By Mike Bodine
Register Staff
6-27-2009

Ground will soon be broken near the base of Mount Whitney.
The dirt, about five miles west of Lone Pine on the south side on Whitney Portal Road, will be dug, leveled and compacted to make room for the Portal Preserve project that will add 27, single-dwelling, 2.5-acre lots slated for housing development.
The developers and opponents of the project have been in and out of court since 2004, but the legal time period to make a final appeal has passed, and so the project is moving forward.
Preserve developer and land-owner Jim Walters sent out letters to prospective investors on June 21, stating that, “The Portal Preserve, after six years of anticipating or being in a suit, is free to move forward.”
The notice comes just days after the 30-day period to appeal the project ended on June 18. On May 19, the Inyo County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously in favor of the project, and it was expected that the Save Round Valley Alliance would appeal that decision.
Lynne Almeida, Bishop-based spokesperson for SRVA, said Thursday that, in fact, it is “not filing” any action against the project, “but it doesn’t mean we’re going to disappear, either.”
Almeida said that SRVA “will continue to watch further development  developments” in the Eastern Sierra.

She added that SRVA has public outreach programs set for the future, to help educate the public about “healthy growth.”  
SRVA is suing Walters for $500,000 in attorney fees accrued during the suits, according to SRVA counsel Gabriel Ross of Shute, Mihaly and Weinberger, after SRVA won a suit on a technical error in the Environmental Impact Report.
When the Inyo County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously in favor of the project, it was in response to SRVA’s appeal of the Planning Commission’s approval of the project in March.
At the May meeting, SRVA attorneys showed but no representative from the organization was in attendance, creating a perception of disrespect among the supervisors.
Supervisor Marty Fortney said at the meeting that SRVA should have “the common decency to show up” after having Walters pay for legal counsel and time to appear. “It’s just not right,” Fortney said.

Walters adds to the letter statements from Board Chair Bev Brown, who, after noticing that SRVA’s address is on Rome Drive in Bishop, on Bishop Creek, asked how SRVA would have responded “if they had been sued” for the visual plight that residence has on the viewshed.
Despite the perceived disrespect, the land, some of the only land in private hands in the county, has been zoned residential for decades.
“But regardless, the good news is that the project can now proceed,” Walters states.
And the project is proceeding, but the weak economy means work is getting off to a slow start.
Walters says in his letter that “due to the recession” he does not plan on moving forward with Phase One on the project, which would be the first nine of the 27 lots. He explains that with the weak economy, both construction loans and financing for potential buyers, and Walters for his part in street paving and utility installation, will be hard to come by.
He did supply a possible saving grace for buyers getting loans. “We are considering making these lots available through requiring a substantial down payment and holding a note for the balance ourselves. This approach will be a last resort.”
In the letter, Walters states that he expects the housing market and loan availability to improve by next spring, and development will commence at that time if financing is not available until then.
According to the original EIR, the project will be in accordance with the county General Plan: “The site is zoned Rural Residential (RR) under the Inyo County Zoning Ordinance, with a 2.5 acre minimum lot size.”
Certain mitigation measures have also been added to the project, in response to concerns about visual plight, such as height restrictions on the homes, natural desert landscaping and a “dark sky” lighting policy.