Thursday, the Placer County Commission accepted amendments to the Tahoe Basin Area Plan or "T-BAP."

Officials tell us the Lake Tahoe Basin is one of the most heavily regulated areas in the country, and the amendments remove duplicative zoning barriers that have prevented private development in Lake Tahoe's two town centers: Tahoe City and Kings Beach.

"With all of the environmental protections we got in Tahoe, we made it really difficult to build, building new or redeveloping. So, we kind of locked ourselves in time in the 1960's and 70's when we put these really strong protections in," said the League of Save Lake Tahoe 'Keep Tahoe Blue" Policy Director Gavin Feiger.

Now the town centers will allow private companies to build hotels, multi-use centers, affordable workforce housing, and more. 

The goal is to avoid urban sprawl by focusing on building up the central business districts. Developers will raise blighted buildings with new taller ones. However, buildings can be no higher than 56 feet. 

By improving this infrastructure, organizers say there will be much needed upgrades to storm water drainage which translates to a cleaner lake. 

Not everyone approves. 

"We're a low key community, we don't want to be like the South Shore, and be that urbanized," said North Tahoe Preservation Alliance President Ann Nichols.

Opponents claim the plan will lead to high rise expensive condos that are not actually affordable housing.

"We need to have cumulative impacts done. There are 14 projects done on the books on the North Shore," said Nichols.

They say it will increase traffic which will max out capacity for wildfire evacuation routes.

"We have a tourist environment. Limited infrastructure. We have limited access by our fire departments. We are restricted by water on one way. There is limited ways out of our terrain," said Lake Tahoe resident Tanya Miller.

A board member of the North Tahoe Public Utility District tells us there is not enough infrastructure for fire hydrants if too many projects are developed all at once.

"As projects come down the line, I expect and hope that everybody who comes today comes to those meetings, provided feed back and like positive solutions on how they can minimize their impact on the environment," explained Feiger.

2 News will continue to track this story. 

Learn more about the: Tahoe Area Basin Plan