THE PLANNING COMMISSION'S TURN ON STRS
THE PLANNING COMMISSION'S TURN ON STRS
We recap our coverage to date in advance of the April 18 STR "Study Session", also the City gets serious about commercial filming
The revision of the Twentynine Palms Short Term Rental (STR) Ordinance lands at the Planning Commission at 5:00pm on Tuesday, April 18. The Staff report for agenda item #4 recaps the areas of potential revision discussed by City Council at their February 28 meeting. The Planning Commission’s recommendations will still need to pass Council prior to becoming law.
Similarly to Council meetings, 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.
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.
While Commissioner (and STR owner) Jim Krushat has made his views on potential STR ordinance changes known at Council, the views of other Commissioners can only be inferred from prior meetings with new Commissioner (and STR owner) Eileen Leslie being a question mark.
We’ll have more to say after the meeting….but until then here’s a recap of our 2023 coverage so far:
Items 2 & 3. Film Permits and Temporary Use Permits.
These two items separate Film Permits from the Temporary Use Ordinance Code section Chapter 19.34 and creates a new Ordinance for Film Permits Chapter 19.35.
This represents a move towards Twentynine Palms promoting itself as a commercial film location, a potential source of revenue for the City — although it appears the City has not addressed its fee schedule for filming. The language of the ordinance will also be reviewed by the Public Art Advisory Committee (PAAC) at the Wednesday, April 19 meeting prior to the ordinance being sent to Council for the final ok.
Permits are to be required for “each individual, agency, organization, institution or business wishing to conduct any filming, , videotaping, motion picture and still photography, and the use of drones for filming activity or use within City limits.” With exceptions for news media, investigations, crews of less than five with fewer than two “passenger vehicles”, filming inside of a structure with with fewer than two “passenger vehicles”, filming with a cell phone or handheld camera and filming personal events.
You may wonder, when does the City require a Temporary Use Permit? are needed to events such as circuses, carnivals, concerts, rodeos, parades, car shows/sales, motor sports events, or similar outdoor events or enterprises, farmers market uses, outdoor art and craft shows and exhibits, sidewalk or parking lot sales, Christmas tree sales lots, Halloween pumpkin sales, and other similar holiday sales, charitable or school-sponsored drop-off bins for recycling and/or for drop-off of clothes and small items, temporary security quarters, earth stockpiling sites, and/or storage yards on the site of a construction project, temporary model home/sales office for the sale or lease of residential property or vacant lots, manufactured homes, mobile offices, or other approved structures to provide temporary office, retail, meeting, assembly, wholesale, manufacturing and/or storage space for commercial, industrial or institutional uses, seagoing cargo containers and other similar storage containers used for temporary storage, recreational or other civic uses which are strongly vested with public or social importance, additional uses and corresponding regulations determined by the Community Development Director.
Read the full Planning Commission agenda.
Disclosure: Desert Trumpet co-founder and editor Cindy Bernard is currently Chair of the Public Arts Advisory Committee, which is a part of the City of Twentynine Palms.
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Here's what I wrote to the mayor. No doubt he'll hate my guts!
Dear Mayor Wright:
I recently was told that I needed to jump through a number of hoops to renew my STR license, at a cost of over $600, including taking a “good neighbor” class from the Desert Beacon. The Desert Trumpet reported that you’d announced that you’d received 3 positive emails about this class.
I have a number of objections to the entire process including this ridiculous class.
1. This is too much money for a license I’ve already been granted, especially given the fact that I only rent out my place a few months a year.
2. The money is likely to be spent on an ill-conceived “fitness” park to complement the architecturally horrendous Freedom Plaza that looks like a giant bunker perfect for a Trump neo-Nazi rally.
3. Why am I paying the Desert Beacon, a private company that I’ve found to be incompetent, for a publicly mandated class that I don’t need? Frankly, if you need a class in how to be a good neighbor, you’re beyond hope. I object to being forced to subsidize the Desert Beacon.
So please, next time you’re talking about this handout to a local company at taxpayers’ expense, please mention that you may have received some positive feedback about the class, you’ve also noted at least one objection. It’s an unnecessary expense and a handout to a private company. If the city wants to mandate the class, let the city run it.
Overall, Twentynine Palms should develop some kind of actual economy instead of soaking STF folks and then wasting the money on poorly conceived civic projects that only make the town tackier.
I also noted in the Trumpet that there’s a frequent Christian invocation at the start of council meetings. Separation of church and state is a fundamental principle on which this country was founded, and there were good reasons for that, as you know.
Susan Zakin
isn't the meeting on the 18th instead of the posting date of the 17th ???