The Tahoe region will see new rules for development and environmental protection in the near future. It's the first big overhaul to its governing rules since the original 1987 bi-state plan. Some disagree over how to best protect the lake.

For the last 25 years the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency has had strict rules limiting growth and development in the Tahoe basin.  The agency says this has helped protect the environment, but there's still a lot more work needed.

The plan updates are designed to move homes and businesses from sensitive environmental areas to concentrated town centers.

But a local environmental group says the plan allows for too much development.  At a recent community meeting in Incline Village, Laurel Ames with the Tahoe-area Sierra Club said the plan allows too many high-rises.

Ames says the plan should instead focus on "less commodities, less building, less coverage, less density.  All of those are impacts that go directly to lake in the end."

The current plan designates high density zones for development; the idea is to concentrate businesses and homes for more walk-ability.  Any new construction would have to comply with strict water quality rules.

"I believe that new regional plan isn't perfect, but I think we need something to go forward," says Joe Lanza, a business owner in King's Beach and the Tahoe region for more than four decades. 

He says businesses, environment groups and government agencies need to work with each other.

LANZA: "The thing that's the biggest deterioration of the lake ... is we don't play well together. We disagree. And as long as we disagree, the lake will deteriorate."

The Tahoe Regional Planning Board has heard all these comments via email and multiple meetings for public input. The board will vote on the plan on December 12th.