Potential hotel development swap causing ire around Lake Tahoe

There may be a duel this winter over hotel rooms around Lake Tahoe.

Placer County is interested in paying about $3.7 million to buy hotels from private owners and demolish them in the city of South Lake Tahoe, which is in El Dorado County.

South Lake Tahoe doesn't want to lose the hotels, along with the important associated sales and room taxes.

Placer County wants the hotels so it can open development of new lodging along Placer County's north shore of Lake Tahoe, which hasn't had a new hotel built since 1959.

So why does Placer County want to buy hotels in a city in a neighboring county? "Like most things in Tahoe, it's complicated," said Mary Dietrich, facilities services director with Placer County.

Any new development has been restricted around Lake Tahoe for years. The number of hotel rooms or lodging units in the area is controlled by the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency. Hotels are capped at the number of lodging units that existed in 1987.

The hotels are the 34-unit Lake Tahoe Inn at 3520 Lake Tahoe Blvd., and the 59-room Howard Johnson Express Inn at 3489 Lake Tahoe Blvd.

"If they take the Howard Johnson down, it would be a big hit to our budget," said South Lake Tahoe city manager Nancy Kerry.

South Lake Tahoe has $110 million in bond debt that is dependent on being repaid by assessments, taxes and room taxes in that area, and removing property from the tax rolls lowers income.

"That would be a government entity harming another government entity," Kerry said.

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