(Mount Rose Sewer Special Assessment District) As a sewer line makes its way up to Mt. Rose ski resort, can
development be far behind?
"The
buildings keep going up and up the mountain. I think it should be stopped. They'll ruin
this country. But that's progress." Ralph Patterson, Reno local "My
personal opinion is to go slow on the prospect of developing Mt. Rose. People like me who
have lived here a long time view it as the last vestiges of access into the back
country." Rick Jones, chair of the Incline Village-Crystal Bay Citizen Advisory
BoardSeemingly overnight, the air along the Mount Rose Highway corridor had turned crisp
and tight. A gray mass of chalkboard smudges streaked the sky, and some of the season's
first fresh snowflakes began to sprinkle the mountain. Down
by the tree line on this early November morning, Johnny-On-the-Spot portable toilet
salesman Cole Ginter was driving in from Reno past the town of Galena and on up toward
Reno's closest ski resort--Mt. Rose-Ski Tahoe. This
is the same route a new sewer line will take once the full project is completed next
summer. Ginter
knows a thing or two about sewage, as the red jacket he wears bearing the toilet company's
logo sewn into the lapel reminds anyone who meets him. He knows a sewer line is a big key
to opening Mt. Rose to future development. And while not an expert, he knows a bit about
the mountain, too. He moved to Reno in 1976 and has used Mount Rose as his outdoor
stomping grounds ever since. He shot his first buck on one of its hills and used to slide
down its snowy slopes in an inner tube as a kid. Part
of him wants to see the mountain left alone, while another part sees the benefits
development can bring. "Development
is good," he opined. "It's sad for people who have lived here for a while and
don't want to see change. But there are positives, like providing for families." Flush
with growth In
the past decade, Galena has transformed from a sleepy ranching community into a sprawling
Reno suburb with new housing subdivisions, malls, schools and the upscale Montreaux golf
course. The town actually manages to make even its McDonald's look quaint. For
some, the mountain is a big reason why they moved to this South Reno area. They were lured
by its promise of beauty, escape from the city and a little outdoor fun. All
of those people would create quite a stink without sewer service to accommodate them. Joe
Stowell and his fellow engineers at the Washoe County Department of Water Resources have
been busy adding new water and sewer services to much of the expanding area. "This
used to be the boonies," he said, tapping his index finger on a map of South Reno. Not
anymore. "We
have a brand new mall coming in. We have a brand new freeway, new churches, new hospitals.
This is a new town," said realtor Ron Bell of Coldwell Banker Village Realty. Home
prices along the Mount Rose Highway corridor now range from $450,000 to more than $4
million, according to Bell. He said the area is being seen by retirees, second-home
buyers, ski buffs and upper income folk as a less expensive alternative to Lake Tahoe
properties. But
from where Galena disintegrates into a two-lane highway lined with Douglas fir, ponderosa
and Jeffrey pine on up to the Mt. Rose ski resort at 8,260 ft. elevation, Mount Rose has
remained one of the less disturbed ski resort areas in the region. The mountain hosts only
a small smattering of homes, restaurants, ski-related businesses and, of course, the Mt.
Rose-Ski Tahoe resort. There is currently no lodging in which to spend the night on the
mountain, and Mt. Rose-Ski Tahoe has been a day-ski resort serving mostly locals since its
opening in 1964. For
better or worse, plans underway to complete a sewer line up to the Mt. Rose ski resort
could change all that.
Potty
talk The
basic concept is simple, albeit crass: Shit happens, and without a sewer system, real
growth cannot. "Sewer
service is a condition of development," said senior engineer Rick Warner of the
Washoe County Department of Water Resources. Funded
primarily by the Mt. Rose ski resort, the sewer line is a two-phase project. Since
the first leg was completed by Washoe County this past summer, sewer service now extends
from the Galena Forest Estates housing development at the base of Mount Rose up to the
site of the former Tannenbaum Ski Area, where the remains of a decrepit ski lift still sit
in a slump of disrepair. That first sewer line was funded by a special assessment district
made up of landowners who benefit from the sewer line. With
1,200 acres of skiable land and an additional 500 acres with various zoning designations,
the biggest landowner by far is Mt. Rose ski resort, so the company footed most of the
$1.3 million bill. For
the second phase, Mt. Rose-Ski Tahoe contracted with Reno's ECO:LOGIC Engineering to
oversee the design and construction of the remaining 10,500 linear feet of sewer line from
Tannenbaum to Mt. Rose ski resort--a task estimated to cost $1 million. This final
construction is expected to begin and end next summer and will serve the ski resort as
well as private properties in the area and the city of Reno's Sky Tavern junior ski
program. Mt.
Rose's quiet reputation as a secret snow jewel is steadily being uncovered by the masses.
It's that growing popularity that led to the ski resort's decision to put in the sewer
line, said company spokesman Mike Pierce. About
200,000 skiers visit Mt. Rose each season, with last year being one of its busiest. A 20
percent increase in skier visits was seen in the 2004-05 season over the previous record
season of 2002-03. Pierce said that increase was likely a combination of an early Nov. 12
opening, the 424 inches of snow that kept the mountain well blanketed, a new high-speed
six-pack chair and the grand opening of The Chutes--an extreme-terrain skiers' dream (or
nightmare, depending on your abilities) with 55-degree slopes. "We
know continued growth could tax our septic system," said Pierce. "For us to
continue, the sewer system is a step in the right direction." The
ski resort, like most homes and businesses on Mount Rose, currently runs on septic systems
and well water. A
few rural homes on septic systems present no major threat to groundwater, explained
Warner. But increase the density to 15 condos or a hotel, and septic systems don't have
enough capacity to deal with this most basic of human functions. The systems can leak,
crack or overflow, any of which could degrade groundwater. Furthermore, the Department of
Water Resources won't allow for such structures to be built without being hooked up to a
sewer line. "Too
many septics in one area can degrade drinking water," said Warner while sitting in
his cluttered county office, maps from various water projects propped in stacks against
the walls. "The end goal is to protect the groundwater." For
Mt. Rose-Ski Tahoe, the goal is also to keep the people coming. "The
primary reason the sewer is coming up here is so the current septic system does not get
taxed to the point where we would have to limit skiers," said Pierce. Some
wonder if Mt. Rose-Ski Tahoe is also bringing the sewer line up the mountain so it can
develop the roughly 11 acres of property the company has zoned for commercial tourism
development. "Our
current owners do not have official plans to develop that acreage," said Pierce. He
affirmed the sewer line would open up the prospect for development in future years but
would not speculate on what such development might look like.
According
to the Washoe County Department of Community Development, examples of allowed uses (some
requiring special permits) of property zoned "tourist commercial" include
restaurants, hotels, motels, vacation time shares and hostels. Developments such as
condominiums would require a "down-zoning" to a residential use. Hooked
up Nevertheless,
Gary Schmidt, a long-time resident eccentric of Mount Rose, devoted attendee of planning
commission meetings and owner of the Reindeer Lodge, estimates that a sewer line running
from the base of Mount Rose to the summit could make way for the equivalent of 125 new
homes and more than 200 lodging units. He
would like to take advantage of the sewer line himself to build an 8,000-square-feet
"trading post" market and about 40 alpine lodging units on five acres he owns
across the highway from the Reindeer Lodge. "This
area needs to expand, amplify and accentuate its outdoor activities and get away from the
casino mentality that (Reno) is a gambling mecca," said Schmidt, sounding somewhat
like a politician-in-training (an idea he kicks around from time to time). He wants to see
more emphasis on the area's hiking, biking, fishing, birdwatching and winter sport
opportunities, and he thinks visitors to Mount Rose should have a place to stay while they
do them. Schmidt
has not always espoused development on Mount Rose. In the 1970s, the land between the
Reindeer Lodge and Tannenbaum (the former Christmas Tree) restaurant was changed from a
commercial to a multi-residential zoning to make way for the Sunridge Estates housing
development. Schmidt fought that zoning change in court, ultimately settling for three of
the Sunridge lots, which now buffer his lodge and its amalgam of antiquated wagon wheels,
wood carvings, fire engines and snowmobile collections from the other homes. There are now
18 Tahoe-style homes at Sunridge with three scheduled to be built next year. "The
threat came to me when they built those houses behind the lodge," said Schmidt. After
that, he said, Mount Rose was no longer the same. Rather than fight further development,
he has become its proponent. Schmidt
recalls a time during the 1970s when the Mount Rose Highway corridor was still a rustic
mountain road. He would ride his snowmobile clear down to South Virginia Street to pick up
Reindeer Lodge stragglers. Sitting
in his white Chevy Silverado on Bums Gulch Road, gray hair stashed in a blue baseball cap,
Schmidt said, "This area's already changed, and you're not going to stop it
now." That
may sound rather defeatist coming from a guy who moved to Mount Rose in part because he
was attracted to the mountain's remoteness and solitude. His
light blue eyes followed three cars as they passed by within seconds along the Mount Rose
Highway in front of him. "Solitude is when you see three cars a day," he said.
"This is not wilderness. This is a major highway from one of the fastest growing
communities in the United States." Even
so, Schmidt thinks progress will only make its way so far up Mount Rose. Never mind U.S.
Forest Service land and zoning whatnots. He thinks the same natural element that attracts
so many people to Mount Rose each winter will keep them from getting too cozy there--lots
and lots of snow. "The
elements here are substantially more severe than right down there at the tree line,"
said Schmidt. "You can wake up in the morning to six feet of snow." While
there are people like Schmidt who love that--people he calls "reclusive,"
"eccentric" and "nuts"--there are others who only think they will love
it. Schmidt
idled his truck before a house in the Sunridge Estates by his lodge. A "For
Sale" sign stuck out of the ground in its front yard. He shook his head and guffawed,
noting how the people who most recently lived there stayed only two or three years before
moving away. That's not uncommon, he said. "I
think people who come up here don't do their research," said Schmidt. "They
don't seem to know how much snow there really is." But
then again, it snows an awful lot in Aspen and Tahoe, too, and those places are hardly
ghost towns.
Septic
skeptics "I
would think any sort of sewer containment would be a good idea for the developments
already there," said Rick Jones, chair of the Incline Village-Crystal Bay Citizen
Advisory Board. "But my personal opinion is to go slow on the prospect of developing
Mount Rose. People like me who have lived here a long time view it as the last vestige of
access into the back country." Jones
has lived in the Lake Tahoe Basin for the past 30 years and has watched the trickle of
developments at the base of the Mount Rose Highway corridor turn into somewhat of a
deluge. "You get stuff too close to a main highway and people just love it to
death," he said. Thus
far, that has been curtailed on Mount Rose itself. When
a group of Galena developers sought to build a housing community and golf course resort at
the top of the mountain more than a decade ago, public opinion shot it down. The Friends
of Galena organization and various property owners along the corridor fought vehemently
against the developers to prevent what they thought would be an ecological disaster. The
project was never built. While
a mountain-top golf course may be a different animal from the extra homes and lodges that
could potentially develop within the area's existing zoning, the growth of Mt. Rose is
championed by some for the same reason growth is lauded all over the city: It's the
economy, stupid. "Believe
it or not, growth fuels the economy," said Ron Steele, a fiscal analyst with the
Washoe County Finance Department. While
the county is not paying for part two of the Mount Rose sewer line, various county
departments must make sure outside contractors (ECO:LOGIC, in this case) are building the
line to code specifics. Steele said he has never seen the county decline an outside offer
to build a sewer line. That would be turning down economic growth. "We
want $3 million houses," he said, sitting in his county office lined with framed
works by environmental photographer Ansel Adams. "We don't want $30,000 houses."
The $3 million houses rarely require additional county services such as schools or health
clinics, said Steele, while the lower income houses "are full of people getting their
child immunizations down at Social Services." Exhibiting
the mentality of a professional number cruncher, Steele said the ideal vision of growth is
expensive homes that provide a strong tax base but have no need for services. "We
need those taxes to pay for those social services," he said. "Not to be
socialistic about it. That's just how it goes." Change
stinks Patterson,
who grew up in Reno and works for the Nevada Department of Transportation, is the quieter
of the two men. But when he speaks, his opinions are firm. "The buildings keep going
up and up the mountain," he said. "I think it should be stopped. They'll ruin
this country. But that's progress." "If
money is involved, things are going to get pushed through," said Ginter. "You
can't stop progress if it helps the economy," added Patterson. "That's what
Reno's all about." Perhaps
we're getting ahead of ourselves here. After all, there are no applications for zoning
changes or development proposals for the mountain sitting on the desks of county planners
in the Department of Community Development. Yet. Mt.
Rose-Ski Tahoe itself has clearly stated it has no immediate plans to develop its
commercial land for tourists. The company just doesn't want a bunch of crap to get in the
way of receiving its visitors. (Pun intended). But
the installation of a sewer line represents the leaping of a major hurdle to development
on Mount Rose. Other hurdles still exist--the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, zoning
designations and a lack of available private property, to name a few. But
as Warner at the Department of Water Resources said regarding the first leg of the
county-built line, "We're not going to build a sewer line with the hope that in 10 to
20 years (the landowners) will build something." That "something" is
expected to come soon. Developing ideas may not have made it to official documents yet, but they are there. And the door will soon be open to them. |
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