Boulder Bay meeting brings out community

Annie Flanzraich
Bonanza News Editor, aflanz@tahoebonanza.com
March 21, 2008

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There was one major question on the minds of many residents who attended Wednesday night's Boulder Bay community meeting.

How can you increase the occupancy of a resort and not expect traffic to also increase?

Boulder Bay, LLC's plans for the redevelopment of the Tahoe Biltmore site into a destination resort includes 154 fractional ownership units, 24 whole ownership units, 200 hotel rooms and 35 employee housing units. Some residents of Crystal Bay and nearby communities were concerned about what this influx of population would do to the traffic and overall area.

"It's a huge population to stick in the middle of this neighborhood," said Jossely Robertson of Brockway, "There's not room for all these units. That's a lot of people you're putting in the middle of our neighborhood."

But developers from the project say this kind of development has been planned since 1996 when Washoe County and the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency approved a North Stateline Community Plan.

"We're doing exactly what the long-range planning always foresaw happening," said Roger Wittenberg, Boulder Bay owner.

One of the major concerns meeting attendees had was about an increase in traffic around the resort. Boulder Bay filed with Washoe County to abandon Wassou and Reservoir roads in favor of a road plan that would go around the property instead of through it.

However residents were concerned about the safety and traffic impacts of this plan. Particularly the realignment of Lakeview Avenue and abandonment of Wassou and Reservoir roads.

Crystal Bay Resident Patricia Wohlleb was concerned about the grades of the new roads. She argued that right now she could travel on Wassou Road at less than an 8 percent grade and then to Reservoir Road which is also at less than a 13 percent grade for the majority of the road, except for a portion before State Route 28 that is at more than a 13 percent. She said this path would be safer.

"You're telling me that you're making me safter with a 12.5 percent grade? I don't get it," Wohlleb said.

However, Brian McRae, from Lumos Engineer which helped design the road realignment, said that although the new alignment had a steeper grade on Lakeview Avenue of more than 12 percent, it did not have the same steep grade near downhill stopping conditions.

"I'm confident the proposed road has a vastly superior grade profile to what exists now," Wittenberg said.

In response to the traffic concerns, Boulder Bay developers said they would continue to look at options for the project in upcoming months that would address community concerns.

"We're not crumpling everything up and starting over, but we are going to work hard to address the concerns we heard," Wittenberg said. "Because this is all paperwork right now, we have to look at everything and look for the overall best solution. We're going to get as much input as we can to see if ther eis some element we could add or change that would make this situation more appealing to the people using it."

The project submitted its application to the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency on Tuesday.