On a sunny day in mid-May, around 50 volunteers gathered to clean up and beautify the empty lot in Tahoe City that once housed the dilapidated Henrikson building. Demolished in 2019 to make room for the Tahoe City Lodge — a 118-room boutique hotel that was approved with widespread community support in 2016 — the lot has been sitting empty ever since. For seven years, it was a vacant parcel filled with weeds and dirt surrounded by an ugly chain-link fence at the west entrance to town. Many considered it blight.

When the retail store California 89 moved in across the street this past December, owner Lisa Gotts decided she had to do something about the eyesore. She and her two adult children, who run their three stores together, did something that no one — not Placer County, not the Tahoe City Public Utility District — had been able to do: convince the landowner, Kila Properties, to agree to beautify its property.

Gotts put out a volunteer sign-up sheet and a GoFundMe to collect money for what she is calling the Tahoe City Yard — “a grassroots community effort to transform the vacant lot in Tahoe City into a vibrant outdoor gathering space.” She raised $4,300 — $1,000 of which came from Kila Properties CEO Samir Tuma — for cleanup, grading, basic landscaping, and to purchase picnic tables, shade structures, and lawn games. In 24 hours, half the parcel was transformed from an uninviting space into something that resembles a community park.

Despite the good intention of the cleanup, there have been mixed reactions from community members and business owners. Frustrated by the fact that 10 years have gone by since the project was approved with nothing built, some are angry that volunteers are doing work they say the property owner should have done a long time ago. In essence, Kila got free labor (one estimate put it at $12,000 in labor, excavation, and crane work) to improve its property.

To be fair, the development has faced setbacks. In addition to Covid delays and cost increases, it was sued twice — once by the Davis-based California Clean Energy Committee (CCEC) and again by the project’s neighbor, who owned the Bechdolt building. To help settle the second lawsuit and move the hotel forward, Placer County purchased the Bechdolt building for $4 million in 2021, which is another reason why community members are upset — that was a big chunk of taxpayer money that has, so far, not succeeded in moving the needle toward the hotel being built.

There are many ways to look at this issue — is the property owner derelict in his responsibilities or is it too challenging to build in Tahoe? Did volunteers come out to do something good for their community, or were they giving free labor to a negligent landowner?

Either way, there is no doubt that Tahoe City has a redevelopment problem. The other major project, the Boatworks Mall, is facing foreclosure proceedings after MJD Capital Partners failed to pay its property taxes and the service on its $14 million loan. MJD may have been overly ambitious with its plans to build a 79-room hotel, 7,000-square feet of commercial space, and underground parking in a highly regulated and protected area like Tahoe.

And then there is Homewood. Approved in 2011, the ski resort was sued the following year by the CCEC, as well as by the Sierra Club and Friends of the West Shore. This delayed the project for multiple years as the cases wound their way through the courts and subsequent appeals. The development is now finally slated to move forward, 15 years after its original approval.

For the first time in years, Tuma recently agreed to speak with Moonshine about the status of the Tahoe City Lodge. He said it has a new joint venture partner and will begin construction next summer. (When I mention this, people point out that we’ve heard this before.)

“I’ve worked in a number of different jurisdictions around California, and Tahoe is the most challenging,” he said. “Had we not had those lawsuits from the environmentalists and from a gold-seeking next-door neighbor, we would have had a hotel there years and years ago. The expense and the real cost to the community of just this endless litigation — there’s a price that gets paid.”

There is indeed a price that is being paid for the delay in redevelopment that the community sorely wants and needs. The question is — who should foot the bill? The developer or the public?