Homewood, California – The battle over the future of Homewood Mountain Resort has been heating up over the past few weeks.
After a contentious Tahoe Regional Planning Agency Regional Planning Commission (RPC) public meeting on September 25th, Homewood Mountain Resort announced on October 11th that it wouldn’t be operating this winter due to a financial supporter backing out. Since then, their opponents have primarily controlled the battle of public narrative.
However, Homewood Mountain Resort is now pushing back. In a recently published Homewood Mountain Resort Master Plan Frequently Asked Questions webpage, they detailed their reasoning behind the closure, whether it plans to become a private ski resort, and what it will take to reopen.
In summary, Homewood remains insistent that it plans to remain a public ski resort (it previously stated in 2022 that it was planning to become a private ski resort but has since backtracked). Some of its other main points are that it’s updating the master plan to meet current requirements and bring the base terminal for its planned gondola closer to the base area and that its 2011 master plan was not implemented due to litigation brought forth by environmental groups.
They further elaborated on why they’re not operating this season, which they previously cited as being due to its financial backer withdrawing support. They blamed Keep Homewood Public for pushing for a “hard reset” (outright rejection) of the new plan, moving the process back to square one. Keep Homewood Public wants the implementation of the 2011 master plan, with fears that a new plan would lead to privatization. With the process stalled, the financial backer withdrew its support.
Homewood Mountain Resort has been owned by JMA Ventures since 2006 but has been working with Mohari Hospitality and the Discovery Land Company (the manager and developer behind the private Yellowstone Club and the proposed redevelopment of Colorado’s Stagecoach ski area) in recent years.
I read through these responses, and I think they did give some good, thorough answers to people’s concerns. I was also encouraged to see they’re planning to open for the 2025-26 season, albeit only if they get their updated master plan approved. However, there are inaccuracies, such as stating that their application is complete. We contacted TRPA last week, and they said that “the agency has not received the information needed to continue our review and proceed with the schedule for Governing Board consideration.”
As a marketing major, my one critique is that this should have come out either the day or immediately after their closing announcement. In the court of public opinion, they’ve been losing the narrative for the past few weeks (at least), and not speaking out publically on their social media outlets until now hasn’t been wise. Homewood rarely posts on social media, and the image above was their first post in over six months. In addition, they didn’t post it to their Facebook account.
In response to Homewood’s Frequently Asked Questions page, Keep Homewood Public issued the following statement to Unofficial Networks:
“The fact is that this application is stuck because the developers, despite claiming to maintain public access, are unwilling or unable to provide enforceable specifics that would put teeth in that promise.
These two statements from HMR [Homewood Mountain Resort] are particularly misleading:
HAS HMR AGREED TO ENFORCEABLE SPECIFICS AS REQUESTED BY COMMUNITY MEMBERS?
Homewood’s Response: Yes, HMR agreed to the below draft enforcement language provided by TRPA. This language was included in HMR’s written community access commitment provided to TRPA and which HMR shared in the September 25th TRPA RPC public hearing presentation.
Keep Homewood Public’s Response: The draft public access language HMR presented at the Sept 25 TRPA meeting does not, in fact, contain enforceable specifics about public access. In fact, TRPA called out this lack as part of their staff presentation (see the meeting recording starting at 35:10). We are concerned that this specific language leaves loopholes through which HMR can privatize in the future – see examples here.
IN RESPONSE TO THE MOUNTAIN CLOSURE, LOCAL AGENCIES SAID THEY WERE WAITING FOR ADDITIONAL DETAILS IN THE MASTER PLAN TO BE PROVIDED. WHAT IS THE STATUS OF THESE ITEMS?
Homewood’s Response: Our submittal from May 2024 was complete and we are currently reacting to additional requests made at the September 25, 2024 meeting.
Keep Homewood Public’s Response: Per TRPA, this application is not complete, and will not move forward until the developer provides the information requested in the Sept 25 meeting. See application status screenshot below from TRPA’s online application tracking tool here.”
Image/Video Credits: Homewood Mountain Resort