The “three strikes and you’re out” baseball rule appears not to apply to Laulima LLC, who carries the fight for their 10 luxury condos and duplexes on the lake in Kings Beach’s Town Center to the Placer County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, Sept. 1.

Three strikes, you ask? First strike, by the North Tahoe Regional Advisory Council recommending denial last July 11. Second strike, last July 25 by the County’s Planning Commission, who appended the project and instructed Laulima to work with the community and develop a revised plan. The meeting happened, but no revised plan.

Third strike was May 28. After reviewing the same project, Planning denied all the project’s entitlements 6-0-1, echoing the community’s strong sentiments that the project was “… not consistent with the Tahoe Basin Area Plan policies requiring mixed use, specifically given its location in the town center” and “the existing use of the property” (three hotels). Commissioners also wrote it was … “detrimental to the … general welfare of the neighborhoods and didn’t promote public use of the lakefront.

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Laulima reopened the Ferrari Crown Hotel, but is content to sustain the blight with cyclone fencing surrounding the abandoned Gold Crest and Falcon hotels, much to the dismay of the community and county alike.

So, what’s the danger if the supervisors approve this project? It invalidates the 2017 Tahoe Basin Area Plan and establishes “a mixed use” designation that can be 90% residential. So, if there is, let’s say, three uses of retail, recreational and residential in a “mixed use” project, residential can be 90% or more. Exactly what community team members, who worked with the county to develop the new Area Plan for 2 1/2 years, did not want, and did their best to specify against.

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So, what will the center of Kings Beach look like in 2030, or 2040? Let the Board of Supervisors know. Write the Board of Supervisors before Aug. 23, or join the virtual discussion on Sept. 1.

Megan Chillemi

Kings Beach