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Show t Park City approach is contrast to Tahoe, says new planner a ft photo by Jett Jensen , . . , Nora Seltenrich b Hick Brou Nora Seltenrich's last job was in the I.ake Tahoe Basin. It was a case where planners tried to catch up with development. She noted. "People are saying there. 'We got this big mess. What do we do about it?' '" Currently, a court ruling has imposed a moratorium on building in the basin. Seltenrich's new job is as a Park Citv planner. Here, she said, government is trying to get out in front of the building. "It's a real different perspective," she added While Parkites may look at certain developments and regret them in hindsight, the city has fewer cases like that compared to Tahoe. "There's not that much large development." she said. Seltenrich worked the last three years for the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA). She said she and her husband were looking for a change. They looked at Sun Valley and areas in Colorado. But a position opened in Park City, she said, and they were attracted by the skiing after visiting here. The Lake Tahoe Basin is a much larger area than Park City. (Park City's land area, she said, would be comparable to just the south shore of the lake. ) TRPA covers an area that is two-thirds in California, with the rest in Nevada. The basin is not all built out. she said. But. "they subdivided the heck out of the land' as eaily as the 19fi()s. The problem would come, she said, if all the owners decided to build on those lots at once. In 1980. she said, the federal government directed TRPA to draw-up draw-up an environmental study and a master plan for the area. The plan was completed last year. It ranked land areas from one to seven on capacity for building. The land was judged by such factors as soil type, erosion and angle of slope. A "one" rating, for instance, designated a high-hazard building area. In addition, the plan allocated only a certain number of permits per year. It prohibited new subdivisions for the time. And. Seltenrich said, it said tourist accommodations would not be a high priority until capital improvements (sewer, road, soil stabilization) were done to pave the way for development. Earlier this year the California attorney general filed a suit against the master plan on the grounds it had not yet developed the proper ordinances. (The state was aided, Seltenrich said, by a group called League to Save Lake Tahoe.) A federal district judge issued a preliminary injunction which put a moratorium on Tahoe building. On top of everything else, Seltenrich said, a group of property owners have filed suit. They say they should be financially compensated if they can't build. It all sounds complicated. But Seltenrich has a long backfround in California planning. A San Diego native, she attended Humboldt State College in northern California and developed an interest in resource planning. She then worked for a commercial firm that was the planner for five small cities in the Humboldt area. During her last year with TRPA. she worked on the master plan. But before that she was occupied with specific issues, she said, like single-family houses in high-hazard areas. In Park City, she said, she expects to begin by easing the workload of other planners. She will work in conditional-use and landscape issues, is-sues, Seltenrich said. |