EAST PLACER COUNTY, Calif. – Placer County’s Board of Supervisors unanimously approved the items regarding the Launchpad program and Dollar Creek Crossing, two housing-related county projects for the Northern Tahoe region. Despite some pushback about the programs’ scopes and capabilities, the board pushed through in order to facilitate better housing for the area.

Launchpad

According to the Mountain Housing Council’s 2023 housing needs assessment, within the Tahoe-Truckee School District, there are 8,200 households with inadequate housing—primarily within the “affordable” bracket, defined as 80% or lower of the area median income. In the last 20 years, only four deed-restricted multi-family developments have been built in East Placer County, though a majority of local workers and those who need affordable housing live in non-deed-restricted housing.

The Launchpad program, which was introduced in August 2024, offers a financial incentive program to create new housing units, which would be applicable to new construction or converting non-residential spaces into housing. These incentives would be issued at a certificate of occupancy in exchange for a deed restriction requiring local workers to occupy the unit.

In the meantime, the program has been revised to remove the low-interest loan incentive, the requirements for low and moderate-income restricted units, and introducing a fixed deed restriction disbursement rather than a calculation based on the as-built appraised value. Accessory dwelling units (ADUs) would also have a dedicated incentive. The funding for the program was requested from the general fund of Transient Occupancy Tax funds and the Tahoe Transient Occupancy Tax funds, totaling $1 million equally split between the two sources.

With the $1 million, it would only fund either five units at $200,000 each or eight ADUs. Tim Cussen, the Tahoe housing specialist for Placer County, indicated that the program would function as a pilot for creating deed restrictions. During public comment, many observed that the 55-year deed restriction could be a deterrent to those building ADUs as homeowners, not property builders. Others wanted the program to be refined and probably to be funded more, as the $1 million seemed inadequate to address the large regional need for housing.

The board moved to approve the funding for Launchpad, as well as directing staff to use adaptive management to address the other concerns voiced during public comment

Dollar Creek Crossing

The property for Dollar Creek Crossing has been in Placer County’s possession since 2019—the site was intended for housing and was entitled to 128 units, but did not have a full plan until August 2023, where the site was proposed for 120 units of mixed-income housing, including affordable, achievable, and for sale achievable housing with ADUs.

However, during the presentation today, it was clear that the achievable housing portion wouldn’t be possible yet. Due to the high cost of construction, there would be a $40 million gap in funding for achievable units. Because 67% of low-income households are inadequately housed in the region, staff recommended that they forego the achievable housing and build at least 80 units of affordable housing.

The demand for affordable housing in North Tahoe is high—Domus Management, which runs Kings Beach Housing, reported that there are 700 households on the waiting list, with a 10% turnover. The site will still have a section available for further development later, but the priorities appear to be addressing the needs for those who earn 80% and below of the area median income. Staff also presented that they were workshopping a potential local preference program.

Public comment was mixed, with some agreeing that the affordable units were needed, but imploring the board to consider achievable housing units as it was first proposed. Others spoke to their concern about safety if the neighborhood would include lower income residents, to which both Supervisor Cindy Gustafson and Anthony DeMattei voiced opposition to.

“It doesn’t look to me that I’m going to have to lock my door and be afraid of the schoolteacher or the kitchen supervisor. I’m just offended for those people that people would actually comment about that,” said DeMattei.

Board members voiced their support for the project and their hope to get the project started as soon as possible, though the project must undergo another stage of redesign to ensure space on the parcel for further development. Marie Maniscalco, housing development project planner, said that the limited scope of the project would ensure that the developer on board (the same one that worked on Sugar Pine Village) would be able to deliver on it.

The board unanimously approved the project, which also determined that the project was not pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).

Eli Ramos is a reporter for Tahoe Daily Tribune. They are part of the 2024–26 cohort of California Local News Fellows through UC Berkeley.