Force for Change
by Leo Poppoff
Conservancies and land trusts have become a major part of our political landscape, preserving open space, undertaking major environmental projects, and even transforming neighborhoods.
For many years, strange bedfellows inhabited prime Lakefront property in Kings Beach: a biker bar, a few small shops, some residences... and suspected drug traffickers. North Tahoe residents were upset, but for various reasons, authorities were unable to clean up the area.
Today, that corner of Coon Street and Highway 28 is a pleasant beachside park, with folks relaxing in a spacious plaza, barbequing alongside picnic tables, or playing basketball. As a bonus, there are two sedimentation basins to treat urban runoff water. The complex is now called Kings Beach Plaza.
This wonderful change was brought about by the cooperative effort of two conservancies: The Trust for Public Land, a national organization based in San Francisco, and the California Tahoe Conservancy (CTC). Over its two-decade history, CTC has purchased hundreds of environmentally sensitive parcels in the Tahoe Basin, protected and restored wildlife habitats, reduced soil erosion and provided public access to The Lake. It's the kingpin conservancy in the Basin.
A conservancy can perform many important functions in the sometimes-thorny process of protecting both the environment and community values. Often, it acts as a bridge to public ownership of sensitive lands. In some instances, a conservancy will buy land itself, either with its own funds or with help from a charitable foundation, then hold it in trust. In most every case, a conservancy offers the least politicized, most American method of acquiring environmentally sensitive or otherwise important private property—buying it fair and square.
For Kings Beach Plaza, The Trust for Public Land helped CTC with the purchase of two and a half acres in 1988. The project involved "complicated negotiations," according to the Trust, since the land consisted of "sixteen separate lots, owned by six separate landowners, on which stood ramshackle buildings with a multitude of residential and commercial tenants."
The ability of conservancies to facilitate such projects is a powerful tool for local communities, says Phil Caterino of Alpengroup. Caterino has been involved in several complex property acquisitions in the Tahoe Basin—working with The Trust for Public Land and the American Land Conservancy—including Kings Beach Plaza, Sunset Stables on the South Shore and the Thunderbird Lodge on the East Shore. "Conservancies have the ability to conduct negotiations that government agencies cannot," he says. "Many property owners would rather deal with conservancies than with government agencies."
If a government agency targets a chunk of property for public access or preservation of a wildlife habitat, it must know the desired purchase price, put in a budget request and then fight to get it funded. It could be a matter of years before the agency can actually close the deal. By that time, the property might attract the attention of developers, the price could escalate, or the owner could change his or her mind.
One or more conservancies can often step in and fill this gap. Typically, conservancies secure an option to hold the property until an agency finds the dollars to purchase it. The agency will then buy the property from the conservancy, which takes a fee to use for future projects.
"Whenever you're dealing with an acquisition, there is the potential for timeliness to be a deal maker or a deal breaker," said CTC's Ray Lacey.
Sometimes, a land owner insists on a price higher than the appraised value. Government agencies, by law, can't negotiate prices higher than the appraisal. In these cases, conservancies can sometimes help public agencies purchase land by finding ways to make up the shortfall between what a land owner demands and the property's appraised value. According to CTC Acquisitions Manager Bruce Eisner, in other instances conservancies can negotiate a sale price that is lower than the appraised value.
California Tahoe Conservancy
"We're sort of unique among the state conservancies," says CTC's Restoration Manager Brian Wilkinson, "because we actually acquire property and hold title to it." The newly established Sierra Nevada Conservancy, for example, can't purchase land outright, though it can accept donations.
According to CTC's Bruce Eisner, "Ninety-nine point nine percent of all of our acquisitions are done directly. It's in rare circumstances that we may seek out the assistance, or have the opportunity to work with the Trust for Public Land or the American Land Conservancy."
CTC's project funding is mainly provided by State Propositions 40 and 50, as well as by funds appropriated from the state legislature for Tahoe's Environment Improvement Program. Special Tahoe license plates and personalized plates are also an important revenue source.
Five years ago, CTC purchased Barton Meadows, a parcel of 311 acres with 2600 feet of Lake frontage. The conservancy had earlier purchased Cove East at the mouth of the Upper Truckee River. "Between those two acquisitions," Eisner said, "we now own most of the Truckee River Marsh, as it exists today, between the Tahoe Keys and Al Tahoe." A donation of a million dollars from the Packard Foundation clinched the deal.
One large CTC project accomplished with the help of the Trust for Public Land was the purchase of over 100 parcels at Al Tahoe on the South Shore and near Tahoma on the West Shore from one landowner. Also, with a CTC grant, the North Lake Tahoe Public Utility District and Trust for Public Land partnered to purchase the former La Playa restaurant property near the foot of National Avenue in Tahoe Vista. Other notable North Shore CTC projects include the Beach Center across the street from the Kings Beach Safeway and the constructed wetlands next to the Albertson's in Tahoe City, the latter a joint project of CTC, Placer County and the North Lake Tahoe Resort Association.
Over its 20-year lifetime, CTC says it has "authorized over $290 million, both directly and through grants, for the acquisition of more than 7,400 acres of land and the implementation of nearly 600 projects on the California side of the Lake Tahoe Basin for the purposes of protecting water quality, preserving wildlife habitat, and providing public access and recreational opportunities."
The success of CTC is due in large measure to the leadership of Dennis Machida, who was tragically struck down by a fatal heart attack early this year while giving a talk about Lake Tahoe at a conference in Montana. Tom Martens, former Executive Director of the League to Save Lake Tahoe, outdoors writer and Machida's fly-fishing buddy, singles out the restoration of Cold and Trout creeks on the South Shore as one of Machida's major achievements.
Cold Creek had once been a meandering stream in a beautiful meadow. Decades ago, a developer straightened the creek's channel, and created Lake Christopher to help sell subdivision parcels. "The developer went broke," Martens writes in California Fly Fisher, and the lake turned into a mudflat, carrying a springtime sediment load down Cold Creek to Trout Creek and into Lake Tahoe itself." Besides polluting The Lake, the sediments ruined an excellent trout fishery.
CTC's staff consulted with a famous stream morphologist and developed a plan that "turned the creek from a lifeless ditch into an oxbow stream that snakes its way through a meadow."
"Cold Creek now has healthy populations of wild brown and rainbow trout, Lahontan redsides and mountain whitefish," says Martens.
On the Nevada Side
Although not a conservancy, the Nevada Division of State Lands has been doing many of the things on the east side of The Lake that the California Tahoe Conservancy does on the west. Pamela Wilcox, the Administrator of the Division of State Lands, has a nine-member Tahoe Resource Team that includes wildlife, forestry and State Parks experts. The team acquires sensitive lands, manages those lands, and conducts forest health, wildlife habitat and stream restoration projects. Its work is funded by some $82 million of bonds approved by Nevada voters for environmental projects.
The work being done fulfills the State's commitment to TRPA's Environmental Improvement Program, and will cease when the bond money is expended (although Nevada will continue to manage its holdings).
Another group now getting involved on the Nevada side of The Lake is the Nevada Land Conservancy. "We are a regional land trust working for conservation outcomes on the Sierra front, into the Basin and across the state of Nevada," says Alicia Reban, Executive Director.
Truckee Donner Land Trust
The Truckee Donner Land Trust has grown into an important force for protecting open space in and around Truckee and the Tahoe Basin. The organization was formed in 1990 by homeowners at Donner Lake to help prevent development in nearby Cold Stream Canyon. It eventually purchased 160 acres for $150,000.
"Our greatest success to date," says Executive Director Perry Norris, "was the acquisition, in partnership with the Trust for Public Land, of 2000 acres, including Schallenberger Ridge, that border Donner Memorial State Park. The acreage was donated to the State Park, more than tripling its size. The Trust currently has an additional 8,000 acres under contract."
According to Norris, one of the objectives of the Trust is to preserve open space within the Town of Truckee boundaries (in area, the 9th largest city in California!). A recent cooperative agreement with Sierra College, for example, has led to the protection of McIver Hill, known locally as "Hippy Hill."
The Trust has received open space donations from the developers of Old Greenwood and Pine Forest and has an agreement with East West Partners, the Old Greenwood and Gray's Crossing developer, who will donate 0.25 to 0.5 percent of sales for open space protection within Truckee.
A similar opportunity is presenting itself in Martis Valley. In recent negotiations with environmental groups, developers there will also donate a percentage of each sale for the purchase of open space. Norris estimates that this will bring in between $30 to $50 million over the next 20 years. But the Trust knows it shouldn't wait 20 years to purchase property in Martis Valley, so it hopes to borrow against those future funds and buy land now.
The Trust is also hoping to purchase properties before there is a significant threat of development. To this end, according to Norris, "we've purchased 1400 acres in Gray Creek Canyon, which stretches from the Truckee River toward the Tahoe Basin and Mount Rose." Protection for the remainder of the canyon is being negotiated.
"We've been able to leverage our membership support into million dollar grants," Norris explains, "either from government sources or private foundations. We've targeted about 30,000 acres we want to protect in the near future, and they're valued in the neighborhood of $100 million. We're going to be looking to our membership to make a more significant contribution toward the land acquisition."
Trust for Public Land
San Francisco-based Trust for Public Land has been involved with acquisitions both in and around the Tahoe Basin. In addition to helping CTC with some projects on the California side of the Basin, Trust for Public Land helped the U.S. Forest Service obtain Secret Harbor on the Nevada side. In Hope Valley to the south of Tahoe, it helped Friends of Hope Valley protect 25,000 acres. "The real spark that ignited the four or five people that formed Friends of Hope Valley," says John Brissenden, a Friends founder, "was a planned power line between Sacramento Municipal Utility District and Sierra Pacific Power. We contacted Trust for Public Land and it was on its radar as well. Over 20-some years, Friends of Hope Valley and the Trust have raised $25 million and put 25,000 acres into the hands of the Forest Service and the California Department of Fish and Game."
Other Conservancies
The Sierra Nevada Conservancy got its official start earlier this year and is just now coming up to speed. It will work in all of the California parts of the Sierra, (except the Tahoe Basin) covering some 25 million acres (one quarter of the area of California).
The American Land Conservancy was instrumental in obtaining the fabled Whittell Estate on the East Shore for the U.S. Forest Service and the former Sunset Stables near the South Lake Tahoe Airport for CTC.
Affordable housing efforts on both ends of The Lake also include land trust arms that allow agencies to secure title to land separate from the structures on it.
The globally active Nature Conservancy has not been as visible in this region as the afore-mentioned entities. However, it reportedly has plans to purchase significant land holdings around the Tahoe Basin. In 2002, Nature Conservancy purchased 450 acres north of Truckee that includes over a mile of the Little Truckee River.
Around the Corner
What are some future plans for the conservancy community in our region? The organizations are reluctant to advertise their intentions because opportunists might buy or option land that they've targeted—and raise the price. But it seems a certainty that they will continue to be of great importance to this region, literally defining the landscape of the northern Sierra, and trying to avoid controversy while doing it.