Owner/Client: Tahoe Regional Planning Agency
Nowhere is the careful balancing of environmental protection and community-beneficial economic development more sensitive and important than in the Lake Tahoe Basin. The Lake Tahoe Regional Plan provides the primary guidance to reach this balance in the Region. In 2005, TRPA undertook a multi-year effort to prepare and adopt the first major update to the Regional Plan since 1987. An important focus of the update was to revitalize community centers within the Basin through implementation of environmentally beneficial redevelopment incentives, which would result in compact development, enhanced transportation systems, transfer of coverage and development out of stream zones and other sensitive lands, promotion of non-motorized trails, and other features. TRPA’s goal was to accelerate environmental carrying capacity threshold attainment through specific revisions to goals, policies, and Code provisions to incentivize redevelopment, promote compact mixed-use projects, and create walkable communities. The update process has undergone extensive community engagement, discussions between California and Nevada, and detailed environmental review. Under contract to TRPA, Ascent led the preparation of the EIS for the Regional Plan Update, in compliance with the environmental document provisions of the TRPA Code of Ordinances and Rules of Procedure. The EIS examined five alternatives in full, comparable detail and provided extensive analysis of environmental impacts of the plan components and the approach of each alternative to attain the Region’s carrying capacity threshold standards. The EIS was certified by TRPA and the Regional Plan Update was adopted in December 2012.