Alpine holds hearing on Markleeville Village project

The Alpine County Planning Commission held a public hearing March 26 regarding the proposed Mahalee Lodge and Markleeville Village project. About 50 people were in attendance, and it was dejà vu all over again. Well, almost.

A somewhat different version of this project was submitted to the county five years ago. As a member of the planning commission then and now, this columnist has been keeping track of its status ever since.

If it finally clears all the hurdles and becomes reality, the project would bring about the most significant change to the town of Markleeville since much of it burned down in 1885. The proposal is to build a 25-room lodge, 10 buildings for mixed commercial/residential uses and 49 residential lots.

The commercial development would be in the town proper and would front Montgomery Street, the street that leads to Grover Hot Springs. The lodge and the residences would be upslope to the north, with the residential lots lining a looping system of streets that begin on Highway 89 in front of the chamber of commerce building with an outlet also on Highway 89 some 1,300 feet north of the entrance.

The lodge, with an indoor swimming pool and other amenities, would occupy a part of the open meadow that overlooks the center of the little town and the museum which is located on a small flat area at the base of the meadow. Some of the lots, to be occupied by small residences no larger than 1,600 square feet and called "cabins" by the developer, would be mainly in the trees above the meadow with the rest in the trees upslope and to the west of Highway 89.

The Mahalee Lodge and Markleeville Village (note the redundancy) is planned as a high end resort type complex, with the ownership of the cabins held in fractional shares of 10 to a cabin. A water system, a sewage treatment and disposal system, and vehicle parking are also parts of the project.

The dejà vu aspect of the public hearing is that the major elements of concern were the same ones discussed in 2004 and 2005 at which time a zoning change to accommodate those uses was considered.

Those elements are the adequacy of the water supply and the feasibility of the sewage disposal system. Those two concerns among others, including aesthetics, the impacts on a historical irrigation ditch, effect on public services, and the street design stirred considerable controversy back then.

The environmental impacts of the proposal had been considered by the planning department as required by the California Environmental Quality Act, and a document addressing the possible impacts had been certified by the board of supervisors in December 2004.

The change from the existing residential and commercial zoning to planned development was considered and approved by the supervisors in March 2005. A group of individuals known as the Friends of Markleeville filed a lawsuit against the county regarding the adequacy of the environmental impact document; and the matter entered a period of negotiation, following which a settlement agreement was reached, and a focused environmental impact report was prepared. That report was certified in June 2006.

The developer proceeded to drill two wells to serve the project, and his consultants refined and improved the project layout and design to address the conclusions of the EIR. Financial problems later developed and progress leading to the preparation of a tentative map and accompanying material slowed down until the developer presented it to the county several weeks ago.

At the recent hearing, comments were received from members of the public and the developer's representatives along with additional information from county staff and some state agencies and then considered by the planning commission. Water supply remains an issue because of conflicting conclusions about the capacity of the principal well serving the project. The California Department of Health Services, which must ultimately decide the adequacy of the supply for the water system, reported that it could not make such determination based on the information it had.

Similarly, the Regional Water Quality Control Board, which has approval authority over sewage disposal systems, hasn't indicated its satisfaction with the proposed system. In fact that agency had objected to the adequacy of the EIR when it was approved by the board of supervisors.

Those two issues, along with a few less vexing matters led the planning commission to continue the matter to another meeting to be held April 17 in anticipation of receiving more information on those issues.

It should be understood that controversy over the project is not only based on technical or even potential environmental matters. People with interest in the town of Markleeville are divided on the desirability of having the development for other reasons. Some don't want to see that kind of change in the town; some see an opportunity to revitalize the economy and the physical appearance of the place. Let's face it, they say, the town is slowly deteriorating. Others have doubts about whether the project, once started, would be completed. Some people simply don't like the developer.

The developer, whose name won't be included in this article, has been active in the town for several years, having purchased and renovated one town landmark (the Alpine Hotel and Cutthroat Saloon), purchased and demolished several old decrepit buildings, and removed some of the junk that had accumulated on some of those properties. His companies own a considerable amount of the town and have attempted to buy more property adjacent to the land upon which the subject project is located.

Will the saga of the Mahalee Lodge and Markleeville Village project continue? Stay tuned.