RECAP: Twentynine Palms Planning Commission, November 19, 2024
A derelict property gets earmarked, Reset Hotel developers no-show, and yet another Entertainment Permit study session.
Tuesday’s Planning Commission meeting tackled four agenda items including a study session on Entertainment Permits that wasn’t livestreamed. Unlike last week’s City Council meeting which took more than three hours, this meeting, capped at one hour, was lighthearted, brief, and marks the Commission’s second to last meeting of 2024. The meeting’s agenda is here and our agenda recap is here.
PUBLIC COMMENTS
None
COMMISSION COMMENTS AND REPORTS OF MEETINGS ATTENDED
Commissioner Jim Krushat reported attending a planning conference for the 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment at Kaneohe Bay Marine Base in Hawaii, which took place the first week of November. Commissioner Krushat was unable to attend the recent Housing & Homeless Committee study session as a result. The long-time commissioner also acknowledged the November 5 general election results in unassuming fashion, where Krushat came in second for City Council District 2:
I missed the special meeting you had, and I missed the election. Did I win? No. Okay, that's all.
Commissioner Paahana welcomed those in the audience and thanked everyone for their attendance while Chair Max Walker reported attending the City Council meeting the prior week, calling it “interesting, to say the least.”
CONSENT CALENDAR
The only item on the consent calendar for this meeting was the approval of the October 15 meeting minutes. Approved 5-0.
PUBLIC HEARINGS
Declaring the property located at physical address of 56756 Homestead Road a Public Nuisance and Dangerous Building.
The City has been ramping up efforts to contact property owners and enforce codes pertaining to derelict buildings and illegal dumping, including parcels mentioned here and here.
Community Development Director Keith Gardner presented this agenda item along with Code Enforcement Officer Vanessa Cabrera. Located northeast of Two Mile and Shoshone Valley roads, this particular abandoned property, having become a place for squatters, illegal dumping, and target practice, has been an active case with the City’s code enforcement office since November 2023. Owned by the Trust of Rosalina Galvan, the City attempted to get the property owner to comply voluntarily but so far has been unsuccessful.
Commissioner Krushat asked if another attempt to contact the owner would be made. Officer Cabrera responded:
We've exercised all means of trying to find an owner for that. We even pulled the title report, and it's just that—the trust. We've issued notices, cites [citations], everything to them, and we have not received response to date. And they have signed off because we sent everything certified mail, regular mail, and have posted that location, so they have signed and they have received them because we have the receipts for it, but nothing has happened.
Gardner acknowledged that any accounting costs the City incurs surrounding this derelict property would be subject to City Council approval and noted the intention to bring more properties like this before the Planning Commission in the future.
The accounting and the cost of this will be approved by the City Council for anything that the City incurs, and then, should the Council approve of the accounting, a lien will be put on the property for reimbursement.
There was no public comment on this agenda item. With a motion to approve proposed by Commissioner Paahana, and seconded by Commissioner Alex Garcia, the motion was approved 5-0.
Now that a public nuisance has been declared, the Trust of Rosalina Galvan has 20 days to apply for a demolition permit and another 45 days to demolish the property. Failure of the owner to adhere to the City’s declaration will lead to further action and a potential lien being placed against the property.
DISCUSSION AND POTENTIAL ACTION ITEMS
Reset Hotel Deferral of Utilities Undergrounding
The developers of the Reset Hotel, also known as the “Container Hotel,” located at 7000 Split Rock Avenue near the Palms n Paws Animal Shelter, have requested a modification of the City’s requirement to place their utility lines underground, using a loophole in the City’s municipal code that allows for a deferral—already granted to the Oasis Car Wash under construction on Highway 62. Ben Uyeda, one of the hotel’s owners, volunteers on the board of the Tourism Business Improvement District.
According to Gardner, “The request is to defer the undergrounding of utilities until they develop phase two.” However, in public comment on the item, Susan Peplow reminded Commissioners of the February 2024 meeting where Reset engineer Vickie Bridenstine of NV5 announced the developer’s intention to scrap phase two of the project.
City engineers were consulted on the Reset Hotel’s utility deferral request. “As for right now, the city engineer has no objection to this particular requirement,” states Gardner.
When asked by Commissioner Garcia the purpose for utility undergrounding, Gardner says the requirement is “purely aesthetic.” However, in other small desert towns such as Needles, CA, where raven-perched utility lines and electric poles notoriously litter skylines and obstruct desert views, adhering to these aesthetic principles and development guidelines can often make or break a small town. There is also significant environmental impact to above-ground power lines, which allow ravens to target and eat young tortoises.
Gardner, who has held his position since 2022 and is not a resident of Twentynine Palms, suggested that the Planning Commission get rid of the City’s utility undergrounding requirement for developers altogether:
It is not a Southern California Edison requirement to underground— it is the desire of the City. This is how our particular development code reads. So it is not an Edison requirement. If we desire in the future to revisit that particular requirement so we don't come back and do this, we are open to that suggestion.
No suggestion was made by the Director for Council or Commissioners to rectify the municipal code loophole, Section 19.94.50, which allows developers to submit such requests to defer utility undergrounding in the first place. On the other hand, the City of Palm Springs, where Gardner maintains residence, has a well-defined policy for utility undergrounding, requiring it for new construction with few exceptions allowed and only if certain development thresholds are met.
In discussion on the item, Commissioner Jessica Cure asked about the deferral only applying to existing “offsite overhead utilities” and what would be considered offsite versus the undergrounding of all other utilities. Cure also noted an entire section of the conditional use permit Gardner failed to include in the proposed deferment agreement–– section P3 of the original 2021 conditional use permit, which states, “On-site utilities shall be underground pursuant to Chapter 19.94 (Utilities) of the City’s Development Code, or as amended by City Council.”
“I thought I caught them all, but I guess I didn’t,” stated Gardner. After further discussion on the topic, Commissioner Cure said, “My question is, when is the phase two plan to begin?” to which Gardner answered, “I don’t have information on that.”
Speaking from the public on the item was resident and fellow hotelier Veno Nathraj, who asked what the total costs of the project were and suggested the City issue a bond or lien against the property to ensure enforcement of a utility undergrounding deferral agreement:
The applicant knew that this was a condition of approval. I know the applicant is a very smart businessman- a very prudent person—and basically, I’m sure when he did his construction budget, he already had a number for this.
Nathraj continued:
Why do you set one set of standard for one people and another set for another kind of developers? Either you go back and look at this thing and change it or make people give a bond, or at least, we can put a lien, that if he sells the project without doing it, the future owner would know…
Susan Peplow juxtaposed the Reset Hotel development with the Oasis Car Wash development, where a utility undergrounding deferral was granted back in December 2023, reminding Commissioners and attendees of the differences in scope and scenario of the two projects:
In the situation with the Oasis Car Wash, when they purchased that property, I believe, they were under the understanding that we were going to be putting that three-story hotel in at Freedom Plaza, and there was going to be underground utilities within the general area to feed off. Well, of course, we all know that hotel is not there, and in that situation they were going to have to pull from the north side of the highway and deal with CalTrans, which is kind of a different animal than what we’re talking about under this situation. And, at the bottom of Donnell Hill, it's already littered with overhead aerial poles anyway.
Eric Menendez piggybacked off Nathraj and inquired how the Reset developers are deferring the utility undergrounding request to phase two of the project if plans were announced by the project’s engineers in February to scrap it. “We need to stick to precedent and stick to policy,” he said.
Commissioner Cure had further questions regarding the cost of the project and asked the Community Development Director why the Reset Hotel representatives were not present for the discussion.
Commissioners Krushat and Garcia agreed that developer’s presence was necessary to proceed further, with Garcia stating:
I agree with having consistency. If we’re going to have others do it, we’ll just start setting a precedent, and I’m really thinking down the line of other developers coming in and being like, ‘Well they did it, why can’t we?’
Playing the final chord of the utility deferral discussion was Chair Max Walker:
This is a fairly large-scale developer doing this project. To me, they are in kind of in a different boat than the car wash. We gave them a deferment because they are a smaller scale operation. This is a fairly large scale company coming to do a thing that they knew what they were signing on for, like Veno said. They knew this was a requirement, and they should’ve costed that into the project. For me, on this particular one, I’m not so on board with the deferment, because it is a requirement, and I think it does add some nice aesthetics to the city when we do this from here on out with some exceptions….
Walker concluded, “Not being here today really hinders us in making the correct decision for this city.”
Commissioners, leery of the developer’s request and with the smaller Oasis Car Wash development in mind, wanted more answers before proceeding further and agreed to “kick the can” (per Krushat) down the road to a later meeting.
Uyeda did not respond to the Desert Trumpet’s request for comment.
Timeline of the Reset Hotel project:
November 2021:
Planning Commission approves a conditional use permit and site plan review from applicants WANDER HOTEL JT, LLC for construction of a 65-unit hotel project located off Sullivan Road.
2022:
Construction of the Wander Hotel begins, modification requests are reviewed and submitted as the project unfolds.
March 2023:
After some local pushback, citing concerns of the hotel project’s vicinity to the National Park boundary, night sky ordinances, and desert tortoise habitat, Community Development Director Keith Gardner announces that project developers are renaming the hotel project from the ‘Wander Hotel’ to ‘RESET’ and are making further modifications to their development requests.
February 2024:
Reset Hotel developers receive public criticism from locals for using a Joshua Tree address on their website instead of a Twentynine Palms address
Reset Hotel Developers request a ‘vacation’ of a public road, which is approved by Planning Commissioners 5-0.
Reset Hotel engineers, NV5, based down the hill, announce the Developers’ plans to cut Phase II of the hotel project.
Reset Hotel developers then update the address on their website to list a proper Twentynine Palms based address.
August 2024:
Reset Hotel developer Benjamin Uyeda is appointed to the Twentynine Palms Tourism Business Improvement District, filling the vacancy of previous TBID board member Patricia Knight. (As of November 2024, the required financial disclosure Form 700 for Uyeda has not been uploaded to the City’s Fair Political Practices Commission disclosure site.)
November 2024:
Reset Hotel developers request a deferral for utility undergrounding, citing project costs as justification for the request. An email correspondence between Reset developer Adam Wininger and City Manager H. Stone James dated November 6, 2024 states, “We kindly request that this deferral be included for discussion in the 11/19 planning commission meeting.”
Reset Hotel developer representatives are absent from the Planning meeting discussion item on November 19, and are consequently unavailable to answer Commissioner questions on the deferral request item.
Commissioners are in consensus to table the utility undergrounding modification discussion to a later meeting date as a result.
STUDY SESSION
Entertainment Permits Workshop Number 2
Planning Commissioners, Community Development Director Gardner, and the public then participated in a study session on entertainment permits. This marked the second entertainment permit workshop the Planning Commission has hosted and was one of many entertainment permit discussions held throughout various city agencies since the topic was first introduced by Gardner over the summer.
Here Director Gardner defined types of entertainment into three categories: Live Entertainment venues, Ancillary entertainment, and Special Events entertainment. Gardner specified that this definition does not include ‘Adult-Oriented Businesses’ which is addressed in another section of the municipal code. Definitions so far are as follows:
Ancillary Live Entertainment: “Live Entertainment” that occurs in an establishment where a primary use (restaurant, bar, retail, etc) is already a permitted use.
Live Entertainment Venue: an establishment whereas “Live Entertainment” is the primary use (i.e theaters, concert halls, etc).
Live Entertainment Special Event: a one-time or seasonal event that may include road closures, parking lot enclosures, temporary facilities, etc. Those events are covered by the Temporary Use Permit section of the Development Code ( 19.34)
In public comment, Caitlin Gill, of Joshua Tree Astronomy Adventures, which hosts stargazing and small-scale nightsky events here in town, called for the City to add guidelines for event producers and spoke about small-scale forms of entertainment and short term rentals:
There are a lot of personalized services that might be in a kind of funny gray area here. I find myself there personally. So what would be the most responsible way for a business like mine to move forward understanding that we're in live entertainment and want to make sure we're compliant as best we can?
Walker raised the point of addressing short term rentals in the policy. Krushat and Garcia felt karaoke needed to be included in the definition due to its prevalence at local businesses. Paahana asked about licensing fee costs, which would be calculated based on five hours of staff time, per Gardner.
COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR UPDATES
Director Gardner reminded those in attendance that terms for two Planning Commissioners are set to expire next year. Applications for the appointed position will soon open and incumbent Commissioners will need to reapply for consideration of the position. Chair Krushat and Chair Paahana’s terms expire in April 2025.
ADJOURNMENT
The next Twentynine Palms Planning Commission meeting is set to take place at 5 pm on December 17, 2024.
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I am very concerned about Keith Gardners and the planning commisons advocacy for projects or policies that are detrimental to Twentynine Palms. I support strong light codes, underground utilities codes and noise ordinances,I support our environment. I support strong codes that regulate our city to prevent it from becoming an unbearable place to live. I am noticing that there is a effort to scrap our codes. The fact that Gardner is promoting "entertainment permits" which are on my opinion, permits to allow unregulated noise is disturbing. Our code enforcement refuses to enforce our light codes.
I live in district 4 that is taking the brunt of all the uncontrolled development that the planning commission is rubber stamping. The noise, traffic, air pollution is impacting our district the most. We need a place that is LIVABLE. They are creating a place that is on the verge of becoming nonlivable.