Tahoe: It Could Have Been a Slum

Lake Tahoe is one place in California where multipurpose regional planning continues to work, paying benefits for everyone. One reason is that part of the Tahoe basin also is in Nevada. Back in the 1960s, each state blamed the other for despoiling the Tahoe shores with strip development, wetlands destruction and too much sewage. Each refused to do much about its own mess until the other acted. In the 1970s, the two states decided the only way to prevent the utter degradation of this unique Sierra environment was to create an effective planning body. The result was the California-Nevada Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, which continues--with appropriate pressure from the League to Save Lake Tahoe, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and others--to make life and business incrementally, but measurably, better.

Despite business claims that Tahoe is over-regulated, and occasional threats by Nevada to rip up the two-state compact, the planning agency has demonstrated that it can guide and control development without doing a Big Brother act. Consider the fact that the agency has given the South Tahoe utility district approval for the first new sewage hookups since 1983. An agreement has been worked out for expansion of sewage treatment facilities. The agency and local officials have developed a regional water quality plan that is considered a model for the nation. It proposes to spend $300 million for environmental restoration.

A $70-million redevelopment plan adopted by the city of South Lake Tahoe provides for the destruction of 900 unsightly old motel rooms to be replaced by open space. The plan abandons the terrible idea of a cross-city freeway. Instead, there will be more free casino shuttles and other transit improvements. The feasibility of a light-rail transit line is being studied. At the North Shore, local leaders are working on the creation of a transportation district that will work to unclog the weekend and holiday traffic.

Not all problems have been solved, certainly. Disputes continue over proposed expansion of the South Lake Tahoe Airport. More casino parking lots are planned on the Nevada side of the line. There still is talk of a big sports and convention center in the Stateline casino area. Traffic remains a monumental headache. Without the prudent, guiding hand of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, however, the Tahoe basin would be not much more than a polluted urban slum today.