SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. – City Council for the City of South Lake Tahoe initiated proceedings for the annexation of parcels incorporating the Heavenly area at their meeting Tuesday, Nov. 5.

The city’s long standing reason for annexation, the process by which cities add land to their jurisdictional boundaries, is to provide more efficient public services to the area, which is geographically isolated from habitable portions of El Dorado County. Annexation ensures the city receives tax revenue to support services the city says it already provides to the area. These services include snow removal and road maintenance to all the roads accessing the annexation area.

Although this formally initiates annexation, discussions and actions leading up to this have been underway for about a year and a half.

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On June 6, 2023, council passed a motion to pursue an annexation scenario encompassing the Heavenly Resort California base.

On November 7, 2023, council gave direction to expand the scenario’s proposed annexation area to include the California portion of Heavenly Ski Resort and Van Sickle Bi-State Park as well as several adjacent private parcels.

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In a decision that sparked criticism, the city made the decision to cancel their parking agreement with Heavenly in June due the resort’s lack of cooperation and support for the annexation.

Heavenly continued to express its concerns and opposition at Tuesday’s meeting when Shaydar Edelmann, Heavenly vice president and general manager addressed council. Edelmann said the city has not made annexation benefits clear to the resort, and that the added layer of jurisdiction introduces uncertainty. He also cited the resort contributes to the city by bringing over $1 million in the form of Heavenly dependent sales and transient occupancy taxes, a number later questioned by city manager Joe Irvin.

“I’m disappointed with where we are on the separate issues of annexation and doing what is right for parking, public safety and road access to the resort and our public lands,” Edelmann expressed. “The city has tied these issues together, taking us all a step backwards.”

Members of the community also expressed their concerns related to the changes to the parking arrangement, which no longer allows Heavenly to use neighboring streets for overflow parking.

Jeffrey Grell, a board member for Sitzmark Homeowners Association, a community close to the Heavenly lodge, expressed concerns over how the consequences of canceling the parking agreement will make the association’s parking lot a target.

“The condition the city has placed on its guests and the Heavenly Resort only hurts our community,” the board member said.

Another community member, Jerry Bindel, asked the city to consider allowing Heavenly to plow the streets during winter so buses can get to the mountains.

While councilmember Tamara Wallace expressed full support for annexation, said she would be willing to consider negotiations with Heavenly again for parking.

Mayor Cody Bass and councilmember Scott Robbins did not share that sentiment.

“Until Vail Resorts comes on board to say, ‘yes, we’re willing to not just say we’re a part of the community, but be a part of the community,'” Robbins said, “I’m not inclined to provide benefits to Vail, to provide what is functionally [a] taxpayer subsidy to this one business, when all of the other businesses in the [city] pays their share of the cost externalities of their business.”

Bass agreed and said that the benefits have been explained to Heavenly, counter to what Edelmann expressed. He said that the amount of tax Heavenly would pay under annexation wouldn’t change since the property tax they currently pay gets negotiated between the county and city during annexation processes. The city’s sales tax is higher, he explained, but that gets passed to the consumer.

“We all know Vail acquires a lot of property throughout the entire world,” Bass said, “So you have to believe their attorneys know what annexation is and what that can provide and won’t provide and those types of things.”

Councilmembers also discussed a letter submitted by Heavenly prior to the meeting that states that the city receives money from the county as a pass-through. “And that is just absolutely not true,” Wallace stated.

City manager Irvin also addressed the allegation accusing the annexation of being a tax grab. “It’s false, it’s not a tax grab,” he said, “This is an area that is bounded by city limits, only access[ed] through city limits and it’s a good governance proposal to actually fix a boundary that should have been done in 1965.”

The present councilmembers, Robbins, Wallace and Bass, with Councilmember Cristi Creegan recused, and Councilmember Devin Middlebrook absent, passed the motion moving annexation proceedings forward.

The action also approved an ordinance pre-zoning the 30 parcels and amended the city’s General Plan Land Use Diagram to incorporate the parcels’ and their zoning, as required by state law.

The 30 proposed annexation parcels total 2,800 acres, a majority of which is held in public ownership with privately owned parcels mixed in.

By amending the city code, council incorporated the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency’s underlying zoning regulations for the parcels, which are either conservation, recreation or resort recreation. With this incorporation, there are no land use changes proposed or changes to the developmental potential.

The zoning will not take effect until the annexation is approved. Until that happens, El Dorado County and the TRPA will maintain zoning control through the process.

The next steps for the city is approving the second reading of the pre-zoning ordinance at the Nov. 19 council meeting. The city and county will then work on negotiating the tax sharing agreement. This is all required before submitting the annexation application to El Dorado County Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO) for approval.

City attorney, Heather Stroud, said this may take several months.

That gives Heavenly plenty of time to change their perspective since during the meeting, Mayor Bass told Heavenly representatives that council’s actions would not shut the door on future conversations. “So you have the right, if we move forward with this today, to change your tune and possibly come back to the table.” He said if they do, he could potentially support the parking negotiations proposed by Wallace.

“But at this point, until you do make that choice, I can’t support that until that choice is made.”

The entire discussion and annexation documents are available on the city’s council webpage, cityofslt.us/80/City-Council.