NORTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. – Driven by growing community engagement and strong local support, Eastern Placer Future has reached a key milestone in its multi-year effort exploring whether forming an incorporated town could better serve the long-term needs of the North Tahoe community. Eastern Placer Future, a community-led nonprofit, has filed a formal incorporation application with the Placer County Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO) after collecting and verifying more than 2,300 signatures from local registered voters.
The proposed town boundaries include all areas of Placer County east of Donner Summit, excluding Serene Lakes and Donner Lake. The area encompasses the lakeside communities of Kings Beach, Tahoe Vista, Carnelian Bay, Tahoe City, and Tahoma, as well as Olympic Valley, Alpine Meadows, Northstar, Martis Valley, and some residential areas adjacent to Truckee. A proposed town boundary map is available HERE.
The application filing caps a four-year, community-driven effort to evaluate whether local self-governance could better serve North Tahoe’s roughly 13,387 year-round residents — people who say that decisions about local roads, housing, wildfire safety, and transportation options shouldn’t be made an hour drive away in Auburn.
“People who live here year-round deserve a government that understands what it means when your commute depends on driving over a mountain pass and what it takes to build resilient communities in Tahoe,” said Sarah Coolidge, Eastern Placer Future executive committee member. “This isn’t about addressing any particular issue. It’s about the simple idea that the people closest to these challenges should be responsible for solving them.”
How the Effort Reached This Point
The path to the LAFCO application began with a straightforward question: could North Tahoe financially sustain its own municipal government?
Eastern Placer Future was formed as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit and commissioned an independent fiscal feasibility study — funded entirely by community contributions — to analyze proposed town boundaries and assess potential revenues and expenditures. The findings indicated that incorporation merited further exploration.
That study was followed by a community baseline survey, which found that 63% of respondents supported exploring incorporation. The petition drive that followed gathered more than 2,300 verified voter signatures, exceeding the legal minimum required to trigger the LAFCO review process.
“I signed because I believe decisions about roads, housing, and fire safety are best made by people who live, work and play here and have a real stake in the future of North Tahoe,” said Nick Harris, North Tahoe resident.
North Tahoe has considered incorporation before, with three prior efforts — dating back as far as 1970 — falling short before reaching a formal LAFCO application. This current effort has advanced farther than any previous attempt, driven by independent financial analysis, verified voter support, and a broader, community-led process.
What Happens Next
The LAFCO application triggers a state-mandated review process that will include comprehensive financial analysis, environmental review, and multiple public hearings where residents will weigh in directly.
Eastern Placer Future emphasizes that this process is designed to answer a question — not deliver a predetermined outcome. If the review moves forward, the community will decide through a ballot vote whether to incorporate.
What Local Incorporation Could Mean for North Tahoe
If the process leads to a vote and residents approve, North Tahoe would gain direct local control over land use planning, tourism management and mitigation, road and infrastructure maintenance, snow removal, and other municipal services — decisions currently made by Placer County from Auburn, more than an hour drive away over Donner Summit. A locally elected town council would be directly accountable to the residents it serves.
For more information and updates, visit easternplacerfuture.org/ and follow Eastern Placer Future on Instagram and Facebook.
NORTH TAHOE INCORPORATION — BY THE NUMBERS
13,387 Estimated year-round residents in the proposed incorporation area 8,570 Registered voters in the proposed incorporation area 2,387 Verified voter signatures collected (exceeding the 25% of voters required by LAFCO) 6-7 million Annual visitor-days to the North Tahoe region (a visitor-day is the number of visitors multiplied by the number of days they visit) ~80 miles Distance from North Tahoe to the Placer County seat in Auburn 4 years Duration of the community-led research and petitioning effort 63% Baseline survey respondents who supported language of a proposed ballot measure to form an incorporated Town. This number increased to 70% when respondents were given further details about the potential of incorporation. 