SNOWCREEK LINES UP THE VIII BALL
Snowcreek development was on the docket on Wednesday’s meeting of Mammoth’s Planning and Economic Development Commission.
However, an extension of the overarching Snowcreek Development Agreement, set to expire in July 2025, was not.
What commissioners ultimately and unanimously approved was a tentative tract map and use permit covering the first phase of Snowcreek VIII.
This building phase would consist of 172 units spread across 41 buildings.
As the Town’s legal counsel Andrew Morris explained, the commission’s job Wednesday was to make legal findings as to whether it could approve the tract map, and “not to determine whether it’s a good project or not.”
Is the tract map consistent with zoning? Consistent with the general plan? Has it undergone appropriate environmental analysis?
The answer was ‘yes’ on all counts, to the chagrin of some, who questioned whether a 15-year old environmental analysis (the initial environmental impact report was certified back in 2009) should govern the next phase.
Mammoth resident Greg Newbry also suggested to the commission that it could add conditions to an approval which could right past wrongs – specifically adding operational requirements to the Snowcreek golf course.
Morris politely rejected Newbry’s suggestion.
“I don’t doubt there were things left out,” Morris began, alluding to the Snowcreek Master Plan.
*As Newbry slumped in the audience and shook his head
But, continued Morris, you can’t just add things in and create new standards. The Master Plan, as it sits now, doesn’t require these things.
Chuck Lande, the Snowcreek Developer via his Chadmar Group, also disputed the idea that there were things left out in the first place.
“Nobody forgot to do anything,” he said, adding that it was always anticipated the golf course would be expanded if/when the planned hotel was built.
But hotels are very difficult to finance these days (The Limelight’s getting done precisely because it doesn’t need financing). And golf? Golf is not perceived in the way it used to be.
Golf, said Lande, used to be the default activity of ‘old farts.’ Now the old farts hike and bike and are far more active.
“Habits have changed,” he said.
“Opponents of [Snowcreek VIII] want the town to force us to build golf. Under our existing entitlements, we’re not required to have it. In fact, I could apply for a map to develop it. I know that’s what the rumors say. That we plan to develop the meadow. But that’s not accurate.”
To jump ahead to the development agreement extension being contemplated now, Lande says it would establish an open space overlay. And Snowcreek would agree to operate the existing nine holes.
Community Development Director Nolan Bobroff confirmed that the existing nine holes were built under a use-permit in 1988, and there was no particular requirement for what the course should be, and no standards for the course included or defined in the Master Plan.
For perspective, Lande says it costs approximately $1 million per hole, or $18 million to build a championship golf course. At Rolling Hills Country Club, which features year-round golf via a private club membership, membership costs approximately $2,000/month.
In Mammoth, golf courses operate three months out of the year if they’re lucky.
End of interlude.
Morris said a tentative tract map for phase one would remain in effect whether Snowcreek’s development agreement were extended or not.
The tract map would be good for two years upon its vesting date with a possible six-year extension per the Subdivision Map Act.
New PEDC Commissioner Lana Grand kept searching for a loophole to delay or circumvent approval.
But Bobroff said that even if one perceives there has been dramatic growth in town over the past few years, EIRs are focused on individual projects as opposed to addressing town-wide impacts.
Commissioner Greg Eckert grumbled, “This isn’t the first time we’ve said, ‘What were they [previous generations of commissioners and staffers] thinking when they agreed to that?’” But he also acknowledged, procedurally, that he really had no choice but to approve the tract map and use permit.
