Lake Tahoe development blocked by 3rd District panel

In an unusual, partially split, unpublished opinion, the 3rd District Court of Appeals blocked a huge resort development near Lake Tahoe.

On Tuesday, the court ruled against Placer County and developer Alterra Mountain Co. The company wanted to develop several hundred new hotel and condominium units, along with a 90,000 square-foot water park and recreation center. The county board of supervisors approved the 94-acre development 4-1 in 2016.

But the three-judge panel reversed a 2018 Placer County Superior Court decision, finding the county failed to comply with open meeting requirements under the Ralph M. Brown Act. In doing so, it failed to allow proper consideration of the traffic and pollution effects of the resort as required under the California Environmental Quality Act, the panel found. Sierra Watch v. Placer County, C087892 (Cal. App. 3Rd, filed Aug. 21, 2018).

The dense, 28-page opinion delved into the specifics around the announcement, timing and agenda of the board of supervisors vote. They justices found the county cut corners when supervisors voted on a recently revised agreement.

"The question we consider is whether the board's consideration of this revised agreement, rather than the one referenced on the county's agenda, rendered its agenda misleading," wrote Justice Coleman A. Blease. "We find it did."

Blease ordered the lower court to enter a new judgment granting Sierra Watch's writ petition, essentially forcing the developers and county to restart the approval process. Justice Elena J. Duarte joined Blease.

Presiding Justice Vance W. Raye wrote his own concurring opinion arguing the county did not engage in an active "bait and switch" of the kind at issue in a key case Blease cited, Santa Barbara School District v. Superior Court (1975) 13 Cal. 3d 315.

"If the public was misled, it was not because of the agenda but because the materials made available to them in advance of the meeting were incomplete and did not accurately describe the plan," Raye wrote.