Homewood Lawsuit Settled

JMA Ventures, owner of Homewood Mountain Resort at Lake Tahoe, reached a settlement agreement on Thursday January 30th with the Friends of the West Shore and the Tahoe Area Sierra Club.  This agreement opens the door for JMA Ventures to move forward on their Master Plan to develop a slope side Village at the two base areas of the Ski Resort and to renovate the Resort with new lifts and a mid mountain lodge.  JMA announced their plans in 2006 and filed their original application in 2007.  That was followed by six years of public meetings and debates over environmental issues, the size of the development and the potential impact on the West Shore communities of Lake Tahoe.  This project, at this time, now seems to have widespread local support.

The law firm Earthjustice, on behalf of The Friends of the West Shore and the Sierra Club, filed a lawsuit in January 2012 claiming, among other things, that the Environmental Impact Report/Statement was flawed and that it failed to comply with the California Environmental Quality Act.  Approximately one year later, U. S. District Court Judge William B. Shubb called a halt to the project when he ruled that the Environmental Impact Statement needed revision and that when TRPA and Placer County had approved the project in 2011 they had not adequately considered a “reduced scale” alternative plan (JMA could reduce the number of nightly accommodations) that had been analyzed in the EIR/EIS.

According to a recent article in the Sierra Sun, the settlement agreement calls for 13 fewer accommodation units, split between the North Base (7) and the South Base(6) with no change in the total square footage of the project.  JMA has also agreed to not include on mountain tennis courts, athletic fields, ice rinks and roller coasters in the revised proposal and to do some major environmental improvements to the Resort.

The $500 million project is in the process of being revised to incorporate the agreed upon changes before being resubmitted to Placer County and the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency for approval.  JMA is looking forward to breaking ground on the project next spring.