ON THE AGENDA: PLANNING COMMISSION 16 MAY
A short meeting, followed by the first meeting of the new Homeless committee—and, as always, a chance for your voice to be heard in public comments.
The public has multiple opportunities to comment at every Planning Commission meeting. Please use the opportunity to question your Planning Commission members on the issues affecting our City. Although the agenda items for the meeting on Tuesday, May 16, are limited, you are free to bring up unrelated planning concerns that you have.
Public comments for all items are limited to three minutes per agenda item, but the public is entitled to fill out requests to speak on multiple items and may also speak during general public comments. To comment, pick up a green form at the desk, fill it out, and hand it to the Clerk who is usually sitting on at the desk at the front of room on the right side. The public can also send comments via email to Planning Commission members and the Community Development Director and request that comments be read at the meeting.
The entire agenda can be found on the city website the link to the livestream of the meeting is available the day of the meeting.
CONSENT CALENDAR
#1. Approval of the Planning Commission Meeting Minutes of May 2, 2023
PUBLIC HEARINGS
#2. Conditional Use Permit - Truth Tabernacle Church
Titus R. Burns seeks to convert a commercial building—formerly the Desert Trail building—at 6386 Adobe Road to a church. Located in the Downtown Specific Plan area, the small congregation of the Truth Tabernacle Church will have 14 parking spots available; any others needed will be public curb spots. (Check out the Twentynine Palms Historical Society’s overview of buildings that have housed Desert Trail offices.)
STUDY SESSION
#3. Homeless Committee Organization
Last month, Andrea Keller and Veeno Natharaj were appointed to a City advisory committee to review and suggest solutions to the housing and homeless challenge that the City faces. This new committee will meet just after the Planning Committee concludes its business. Keller and Natharaj are citizen members of the committee; the others are the five members of the Planning Committee.
The committee will set up its framework: time and frequency of meetings, scope of the committee, and future agenda items.
Housing and homelessness have been identified as City priorities. You’ll remember that last winter, for several brutally cold and snowy nights, ARCH (Aligning Resources, Challenging Homelessness) with a grant from the City, found rooms for unhoused residents in America’s Best Value Hotel, owned by Veno Natharaj.1
According to the County’s “2023 Continuum of Care and Homeless Count and Survey Final Report,”2 the number of unhoused has increased by 25 percent in the last year, and now number 75 men, women, and children in Twentynine Palms. Finding places to live for these individuals and affordable housing for many other residents is critical.
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“Homeless People Get Hotel Rooms During Storms,” https://hidesertstar.com/news/183743/homeless-people-get-hotel-rooms-during-storms/
https://www.scribd.com/document/641053916/San-Bernardino-County-2023-Point-in-Time-Count-Report#