Ordinance 7 provision for hotels and motels

New language appears in the Ordinance 7 draft that finally came out on Tuesday afternoon, just 2 days before the public hearing, that was never discussed by the Ordinance 7 committee. It deals with hotel and motel guest access. Although the beach deed specifically mentions hotel and motel guests, at the time the beach deed was drafted, hotel and motel properties were charged a rec/beach fee for each hotel unit. Hyatt guests typically don’t use the beach since they have their own beach; the per room assessment stopped in 1982 for all hotels. Hotels could purchase tickets as needed.

The fact that hotels and motels only pay one facility fee per parcel puts an unfair burden on the residential property owner. Why so? User fees/guest fees seldom even cover operating costs. The many millions of dollars of capital improvements like the Burnt Cedar Pool, the boat ramp, the Rec Center, the Skier services building, the Chateau and even maintenance costs have all been paid for primarily by the rec and beach fees. One fee for a parcel that serves thousands of visitors it just not equitable or proportional to the benefit received. Some mechanism is needed to allow the hotel motel guests onto the beaches, however, there needs to be some equity in the amount of revenue they provide. Either go back to charging the hotels a per room facility fee or charge a higher guest fee than is charged to residential customers.

Consent Calendar – Policy for non-profits

The consent calendar item H.1 has a much discussed, but never before seen draft of a policy for free/discounted use of our facilities by just about everybody (non-profits, groups that resemble non-profits, government agencies, schools) except the individual residents and property owners and their families. The GM can fund “programs” up to his spending limit (now $50K). No limit is specified on the number of programs to which he can give benefits. The policy does not give any particular benefit, but instead refers to other policies, including the recently approved, but equally magnanimous, pricing policy. At least pull this item from the consent calendar and discuss. In its present state, this policy provides for even less oversight than the old policies it replaces.

In special purpose districts such as IVGID that have limited powers and only provide specific services to citizens, non-profits rarely qualify for discounts or free use of public facilities unless they provide services (free or discounted) of equal value to the public and those services are ones the agency would have been required to provide. In other words, the public agency has a contract with the non-profit. Considering that IVGID’s recreational venues require millions of dollars in subsidies from the property owners, every time something of value is given to a non-profit, it comes directly out of the pockets of those who pay the rec fee. And we have no say as to which non-profits receive that benefit. To date, none are required to provide services to our residents and property owners (discounted or without charge) equivalent to the value of the benefits received.

Although a limited policy to donate “excess” capacity that has little cost to the taxpayers might be justifiable, it would be difficult to administer and fairly distribute benefits, with so many non-profits in our community. With the recent population surge, there is little excess capacity at our venues, particularly the beach and golf. This policy needs further review to provide a fair and equitable way to help our non-profits. This item should be removed from the consent calendar.

Sale of IVGID land cloaked as a lot line adjustment

Another item on Thursday’s agenda (I.1) that raises questions is the one initially simply called a lot line adjustment. Here IVGID will potentially transfer title to a private party of approximately one acre of land for some as yet unnamed amount and receive an easement that allows it to continue to use the land for the water tank and pipes currently located there. Although there may be no immediate downside, we have seen from past transfers that often these decisions have future unintended consequences. Also, unless there is a significant amount of money involved (several millions, at least), IVGID staff, with its limited bandwidth, should not be taking time to work on this endeavor designed to allow an accessory dwelling unit to be sold separately from the main home after TRPA had required the owner to record a deed restriction that prohibited subdivision of the parcel. The lot line adjustment and transfer will effectively circumvent that deed restriction and significantly increase the value of the property. It appears there may also be an attempt to circumvent the requirement to sell public land at auction (remember the unbuildable lots). Hopefully that will not be the case here.