Lake Tahoe regulators to vote on new development plan
STATELINE - After nearly a decade of debate, Lake Tahoe land-use regulators are prepared to take action on a sweeping plan that will guide development for decades to come at the Sierra gem.
The bi-state Tahoe Regional Planning Agency's governing board is scheduled to vote Wednesday on a proposed plan for the lake straddling the California-Nevada border.
Business interests contend the plan represents a long-overdue overhaul of burdensome regulations that will jump-start Tahoe's ailing tourism economy while protecting its environment. Supporters say it would provide consistent rules needed by developers to make investments in the area and provide incentives to move development from sensitive land into existing urban areas.
But Laurel Ames, of the Tahoe chapter of the Sierra Club, maintained it would be a "radical plan" that will harm Tahoe's environment by allowing too much development, as well as overly dense, taller urban growth.
