Preliminary Tahoe Accord Could See End to Long Battle

For seven months developers, environmentalists and other combatants in the long war over Lake Tahoe’s future have been meeting in an unusual last-ditch effort to forge a peace agreement that would both protect the environment and allow for continued growth around the lake.

The series of confrontational bargaining sessions, involving two dozen fractious participants, ended here on Tahoe’s snowy shores last week and a final set of “tentative agreements” was sent along to the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency.

If the agency board of directors adopts this broad-gauge set of compromises, the resulting regional master plan could end nearly two decades of controversy over how best to control and even reverse the environmental damage caused by high-rise urbanization of a 500-square-mile basin high in the Sierra Nevada, east of Sacramento and west of Carson City.

“We’re optimistic; we think we can have our cake and eat it too,” said Michael D. Van Wagenen, executive director of the South Tahoe Gaming Alliance, one of the participants in a technique used in labor negotiations and arms control talks, but seldom, if ever, in land-use planning.

Most agree that the use of confrontational bargaining has been a gamble that depended upon both sides giving just enough to keep each other talking, sometimes long into the night. But there seemed no other way, according to the executive director of the planning agency, William A. Morgan, who conceived of the process as a last-ditch effort to lift a federal court-ordered moratorium on all construction imposed in 1984. There are about 17,000 residential lots affected by the moratorium.

Critical Stage

Last June the agency hired Geoffry H. Ball, a trained “facilitator,” to conduct the often stormy meetings. Armed with multicolored marking pens, sheets of butcher paper and a pleasant, even-tempered demeanor, Ball directed scores of negotiating sessions, marking down each argument, starring each concession, coaxing the combatants back to the table when tempers flared.

“We are at a make-or-break stage; we’re walking the line between resolution and absolute war,” said California Deputy Atty. Gen. Richard M. Skinner after last week’s final session. Skinner is the lead attorney in the state’s suit against the regional planning agency, which resulted in the building moratorium.

Skinner and others from both sides of the bargaining table expressed cautious optimism during last week’s marathon sessions, but pointed out the agreements are only tentative, broad-brush policies that will be meaningless if they are not officially adopted by the 14-member agency board as the outline for a regional master plan.

The proposals, which will go to the board Wednesday would limit growth, encourage rehabilitation of existing commercial areas, all the while establishing ways to restore stream courses and repair the damaged ecosystems in the lake shore environment.

The consensus negotiators agreed that:

- During the next decade no more than 400,000 square feet of additional commercial building would be permitted in the Tahoe Basin, an addition of about 6% to the existing floor space. The location, size, shape and timing of this growth would be controlled.

- No development could cover more than 50% of a building site. Existing commercial developments that have buildings and pavement covering more than half of the land parcel would be encouraged to reduce this “coverage” when they next remodeled, or buy some land elsewhere and set it aside undeveloped.

- Each of the 17,000 residential lots will be re-evaluated to determine “environmental sensitivity,” taking into account grade, hydrology and plant cover. The least sensitive lots would be most suited for development. The owners of the most sensitive lots--those least suitable for construction--could sell their land to the government for preservation as open space.

- Where possible, the owners of an estimated 300 residential lots that were midway through the building permit process when the moratorium was ordered should receive special consideration when that restriction is lifted. However, a slow timetable for development of residential lots should be set so that not more than 1,700 homes are built over the next five years. - The plan would have the flexibility to allow landowners to offset development of some property by purchasing additional property for preservation. Environmental restoration work would also earn developers exemptions.

Ground Rules

Before the consensus negotiations got under way last summer, all of the parties agreed that they would be bound by the policies hammered out during the talks only if there was total agreement on the entire package, and then only if an economic study, now under way, proved none of the restrictions would be overly harsh on the economy.

The Tahoe Regional Planning Agency board is expected to take the agreements under consideration on Wednesday and act on them at its February meeting. If adopted “in concept” next month, the court would then be asked to exempt a limited number of residential lots from the moratorium, allowing construction to start on 300 homes this summer, officials explained.

Then the hard work of putting together the nuts and bolts of the master plan would be undertaken by the agency staff. Public hearings would be held on the draft regional plan this spring and final adoption could come this summer, Morgan said.

Acknowledging that the whole process could blow up anywhere along the way, Morgan said: “Sure, sure that can happen, but the likelihood is considerably less than ever before because so many people are working to keep this thing together.”

The planning agency board, divided evenly between California and Nevada residents, is considered “pro-development” by the League to Save Lake Tahoe, co-plaintiff with the California attorney general in the suit that resulted in the building moratorium.

Roots of Suit

The suit stems from a regional plan adopted by the agency in 1984.

The 1984 plan was challenged both by the league and by the California attorney general’s office on the grounds that it did not adequately protect the environment, as required by Congress. When the courts agreed, both sides went back to the bargaining table.

The primary environmental problems are deteriorating water clarity in the lake due to algae growth spawned by pollution, smog and severe traffic congestion, all symptoms of rapid growth along narrow mountain highways girdling the lake. High-rise casinos tower over U.S. 50 on the Nevada side at Stateline. Along the south shore the highway is crowded with motels, fast-food stands, gas stations and real estate offices.

Everyone agrees that time is a critical factor if the federal court-imposed construction moratorium is to be lifted in time for the 1986 building season. Normally building starts in late April, after the snow melts. Without new construction, the already sagging economy will only get worse, Chamber of Commerce officials contend.

“We’ve lost three banks along the north shore and shopping centers report their business has dropped as much as 68%. We’ve got to revitalize, we must upgrade our tourist facilities to compete with Vail and Aspen (in Colorado). To do that we’ve got to get the moratorium lifted,” said Beverly Bedard, representing the Greater North Tahoe Chamber of Commerce at the bargaining table.

Lifting of Moratorium

The moratorium can be lifted when Atty. Gen. John Van de Kamp and the League to Save Lake Tahoe agree that a new regional agency master plan meets the environmental criteria set down in the bistate compact.

Complicating the situation is the realization that Nevada has come close to pulling out of the bistate compact, a development that, according to Skinner, would make the lawsuit moot, make the moratorium disappear and ensure resumption of the conflict.

Lobbied by the Tahoe Sierra Preservation Council--a pro-growth group representing lot owners and commercial developers--the Nevada Legislature last year came within one vote of withdrawing from the compact and most officials agree that the same sentiment is still strongly held by some Nevadans.

“We are at a critical juncture,” said the preservation council’s attorney, Lawrence L. Hoffman. He called the seven months of consensus bargaining “the final effort to salvage a viable bistate approach to regional land use planning.”