On Sierra Slopes, a Town’s Future Hangs in Balance

MAMMOTH LAKES —  Tourists who visit this ski town nestled beneath rows of towering Sierra peaks, just a short jaunt from two spectacular wilderness areas, usually see it as a scenic paradise.

But to many who live here, life over the past decade has been less than idyllic. The number of skiers at Mammoth Mountain Ski Area has dropped to roughly half of what it was in the early 1980s, and the economy has stagnated. Many restaurants and other businesses have gone under as skiers have bypassed Mammoth for other Western mountain resorts that feature four-star hotels and fashionable ambience.

Many here hope that the decline will be reversed if developers follow through on their plans to build luxury hotels and other upscale offerings in an attempt to bring back the skiers and tourists.

But a bitter fight has developed between advocates and critics of a redevelopment plan, passed by Mammoth Lakes town council members in July, intended to lay the groundwork for many of those changes.

A new citizens group called Friends of Mammoth has filed a lawsuit seeking to block the redevelopment plan, contending that the town is rushing ahead without understanding the long-term impacts.

Mono County Supervisor Andrea Lawrence, who co-founded the group acting as a private citizen, said the plan would deprive the county and other local districts of tax dollars. The money would be funneled to projects that mainly benefit the ski area and other big developers, she said, making it difficult for the county to provide increased services if the region grows.

“It’s a reverse Robin Hood, taking from the poor to give to the rich,” Lawrence said. “It deprives some people of tax money, taking it to give it to private developers.

“It’s saying that one group of property-tax payers is more important than another group of property-tax payers. I have a hard time with that.”

The town’s redevelopment proposals are estimated to cost $136 million and include improvements to the water system, roads, low-income housing, underground parking, a gondola to the ski area, new plazas and “pedestrian trails” for a downtown that has no sidewalks.

City officials say the additions would improve the quality of life in town and pave the way for the hotels and other projects.

Councilman David Watson called the plan “a good financial opportunity for the town.”

Watson said a major developer, Intrawest Corp., plans to spend $300 million to $500 million of its own money over the next decade or so to bring deluxe hotels, a ski village and other amenities to Mammoth Lakes.

The dispute over redevelopment is the latest in a series of fights in recent years between residents with contrasting visions of the town’s future.

Previous battles over how much the town should grow have been fought between those intent on fixing the economy, and others, including second-home owners and retirees from Southern California, who want to retain the town’s relaxed, low-key lifestyle.

One resident stood up at a recent public meeting on the redevelopment issue and said she didn’t want the town to draw more crowds and traffic. She feared that redevelopment would transform Mammoth Lakes into the kind of place she and others had fled in Southern California.

“They’re trying to turn it into an international destination resort, and I don’t think that would be a good thing,” Lawrence said. “I don’t want it to become a Vail or an Aspen.”

But others see the plan and improvements to the town’s tourist facilities as an overdue necessity.

“Business has been in a downward spiral since the mid-’80s,” said Jon Eisert, who owns the Ski Surgeon, a small ski rental shop. “We’re so far behind these other resorts that we need to get some development here, fast, to compete.”

The town’s redevelopment plan would make that possible, he said.

“There are a lot of people with what I call the ‘garden gate’ mentality. ‘I’ve got my piece of paradise here in Mammoth. Close the gate, and let’s not let anybody else in,’ ” Eisert said.

“The ‘no-growthers’ want Mammoth to remain the quaint little mountain village that it is, when hardly anybody can make a decent living.”

Gary Berger, who has run Bergers restaurant for 26 years, agreed. ‘The town has been going in the toilet for about the last 15 years,” he said. “There’s been no new investment, and redevelopment is probably the only chance we have.”

Part of the controversy over the plan has centered around how much it would directly benefit Intrawest, the ski resort developer that bought 33% of the Mammoth Mountain Ski Area last year. The company intends to build the kind of deluxe hotels that many here want to attract tourists.

But opponents have criticized specific projects, such as a proposal to spend $6 million in tax revenues to build a gondola to carry people from North Village, an area of shops, hotels and condos planned by Intrawest, up to the slopes at Mammoth Mountain. Critics contend that the ski area developers should pay for those kinds of projects.

Opponents also contend that some areas in the redevelopment district were only included because they were expected to generate considerable tax revenue, and did not fit the legal definition of “blighted” areas. Officials said the blighted designation is key to enabling the redevelopment agency to use tax revenues to help pay for redevelopment projects.

“They’re highly distorting the definition of blight,” said John Walter, a retired engineer who lives in Mammoth Lakes and is an outspoken critic of the plan. “You cannot include districts just to get their tax base.

“It’s a real stretch to say part of a golf course is a blighted area,” he said, referring to a new golf course being built by Intrawest.

But council member Watson said that the areas meet the statutory definition of blight. He added that giving incentives to developers and business owners to improve and invest in an area is the point of redevelopment.

“One of the things the opponents have been saying is that this will benefit the developers, and that’s true,” Watson said. “And I’ve been saying it will benefit the public, and that’s true too. That’s the concept--it’s not either/or.”

The redevelopment issue has been debated at public meetings that sometimes turn emotional and in letters and guest columns in the town’s newspapers.

Rusty Gregory, the Mammoth Mountain Ski Area chief executive who also sits on the board of the Intrawest Mammoth Corp., said the developer’s plans fit nicely with the aspirations of most residents in the ski town.

He turned away the rancorous protests of opponents, saying: “It’s more accurate to say that Intrawest presumed that redevelopment was something wanted by the town.”