Planning Commission Reverses Itself — Votes to Allow RV Parks and Campgrounds in Rural Living Zoning

Our recap of the October 15, 2024, Twentynine Palms Planning Commission Meeting

The Twenynine Palms Planning Commission at their October 15, 2024 meeting. From the left: Commissioner Leslie Paahana, Community Development Director Keith Gardner, Vice Chair Jessica Cure, Assistant Planner Diane Olson, Chair Max Walker, Staff member Shelley Green, Commissioner Jim Krushat (screenshot from meeting video)

In a meandering 80-minute meeting, Planning Commission Chair Max Walker, and members Jim Krushat and Vice Chair Jessica Cure, reversed their prior position of excluding commercial campgrounds and RV parks from residential Rural Living (RL) zoning. Commission member Leslie Paahana was the sole dissenting vote, with member Alex Garcia out with an excused absence. In addition, the Commission moved to increase the number of sites allowed per acre from 8 to 15 on a minimum parcel size of 10 acres — a potential of 150 sites per 10-acre parcel subject to a Conditional Use Permit (CUP).

We encourage readers to review the agenda and staff report or read our agenda preview and watch the meeting video for a full accounting of the discussion and decision.

As Community Development Director Keith Gardner pointed out several times, this was the sixth meeting where the Development Code update to Chapter 19.124 Mobile Home Parks and Special Occupancy Parks was on the agenda for discussion.

By the time of the fourth meeting in February 2024, research had led staff to recommend against commercial campgrounds being allowed anywhere in the City in part due to the limited amount of appropriate Commercial Tourist (CT) zoning. Per the Development Code, Commercial Tourist zoning “allows tourism-oriented uses, such as resorts, RV parks, golf courses, restaurants, gift shops, art galleries, hotels/motels and entertainment facilities, primarily intended to serve visitors of the Joshua Tree National Park and the Marine Corps Base.”

Slide presented by Community Development Director Keith Gardner showing limited number of CT zoned parcels (in pink). (screenshot from meeting video)

At that meeting, with several residents agreeing with staff during public comment, the Planning Commission members directed that Gardner exclude RL zoning, but allow campgrounds and RV parks in CT zoning, despite the limited availability of those parcels. While campgrounds are currently allowed in RL zoning with a CUP, there are none in the City. Hipcamp-style parcel rentals remain illegal in City limits.

At the August 20 Study Session—meeting number five—Commissioner Garcia reinforced the February decision and summed up concerns about using residential zoning for commercial purposes¹:

I think keeping the campgrounds away from residential areas is, I mean, we already have a problem with noise ordinance, with short-term rentals and Airbnbs and whatnot, but that's up to the public. I don't I feel if we were to bring campgrounds closer to residential areas — I get some people spoke up about having them — but the amount of problems I feel like people are already having with short-term rentals and around town already is an issue….

Krushat had interjected, “I think that 10-acre requirement kind of solved that,” referring to the minimum lot size proposed for the three types of sites. Garcia continued:

It does….But then we come to a point of people trying to change zoning for different things. And I think we start hitting a slippery slope once we start zoning different things and allowing bigger companies to start zoning those spaces, then it comes down to, do we start setting a precedent of who gets to zone what, and we just have to stand firm with those kind of things. At least, I think so.

And, indeed, limiting RV parks and campgrounds to 10-acre parcels and larger, a size in short supply in CT zoning, became a key argument at this sixth meeting for shifting the Commission’s prior consensus despite Commissioner Paahana’s reminders of the reasons behind the decision to exclude RL zoning:

There are not maintained roads. And the community that lives there does maintain them. There's the traffic and the reasons why they're living in these rural situations was something that we considered. It’s why we did not choose to continue.

Commissioner Jessica Cure also expressed hesitancy, but bemoaned the lack of options in CT zoning:

This one's hard for me. I don't know — it's essentially, I just don't like that there's not really that much option without [rural living]. I think this is why we said no, because of that reason. But at the same time, there's not another option. So it's good to see this option. I get that some people want it and a lot of people don't want it.

Yet Cure had provided Gardner with an example of an RV park in Yucca Valley that had 15 spaces on approximately 1.25 acres, setting the stage for the argument to increase the number of spaces allowed on the minimum 10-acre parcels.

Site plan for Desert Drifter, an RV park located in Yucca Valley as displayed in the Planning Commission meeting. (screenshot from video)

Chair Max Walker wondered if the City could require that campgrounds be “consistent with the neighborhood” despite the Commission having struggled with similar language about retaining “neighborhood character” in the 2015 version of the short-term rental (STR) ordinance. That language was removed in the last STR revision with the explanation that it lacked the specificity needed for fair judgments. He also suggested “We should do it in rural living, minus staying away from that one-mile exclusion zone from the park, for the buffer zone.” But his suggestions were not in the final motion.

However, despite acknowledging that the reversal “hurts a large number of the population of the town that we are here to speak for,” Walker also pushed for the increase in site density to 15 spaces per acre arguing for better commercial viability and less wasted space, as long as sites were “safe”:

I don't think being more restrictive on the density benefits anybody, as long as they give us their CUP package and we review it, everything is safe. That's the biggest thing. If they go more dense, they have to really show the exits, the safety for everything—they show where they put all their amenities. They're sized appropriately. But if we say “you can only do 10,” they're like, “well, here's my conditional use permit package, and I've done 10 spots per acre, but I have all this space. I could have really done X, Y.” They're not gonna do it.

Commissioner and District 2 City Council candidate Jim Krushat appeared uncomfortable with the rural living decision, asking for a continuance to give it further thought. But eventually he was convinced:

You're right with what we have now—it's very restrictive. And rural living campgrounds are now allowed in rural living as it exists. So I'm okay with that because you're right. We've had a very complex system for figuring out, “how am I going to do this?” I know there's a lot of rural living out there that people aren't developing, and yes, and I would like to see that developed and promoting tourism. So as long as we have those two conditions put into rural living—the 10-acre requirement—I think we can move forward

Phillip Georgeadis, George Mulopolus, Susan Peplow and Eric Menendez spoke during public comment on the .Mobile Home Parks and Special Occupancy Parks agenda item. (screenshots from meeting video)

Influential was public comment in favor of relaxing restrictions while comment against was absent, perhaps because the residents who spoke at prior meetings assumed the matter was settled given the prior consensus had been in place for nine months.

George Mulopolus spoke to “owning hundreds of acres of land” — a few of his parcels are leased to the company proposing a solar panel development near Harmony Acres — and he has often pushed for Twentynine Palms relaxing its development regulations in editorials in the Hi-Desert Star / Desert Trail².

If you look at the zoning map, you can see most of the existing tourist commercial land is in places where people would not want to camp or have an RV park, like on the corner of Utah Trail and Highway 62 or on Larrea behind the Taco Bell. Can you picture that some of the CT zone parcels are less than 10 acres and would therefore not even be available for these uses under the proposed changes? In addition, much of the public land is either already used for public purposes or is surrounded by rural land. Does this mean that the government can use this rural public land for RV parks and campgrounds, but private citizens are prohibited from using adjacent rural land for the same purpose?

However, Mulopolus disagreed with the proposal to increase the number of sites per parcel:

The current maximum density allowed is eight units per acre for rural districts and 12 units per acre for commercial and industrial districts. These are more common densities for RV parks and campgrounds, and should remain in place.

Mulopulos also read a letter from Jeremiah Schuler, who purchased property with the hopes of developing a bed and breakfast. Schuler argued that tightening regulations “will make it even more difficult for average citizens like myself to pursue our dreams of contributing to this community” and only “favors large out of town developers.”

Also speaking in public comment were Phillip Georgeadis, Susan Peplow and Eric Menendez.

Georgeadis, an “affordable housing manufacturer” favored the use of RL zoning for mobile home parks and campgrounds as well as an increase in allowable density, Menendez agreed with Mulopolus on opening up RL zoning but maintaining current density. Peplow limited her comments to RV parks and expressed support for CT zoning, but acknowledged the small parcel sizes and added “I'd like to see your conversation go a little bit deeper.”

City of Twentynine Palms Land Use Map from the 2012 General Plan. The hot pink areas are CT zoning and the two tones of light green are RL zoning. Download a copy of the map below.

Land Use Wall Map

12.4MB ∙ PDF file

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While the small number and size of CT-zoned areas and the lack of other options seemed to drive the Commission toward allowing commercial campgrounds and RV parks in residential Rural Living zoning, there was no discussion of the solution that’s on the Future Agenda Items list at City Council — revising the 2012 General Plan. Opening the General Plan, which is a long process, would likely result in increasing the amount of much-needed Tourist Commercial Zoning. This long-term solution could allow the creation of campgrounds and RV parks without a CUP, decreasing the cost to developers, and the wear and tear on the understaffed Community Development Department.

Also unmentioned was the California State Law SB330, which demands that cities maintain their current level of residential zoning. Any development that removes parcels from residential use must be offset by increasing residential use elsewhere in City limits. It is likely that both the short-term hack of allowing commercial campgrounds and RV parks in residential zoning and the long-term solution of revising the General Plan would trigger these SB330 offsets. I queried Community Development Director Gardner about this, and looking at the law, we both threw up our hands noting that several new sections were being implemented and updated on January 1, 2025, and review by a lawyer would likely be needed.

All of this will land at City Council after the first of the year per Gardner, making opening Rural Living zoning up to campgrounds and RV Parks an issue worth addressing with the five residents vying for the District 1 and 2 Council seats. We hope to publish candidate responses next week.

The meeting concluded with a more straightforward decision — the Planning Commission will take the November 5 election night off. The next Planning Commission meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, November 19.

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1. Quotes are as said in the meeting, with minor copy editing for repeated words, grammar and verbal tics.

2. We would normally link to examples but they are behind a paywall.

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