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Mark Twain once described the reflection of snow-capped mountains
on the crystal blue waters of Lake Tahoe as the "fairest
picture the earth affords." Yet in the lake's beauty
lie the seeds of its destruction. Runoff from new homes, roads
and parking lots cloud the lake's fabled visibility at the
rate of one foot per year. Responding to this grave threat,
planners and policy makers have moved aggressively and imposed
some of the nation's most effective and innovative controls
on new development. These controls, in turn, have drawn fire
from the "develop at any cost" lobby, which has
tied the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA) up in court
for almost two decades. Lake Tahoe has thus become ground
zero in the fight for community rights and against sprawl
and environmental degradation.
Indeed, the Tahoe region has spawned two Supreme Court cases
in the last five years. Most recently, in Tahoe-Sierra Preservation
Council, Inc. v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, the Supreme
Court upheld the right of Lake Tahoe planners and local officials
to impose moratoria on land development without causing a
"taking." Reasonable, temporary development moratoria
are an essential and widely-used tool in land use planning.
The Court rightly rejected the notion that every landowner
temporarily inconvenienced by good-faith efforts to save the
resource should be compensated, and it acknowledged the importance
of thoughtful, careful planning in protecting communities
from harmful land uses.
Still at risk after Tahoe-Sierra is TRPA's innovative use
of transferable development rights (TDRs), a planning tool
that allows property owners facing building restrictions to
sell their development rights to land owners in less critical
areas. TDR programs, in use by communities across the country,
create win-win solutions that restrain development and respect
landowners' property interests. The Supreme Court's 1997 decision
in the case of Suitam v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency raised
but did not resolve the constitutionality of TDR programs.
Since its inception, Community Rights Counsel (CRC) has been
at the forefront of efforts to preserve Lake Tahoe and ensure
the viability of land use planning nationwide. A not-for-profit
law firm dedicated to the defense of laws that protect livable
communities and the environment, CRC provided the Tahoe Regional
Planning Agency with counsel and strategic advice in both
Supreme Court cases. In the Tahoe-Sierra case, CRC also filed
a brief on behalf of the nation's governors, mayors and other
state and local officials supporting TRPA. We will continue
to fight with TRPA and with other communities throughout the
country until the right of local officials and planners to
use reasonable land-use controls to manage growth and protect
the environment is secure.
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