STATELINE, Nev. – The Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA) governing board met to recognize Laurie Hockenberry’s service and to conduct a workshop on Phase 3 of Cultivating Community, Conserving the Basin, which aims to update housing codes.
Public comment
Previous public comments have expressed a desire to have the public comment process changed, which was brought up again during this meeting. Generally, public comments occur at the beginning and end of meetings, rather than near discussion items. Nick Speal, Alan Miller, Melissa Soderston and Ellie Waller all expressed that this limits the level of engagement the public can have with governing board agenda items.
Father Jorge Herrera of St. Francis of Assisi in Incline Village called the governing board to support housing in the area. “Lake Tahoe shouldn’t be for just a few people,” he said.
Several public comments addressed affordable and achievable housing. Soderston said, “Achievable does not mean affordable,” while Waller said that the “cookie-cutter approach” to town and tourist centers would not work, and that without an income cap, amendments to the code would not provide significant relief to the workforce.
Speal thanked the TRPA for their efforts to lower barriers to development, which was echoed by Robb Olson. Speal did ask them to address the loophole of tourist accommodation units and full-time vacation home rentals (VHRs), which he said should not count as housing.
Olson and Erin Casey of the Tahoe Housing Hub voiced their support for the proposed amendments.
Laurie Hockenberry
The TRPA honored Laurie Hockenberry for her 35 years of service and congratulated her on her retirement. She was a receptionist, IPES and land capability planning technician, executive assistant for the Environmental Improvement Program, Primavera project manager and records coordinator.
Hockenberry managed their file room and reportedly had an “uncanny ability to detect and bust certain employees trying to sneak files out of the file room without checking them out.” She also modernized the records system and entered information for much of the TRPA Parcel Tracker and prepared thousands of records for scanning.
Cultivating Community, Conserving the Basin
Phase 3 of the Cultivating Community, Conserving the Basin project is anticipated to begin the environmental impact statement (EIS) phase in January 2026. In preparation of initiating this section, the governing board had a workshop on the different proposed items.
The items were sorted into three general categories: reducing costs and barriers for smaller housing types; combining water quality improvements and workforce housing; and increasing housing choice.
In public workshops that were conducted, south and north shore residents expressed interest in development standards and zoning options, as well as deed restrictions. People also noted differences in housing rights, quality of life and a potential need for rent control. Lastly, people expressed concerns over VHRs and other speculative property buying, as well as integration for increased density in existing neighborhoods.
During the workshop for the governing board, similar concerns cropped up around ensuring actual affordability, rather than incentivizing people from out of town to buy up newly available properties. Others also expressed their concerns about the environmental factors that the TRPA has been charged to protect.
Overall, there was support for expanding what kinds of housing could use bonus units, along with adding a monitoring aspect to ensure the policy was working. Another supported aspect was scaling development rights based on size or environmental impact of the unit. While it could impact the growth cap, it was something that was deemed of interest for the environmental analysis.
There was major support for scaling fees for larger and smaller units, as well as allowing a junior accessory dwelling unit (ADU) to be included in homes with the primary resident, rather than requiring a new development right.
In terms of water quality, there was support for studying the water quality standards and coverage limits in relation to workforce housing types. There were suggestions to look at multi-benefit projects as well as looking into how local projects could tie into area-wide stormwater improvements to increase efficiency.
For town centers that have coverage, there was also support for allowing incentives for coverage on market rate projects in those areas.
There was very little support for waiving fees in their entirety, but reducing fees for workforce housing or charging higher fees for larger projects or projects closer to the lake had some interest. Lastly, there was support for updating the soil maps and creating a system to keep them continually updated with the best science.
With regard to increasing housing choice, there was support for removing barriers around ADUs under 750 square feet, such as removing coverage limits and mitigation fees. This came with the caveat of creating deed restrictions against short-term rentals in those ADUs. Some also wondered whether the 750 square feet restriction should be increased to 1,000 square feet or something in between.
Next, there was support for local jurisdiction policies and standards with regards to duplexes and fourplexes. Local jurisdictions were also prioritized in conversations about expanding town center boundaries. Vince Hoenigman suggested that the TRPA also look at their policies regarding conversion of old commercial buildings to residential buildings to streamline that process—which people in Incline Village and other parts of north shore have been interested in.
There was mixed support regarding local governmental control on height and density, which would remove the maximum set for town centers in the code, allowing local jurisdictions to set their own maximum through area plans. This has been requested in South Lake Tahoe for example, and there was some support to do a pilot program there, though executive director Julie Regan said they would need to still put restrictions in place.
Lastly, there was major support for establishing a funding source for deed restricted housing.
Some board members also suggested looking into environmental improvements that could be done after the EIS, as well as a potential amortization schedule to help eliminate fees for affordable housing.
The governing board will hear about Phase 3 again in January.
The next governing board meeting will take place on December 17.
