STICKS AND CARROTS
Town, Snowcreek continue to hash through terms of DA extension
While the public hearing for the Snowcreek VIII Development Agreement (DA) was postponed to March 12, Mammoth’s Town Council received an update at its February 5 mneeting in anticipation of the Planning and Economic Development Commission’s (PEDC) March review. With that in mind, here’s what you need to know about DA and where it currently stands:
The original DA committed to delivering an expansion of the existing golf course, a hotel, and 790 homes pursuant to affordable housing requirements. However, much of the construction of these amenities hasn’t started, and, as a result, the DA is set to terminate in July 2025.
The project’s developer made a request to amend the DA in 2023, and the town began discussions on the amendment in early 2024. By September, the town decided to hire an outside consultant to identify “gaps” in the DA.
The request to hire outside advisors was made in part due to community criticism, including a comment by Greg Newbry, longtime Mammoth local and former Mammoth Councilman.
“This is the largest project in the history of Mammoth Lakes,” he said. “1,000 units. Any other resort would have hired a high-powered consultant [to broker a deal of this magnitude].”
Enter Burke, Williams & Sorensen, a law firm contracted to analyze the following four goals:
*Review each of the deal points
*Confirm that the deal points are clear and have enough detail to ensure the end results are achieved
*Identify any gaps or loopholes that could be failure points
*Provide recommended language updates on the more complicated portions of the agreement.
Newbry was not satisfied by the request, and submitted a letter of public comment condemning these “marching orders,” and said they “really only requested a spell-check and confirmation that the DA states what it states,” in anticipation of the firm’s presentation.
He concluded his letter thusly, “When I was a planner there was a joke: A consultant is someone you hire to tell you how much money is in your wallet and then keeps half. It appears the Town just did that.”
Nira Doherty was the selected attorney to deliver the firm’s analysis.
“I will say,” she started her presentation, “It is harder to keep housing developers in DAs today, and that is in large part because of the very generous state housing laws that our legislature has established over the last few years.”
She was referring to SB 330, which states that a town can only deny a housing development project or reduce its density if the project does not meet..
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