RECAP: Twentynine Palms Planning Commission, March 17, 2026
A short meeting takes up a long-standing question: at what point should an undeveloped parcel receive a City address?
Commissioners and Staff seemed relieved that this Tuesday’s meeting finished at just under the 30-minute mark after the last Planning Commission meeting ran nearly 90 contentious minutes. It covered a single substantive item: whether the City should formalize its unwritten policy on assigning street addresses to undeveloped parcels. All five Commissioners were present. Community Development Director Keith Gardner and Twentynine Palms Water District General Manager Matt Shragge also attended. There were no public hearings.
For reference:
PUBLIC COMMENTS AND CONSENT CALENDAR
There were no general public comments, and the Consent Calendar passed without discussion by the public or the Commissioners, thus accepting the Housing Element Annual Progress Report and the General Plan Status Report and forwarding them to the City Council for final approval.
DISCUSSION AND POTENTIAL ACTION ITEMS
Street Address Assignment for Vacant Parcels
Community Development Director Keith Gardner acknowledged that Twentynine Palms has no written policy governing at what point it will assign a street address to a vacant parcel.
We found out that this internal policy we’ve had is about not issuing the address on a basic parcel was quite informal. It was not written down anywhere. You couldn’t find any ordinances or board policies or language or policies anywhere.
The current practice — or nonpractice — holds that the City will issue an address only after a building permit application has been submitted for a primary residence or commercial structure. But because that standard has never been codified, Gardner said he fields requests on a case-by-case basis. He said he is looking to remove the matter from his personal discretion and replace it with a policy the public can actually read.
Gardner told the Commission he had reviewed how other jurisdictions handle address assignment. The cities of Palm Springs and Riverside use identical application forms that explicitly tie address issuance to a building permit. Los Angeles County does the same. Yucca Valley, San Bernardino County, and the Town of Yucca Mesa either have no formal written policy or have an informal practice similar to Twentynine Palms’.
You Need a Street Address to Connect to City Water
Gardner invited Matt Shragge, General Manager of the Twentynine Palms Water District, to explain why this matters beyond City paperwork.
The Twentynine Palms Water District, which serves an 87-square-mile service area extending well beyond City limits, will not install a water meter on a property without a City-assigned address. That policy was put in place deliberately as a result of the illegal marijuana cultivation that swept through the Morongo Basin beginning around 2021. It is unclear how many marijuana grow farms sprang up in Twentynine Palms and neighboring Wonder Valley, but these areas were among the most heavily targeted by the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department Operation Hammer Strike, which reported that 1,000 greenhouses were eradicated throughout the County.
Shragge said:
Since the Hammer Strike with the County Sheriff’s Department, we’ve been really getting on making sure there was address and permits already in place to install.
Shragge described a stop-gap the Water District has used when property owners press the issue and threaten legal action: a cultivation letter. If an applicant signs a document stating that marijuana will not be cultivated on the property, the District may, in certain circumstances, install a water meter even without a City address.
I’m just saying the City could have a way out to help you with this policy, by saying there is an underlying way to get a water meter, but you will have to sign a cultivation letter saying no marijuana can be on site.
Shragge noted that a standard 5/8-inch water meter currently costs approximately $7,000. If road-boring or asphalt replacement is required, that figure can reach $13,000. Any confirmed marijuana cultivation on the property would result in the meter being pulled immediately — at the owner’s expense — and full reinstallation costs would apply if access were ever restored.
Commissioners worked through a tangle of overlapping questions: What are the legitimate reasons someone might need an address on a vacant parcel? Should those exceptions be listed individually? Or should the policy simply say decline to provide a street address, with an appeal pathway for unusual cases?
Vice Chair Jim Krushat surfaced a concrete example from his own experience. He said that several years ago, the Water District issued an address for a five-acre commercially zoned parcel he owns inside City limits, without a building permit. Gardner acknowledged the situation and said the District and City would look into how that address came to be assigned.
Chair Max Walker suggested a simple path forward: formalize the existing status quo, make clear that a building permit application is required, and direct anyone seeking a water meter by another route to contact the Water District directly about the cultivation letter option. Anyone disagreeing with a denial could then appeal.
Chair Cure and Commissioner Krushat both supported including an appeal process in whatever policy is adopted, so that applicants with legitimate but unusual circumstances — a property owner wanting to landscape a commercial corner, for example — have somewhere to go.
Real estate broker Scott Currey, the meeting’s only public commenter, reinforced that point:
Maybe keep it open like it is now, to where, if I wanted to landscape a commercial corner to make it a little prettier until it gets developed five or ten years from now, maybe keep that option open.
Gardner confirmed the policy would be administrative, not an ordinance — meaning it could be revisited by the Commission if unforeseen situations arise. He said he also intends to keep a running log of exceptions and appeals, so the City has data to inform any future revisions.
No vote was taken. The discussion will inform a formal administrative policy that Gardner’s office will draft.
COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR’S REPORT
Gardner noted that a city building to the north is undergoing renovation.
Gardner also indicated that the April 7 Planning Commission meeting will be canceled. The next scheduled meeting will be April 21.
Note that the E-Group Solar Project lands at City Council on Monday, March 23. The meeting starts at 6pm.
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