Nevada lawmakers recently began a new round of oversight hearings focused on TRPA and the Marlette Lake Water System. The Nevada Legislative Committee for the Review and Oversight of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency and the Marlette Lake Water System met last Friday, drawing several Tahoe residents who traveled to the capital to provide public comment.
Residents raised concerns about growing development in the basin, declining water clarity, overcrowded parking, and risks related to wildfire and emergency evacuations. Many told lawmakers they want TRPA to be more responsive to the day-to-day realities of living in Tahoe and less focused on commercial and large-scale development.
Assemblymember Heather Goulding, who chairs the oversight committee, said hearing directly from residents is a priority.
“My commitment is to hear all public comment and to not cut it short,” Goulding said. “That’s very important to me.”
Goulding said she is hearing repeated calls for greater transparency in how TRPA makes decisions.
“TRPA has the ability to oversee development,” she said. “And stakeholders want to understand how those decisions are being made.”
TRPA public information officer, Jeff Cowen, told KUNR that development in the Lake Tahoe Basin is governed by a regional plan that limits growth, but still requires difficult tradeoffs.
“We have a regional plan that actually caps development,” Cowen said. “So what we have been looking at is, okay, we have a limited amount of development that can happen in the basin, but we have environmental benefits that we need to see come forward as that development happens.”
Housing affordability has become a growing concern across Lake Tahoe. Previous KUNR reporting has found that many people who work in Tahoe cannot afford to live there, and surveys show a majority of residents struggle with housing costs. That has increased calls for more workforce housing.
Cowen said disagreements over policy do not necessarily mean residents’ voices are being ignored.
“Sometimes people feel like because their ideas or policies aren’t adopted and become law, that we’re not listening,” Cowen said. “But in fact, there are numerous considerations that come into what TRPA does to protect the basin.”
Cowen also pointed to new online dashboards and data tools intended to improve public access to information. But some residents say increased transparency has not led to meaningful change.
Kristina Hill, who has lived in Incline Village for about 40 years and worked for TRPA in the 1980s, said the agency no longer resembles the organization she once knew.
“These thresholds were established to protect the environment,” Hill said. “And now the TRPA has amended the code of ordinances over 300 times in the last few years. So it’s just a completely different organization. Now it’s being transformed into a development agency.”
Hill said residents often feel ignored even when turnout at public meetings is high.
“We attend meetings and fill up the Kings Beach [North Tahoe] Event Center, hundreds of people there saying no, no, no, and they vote yes,” she said.
Hill said that the Legislature’s most effective tool to influence TRPA would be cutting or withholding funding, which she believes could pressure the agency to return to its original mission of protecting Lake Tahoe.
Goulding said her role is to balance the interests of all stakeholders. She said future oversight meetings will focus on issues including housing, transportation, and wildfire risk, and could lead to proposed legislation.
The oversight committee is scheduled to meet again on Feb. 27, with forest health in the Lake Tahoe Basin set as the primary topic.
