palisades Tahoe represents progress and economic opportunity for Olympic Valley and the greater Tahoe region, progress that the community cannot afford to miss out on.
“I understand that it is not always easy to accept and embrace changes within our community. But where the alternative is to simply leave our community frozen in time, facing the same challenges year after year, there is no denying it—we need to evolve.” – Dee Byrne
In both written public comments on the environmental impact reports for the project and in public testimony at Olympic Valley Municipal Advisory Council meetings and Placer County Planning Commission meetings, members of the public largely agreed with Byrne on the need for more year-round opportunities in the region but still expressed hesitation about the size and scope of this project.
One of the toughest sells to the community from the outset was an expansive water park housed in the 90,000-square-foot Mountain Adventure Camp. This water park would have included water slides, wave pools, lazy rivers, and indoor water skiing, and received vehement opposition from the community. In Byrne’s letter, she described how after listening to community feedback, the water park was removed from the plan and the overall size of the project was significantly reduced, down to 58% of the beds allowable by the Olympic Valley General Plan, which has not been updated since 1983. However, while the initial downsizing of the project happened at the request of Placer County when the plan was introduced, the water park remained part of the project through initial approval, litigation, and reintroduction, all the way up until the middle of the Placer County Planning Commission meeting in September 2024. Similarly, Byrne talks about many of the community benefits that are enshrined in the Development Agreement for the project, but the final text of this agreement was not available during the public comment period or during the Olympic Valley Municipal Advisory Council meeting at the start of the re-approval process.
Like many ski towns, Olympic Valley and the greater Tahoe region are struggling with providing suitably affordable housing for its workforce. In the Village at Palisades Tahoe Specific Plan, the 1,500 guest beds are accompanied by 300 beds of workforce housing, which is to be constructed in the first phase of the project. Building workforce housing first, before any of the revenue-generating aspects of the project, is a significant commitment on the part of Alterra in ensuring that housing promises are not broken down the line.
“We are acutely aware of the issues caused by the current housing crisis, the severe lack of housing supply throughout the region, and the fact that our community cares deeply about housing issues. Though our plan alone will not solve the housing crisis, it will make tangible progress in the effort to provide more inventory, bringing new workforce housing units to the area in a respectful and reasonable way.” – Dee Byrne
Current planning guidelines for Olympic Valley require workforce housing to be provided for 50% of the full-time jobs that a development project creates. While the Village at Palisades Tahoe Specific Plan will create more workforce housing to help address the housing crisis, these beds will likely not be filled by any of the additional workforce the project will require, as there is plenty of demand for workforce housing right now. So, ‘tangible progress’ needs to be carefully weighed against zoning requirements, current need, and projected workforce size.
“Change is inevitable,” Byrne said. Whether her open letter makes any change in public sentiment about the project is yet to be determined. Byrne’s letter represents a desire to engage with the community in discussion about the role this project could play in the future of Olympic Valley, but open questions remain about how committed Alterra is to listening to the community, or if this letter is intended to be more marketing material in the late stages of the approval process. The Placer County Board of Supervisors will vote on approval for the project on November 19, 2024.
More from Zach Armstrong:
- The Battle Over The Future Of Palisades Tahoe
- How the Fatal GS Bowl Avalanche at Palisades Tahoe, CA, Happened and Why it Could Happen Again
- Public Money Gets Funneled into Massive Deer Valley, UT, Expansion
- Inside the Ski Industry’s Post-Pandemic Boom
- How Eldora, CO, Ski Patrollers Finally Got Their Union
