In this last edition of 2024, reporter Alex Hoeft tackles a topic that people have rattled our cages about for years — the Town of Truckee Planning Department. Time and again, we’ve fielded stories about the department stymying or controlling the outcome of project applications. The volume of complaints has grown, frustrations abound.
Curiously, my own story of interacting with the planning department arose a couple of years ago. It began with new neighbors of Moonshine Ink’s world headquarters who had an ax to grind (story for another time). They pointed out to the town our building was not zoned for an office. A long history of similar uses on the street exists, including in our structure, and Moonshine Ink had been there for over a decade. For better or worse, this non-conforming status was news to both our landlords and me. Unceremoniously, we were thrown onto the planning department roller coaster.
We went through all the stages: discovery, research, initial conversations, more discovery, more research, more conversations. The cycle went on and on … and on.
I grasp the why and the need for compliance with town code and ordinances, and the journalist in me savored digging deeply into the town code and recent state legislation that applied to our case. Our planner was responsive and attentive. In most ways, the process went well.
Yet when it came to the gray areas — of which many exist in planning — I felt a resistance.
For example, on one point about whether new state law applied to us, I consulted with two separate legal teams and they agreed with my interpretation that it did. Our planner said she and town legal counsel disagreed. After a couple of months of back and forth, finally, at a zoning administrator hearing, Community Development Director Denyelle Nishimori determined that we should have the lawyers talk. Why wasn’t that step taken earlier?
The news story this month, Town Planning In the Hot Seat, about the planning department reports many such questions from project applicants and looks at the reasons behind the department’s actions. Whether it’s staff going by the book or exhibiting power plays, I’ll let you decide after reading this far-reaching story. On one point though, I wish to reflect.
At the core of complaints, as I see it, and even in my example above from our case, is the perceived slow pace of Truckee planning. Yet, immense wisdom lays in taking time to consider big decisions, to review potential impacts and take the long view. That’s the crux of the lawsuit filed by the League to Save Lake Tahoe and Sierra Watch over the Palisades development.
In the story about the Truckee Planning Department, a former staffer says in response to criticisms of the town, “I think Truckee has very high design standards and it comes at a cost. Developers don’t like that but look how beautiful the town is. There’s that balance.”
Reversing development is difficult. Better to plan beforehand. Is pushing your development through the planning process more quickly worth unseen impacts to future generations?
As I cover in the Membership Update, a quiet and lingering pace is good for our brains. This holiday season, find your balance by slowing things down. Seek out the best fires of Tahoe, p. 34, witness the entrancing dance of flames, and feel how refreshed you are afterward. The Washoe people from a millennia ago understood the movement of stars and planets in the night sky because they took the time to stay still and observe. What are murals if not calls to pause and enjoy your surroundings?
Readers, I hope you take the time to cherish the holiday season and enjoy this 2-month edition. Meanwhile, we’ll see you online. The next print issue releases Feb. 13.
Wishing you a holiday and New Year full of peace and joy.
