In addition to hearing an appeal on Dollar General in Joshua Tree, the County Board of Supervisors will also consider a Joshua Tree land use moratorium, and plans for regional Municipal Advisory Councils, and a replacement for a newly-vacant Planning Commission slot. Reporter Dan Stork tells where they will fall in the June 4 meeting…
Three consent agenda items for the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors June 4 meeting are of Morongo Basin interest. The Supervisors will appoint Paul Smith, the owner of the Twentynine Palms Inn, to replace the recently-resigned Keri Tuttle of Joshua Tree on the County Planning Commission. Next, the Joshua Tree Municipal Advisory Council will be no more. Instead, the Supervisors will create two regional MACs—a 7-member board for the Lucerne and Johnson Valleys, and a single 9-member board for all the unincorporated areas of the Morongo Basin—from Morongo Valley, Landers, Rimrock, Pioneertown, Landers, Flamingo Heights, Yucca Mesa, Joshua Tree, Wonder Valley—everywhere except Yucca Valley and Twentynine Palms. As to the appeal of the Conditional Use Permit that the county Planning Commission granted for a Dollar General store in Joshua Tree, county staff will recommend that the Supervisors deny the appeal, allowing work on the Dollar General to proceed. But staff has also proposed “a temporary moratorium on the construction of new commercial buildings within the Downtown Area of the community of Joshua Tree, to allow time for consideration of potential amendments to the County Development Code and/or the Joshua Tree Community Plan.” That moratorium would initially run 45 days, extendable for up to a year. The area covered does not include the site of the Dollar General. The meeting starts at 10 a.m. in San Bernardino, but can be viewed—and participated in—remotely, at the county Government Center in Joshua Tree, at Whitefeather Road.
