HOMEWOOD, Calif. – Homewood Mountain Resort’s entire build-out should be complete in eight years, Discovery Land Co. Partner Ed Divita told about 100 people who attended a community meeting at the resort Wednesday night.

The five-year outlook for the resort at 5145 West Lake Boulevard includes the village core, a gondola, 2 gondola terminals, some housing, parking, commercial, retail, and a proposed ice skating rink.

“We’re going to be one of the largest employers on the West Shore,” Divita said. “We want to do that. Our ethos is happiness and enjoyment of memorable times with family and friends.”

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Divita went on to describe an upgraded Homewood where everyone is welcome.

“There’s no plans or intention to privatize Homewood,” Divita said. “This project is for residents and visitors alike.”

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From November 2022 to May 2023, Homewood’s owners, Homewood Village Resorts, LLC, (Discovery Land Co., Mohari, and JMA Ventures) discussed taking the resort private.

The Tahoe Regional Planning Agency advised privatization would be a major revision to the master plan. Divita and Discovery Land Co. Community Relations Jessica Insalaco went on a listening tour and heard privatization is not what the community envisioned.

“It is very clear,” Insalaco said. “The master plan tells you it’s a mountain long enjoyed by residents and visitors alike … It’s not consistent with the vision of the master plan.”

At that point, Homewood’s owners decided it would remain public, Insalaco said.

Even so, after an investor misspoke at a conference, dozens of community members showed up to the meeting in red “Keep Homewood Public” shirts to confirm the resort wasn’t privatizing. The executive corrected himself in an email to the TRPA.

Kathy Astromoff of Keep Homewood Public said the statement didn’t go far enough. She wanted it to say that Homewood Village Resorts, LLC, is “not privatizing the resort.”

Astromoff said Discovery’s business model is to enter a highly desirable tourism area and find a permitted development project with a local government eager for property tax revenue. Then build the project and whittle away at public access.

Astromoff asks what will prevent Homewood Village Resorts, LLC, from privatizing the resort after all the permissions are granted and everything is built.

Homewood had another hurdle with the master plan’s https://www.trpa.gov/major-projects/ wording on page 16, which is now updated and reads:

“In the Tahoe Basin, TRPA uses a capacity measure tool called Persons At One Time or PAOTs. PAOTs are both a target to be achieved and a limitation. This capacity measurement balances environmental goals with recreation goals. HMR’s current PAOT is 1,704 persons. The assigned future winter day-use PAOTs for Homewood is 1,100. Homewood’s proposed master plan will not require any additional PAOTs.”

Homewood was working off 1,100 PAOTs when the TRPA informed them the correct number was 1,704 PAOTs.

“The resort currently has 1,704 PAOT allocations and that has not increased,” TRPA’s Public Information Officer Jeff Cowen wrote in an email. “At some point in the past, TRPA assigned an additional 1,100 PAOT allocations to the plan area where Homewood is located. The intention was to reserve some of the regional PAOT allocations for the ski resort should they decide to change operations and apply for them. These are unused and available; however, Homewood would need to apply for them. The master plan revision is the best way to do that because it looks at the big picture of the resort’s future and allows public dialogue.”

“There’s plenty of room,” Insalaco said referring to Homewood’s ability to accommodate the public. “There’s plenty of access. There’s plenty of parking.”

When asked about the complete acreage of Homewood, Insalaco said it is approximately 435 acres. There are 411 ski area acres plus 24 development area acres. She did not give the property boundary lines.

“This doesn’t appear to measure the land area, just managed trails and the bases,” according to Cowen’s email. “The information TRPA is using is the verified land area of the entire property cited in the (2011) master plan, which remains 1,253 acres of total land area. This seems like a non-issue.”

Divita launched into the project’s major components:

• Installing an 8-passenger gondola to replace the Madden Chair
• Replacing Ellis Chair
• Improving snow-making capabilities
• Improving mountain maintenance
• Adding up to 225 residences
• Adding a hotel with up to 75 rooms
• Adding up to 13 on-site workforce housing units
• Adding a new base mountain facility that includes food and beverage service, ski school, rental shop, lockers, restrooms, first aid, and mountain administration
• Adding about 270 day-use parking spaces in a 3-level garage
• Adding a new mid-mountain lodge and gondola terminal with a learn-to-ski lift, store, pool, and food and beverage
• Employing alternative transportation methods

“These are key, we’ve found, in all of our interviews and meetings with people,” Divita said. “These are things that folks want and support … these are the elements we are committed to providing with our plan.”

The community benefits include a proposed ice rink, earthen amphitheater, community pool, extension of the West Shore bike trail, 5 miles of on-mountain hiking trails, and a gathering center with retail, a gondola, food, and bike charging.

Divita said the master plan is being refined in a few areas:

• Homewood’s site plan needs to be updated to reflect a necessary realignment of the gondola path up the mountain. In the conceptual plan, the terminal was higher up the hill, which would have required skiers to climb up steps to the gondola. The new location is down the mountain and better for the skier experience.

• Homewood’s buildings were updated to reduce their size and provide mountain views from surrounding roads.
• Homewood’s architecture was changed to reflect best practices, current environmental standards, and modern techniques while retaining the historic buildings’ West Shore materials, colors, and vernacular.

Divita said these changes will be submitted to the TRPA and Placer County by the end of April.

As repeatedly stated, Homewood will remain open to the public, Divita said.

“If you have a pass or ticket and a way to get to the mountain, you can ski at Homewood,” Divita said. “… we want all of our ski products available to all.”

Divita referred to day lift tickets, ski passes with blackout days, unlimited ski passes and potentially unlimited lifetime passes.

“Pricing is going to be competitive in the Tahoe market,” Divita said. “We’re all very fortunate we can ski. Skiing is an expensive sport.”

The plan’s architects are Walton Architecture and Engineering, and Olson Kundig. Its planners are Design Workshop and VITA Landscape. The environmental review team is Hauge Brueck.

Divita detailed the project’s history.

In 2011, Homewood Mountain Resort’s master plan was fully approved.

In 2014, the plan was amended. It moved the parking structure from lot 3 to lot 4 and condominium density on lot 3 was cut to 8.

In 2022, the TRPA permitted 7 single-family homes, which the master plan had previously cited as 8 townhomes on lot 3. The TRPA found that change to be in conformance with the existing master plan, Cowen said.

Divita talked about the plan’s vision and goals.

“We like going back to foundational principles because they really form a base or a guide for moving forward.”

Homewood Mountain Resort’s approved original master plan’s guiding principles are:

• Updating aging infrastructure and creating a bed base that does not exist today
• Preserving Homewood’s basic personality as a small, uncrowded, family-friendly enclave
• Restoring Homewood as a key gathering center for Lake Tahoe’s West Shore
• Maintaining the heritage of a ski resort that can be enjoyed equally by residents and visitors
• Minimizing impacts of traffic on the west shore (if necessary by limiting the number of ski tickets that are sold on any given day)
• Preserving the character of Homewood by developing new facilities that reflect the existing architectural quality and scale of the community

“Of course, people are very interested in updating Homewood and its aging infrastructure, and creating the bed base so that there isn’t as much traffic or congestion,” Divita said.

The original plan had substantial environmental benefits.

• Reducing forest fuels and improving forest health
• Helping watershed management via road restoration
• Improving lake clarity via reduced sediment flow
• Completing environmental improvement projects. These will continue to include:
  • Restoration of dirt roads and degraded ski runs resulting in 40% sediment reduction to Lake Tahoe
  • $1 million investment in environmental stewardship work from 2010-2014
  • Nearly 300,000 square feet of unpaved mountain road restoration and land retirement
  • Rainfall simulation and ongoing commitments to field-based modeling and monitoring
  • Homewood received the Golden Eagle and Best in Basin awards for these environmental efforts

“The master plan, prepared in 2011 and approved and modified a bit in 2014, was only at a conceptual level,” said Divita in response to why revisions are needed. “It needs to meet current code requirements. It needs to meet current safety practices. It needs to support the practical operation requirements, and integrate in requirements of detailed engineering.”

The revisions realign the gondola path and bring it closer to the base for easier access. It refines the layouts and architecture and reduces the size.

The general public’s access to recreation is going to remain the same. As are all other representations in the existing approvals, Divita said.

“The main thing driving the revision was we wanted to start construction to the gondola … when Placer County looked at that permit, they saw that the location of the gondola terminal and alignment were a little different than what had been shown on the approved plan,” Divita said. “And they needed to bring that into consistency.”

Homewood’s next steps are:

• Continue to meet with the community to share the refinements at a virtual presentation on Wednesday, April 24, at 6 p.m.
• Work to get a gondola permit and timber harvest permit approved this summer
• Submit plan revisions to the TRPA and Placer County this month

Cowen wrote in an email that once Homewood submits their application to revise the 2011 master plan, the TRPA will know more about the traffic and vehicle miles traveled mitigation plan. That may or may not include a ferry or water shuttle.

“Regardless, TRPA will need to find the mitigation plans sufficient to offset any change in vehicle miles traveled,” Cowen said in an email. “Anything that Homewood proposes in the master plan that requires use of the marina, lakeshore, or other parcels not under their ownership will need to be secured or under an agreement with them before TRPA can approve the master plan and later permits.”

Divita spent more than two hours answering questions and listening to audience member statements.

“We appreciate the opportunity to share these design elements with you … we’re really keeping Homewood, Homewood,” Divita said.