Should a State Bill allowing private campgrounds be adopted by San Bernardino County?

The hi-desert’s wide open spaces are definitely part of the appeal for people coming out here. Joshua Tree National Park still experiences around 3 million visitors a year and anyone who has tried to get a campsite in the park during the spring or summer months knows that reservations and first-come first-served spots fill up fast. Places like Sunfair Dry Lake are a popular overflow spot for campers feeling a little more adventurous, but if you’ve never camped before, cruising out on Sunfair or any BLM land can feel daunting and a little directionless.

So when the National Park is full and boondock camping isn’t in your skill set, where do you go? Up until 2023, camping on private property was an option for many people coming out to the hi-desert and apps like Hipcamp helped connect landowners with people seeking a more curated camping experience. 

Miyoko Rifkin has been living in Pioneertown for the last 5 years and used to offer camping on her property.

“I grew up in Hesperia, raised my kids out in L.A. and came out to the desert. When we came out here five years ago, we were still allowed to rent out our land to people that wanted to come out and camp. We also had like a ‘67 airstream that we would rent out.

Hipcamp was very prevalent and it was during the pandemic, so people really wanted an excuse to come out to the desert and just recreate. A couple of years into it, we all got shut down by the county. It was a pretty painful thing at the time because a lot of people were depending on this money by renting out their trailers or their yurts or whatever they had on their property.”

That shutdown came from San Bernardino County, which banned Hipcamp from booking campsites on properties in 2023. The ban was on alternative structures like Miyoko mentioned, yurts, campgrounds and RVs, as well as just campsites.

New state bill could streamline private campgrounds

Assembly Bill 518 aims to change that for some counties in California. The bill was signed into law in October of last year and it creates a set of regulations for what the bill calls “low impact camping areas.”

Here’s how it works:

If you own a minimum of two acres of land in a non-urban or suburban zoned area, you can create one campsite per acre with a maximum of nine campsites, no matter how big your property is. A property manager or operator must be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And the campsites must comply with all local regulations regarding fire safety, trash and human waste disposal as well as county wide ordinances like dark sky requirements and noise mitigation – a.k.a quiet hours.

The zoning is an important part of the bill which limits the low impact camping to rural areas only. 

Miyoko: “We’re talking about ranches, farms, things like that. It’s plenty of space for somebody to be able to offer one or two campsites. And it does depend on how much property that you have. Like you can’t pack a bunch of people in there. That’s not what this bill is about.”

San Bernardino County responds

Z107.7 contacted Third District Representative Dawn Rowe about the bill and if there had been any outreach from people in the county interested in San Bernardino County adopting the bill. 

In an email response, Rowe said “Hipcamp was asked not to operate in San Bernardino County since it is not a legally allowable use/activity at this time. Considering that Hipcamp has continually ignored our land use restrictions, the County questions what type of partner they would be, if this were legally allowed. Our residents were loud and clear when vacation rentals became such a hot topic. In order to have compatible land use operations, the County maintains that seeking a conditional use permit (CUP) is the best way to mitigate all of the potential impacts on our residents at this time.”

Miyoko says that for her, those questions are easy to answer. “Yeah, I think these are pretty basic fundamentals that almost every Hip Camp host I know takes care of. Most Hip Camp people live on their property, so they don’t want people trashing their land either. And they absolutely don’t want to upset their neighbors as well.”

Hipcamp heavily advocating for the bill

Hipcamp is heavily advocating for counties to adopt the Assembly Bill. The campsite reservation company makes a percentage off each booking made through the service. Private campsite owners in counties that adopt the bill don’t have to use Hipcamp to book their sites, but in the last 10 years Hipcamp has become the go-to app for boutique and private campground rentals.

I spoke with Michal Rosenoer, the Global Head of Government and Community Relations for Hipcamp. She works with local and state governments on land use issues around small-scale camping on private land.

Michal says that other counties in California have opted into the Assembly Bill and the process allows individual counties to make changes to the law during that adoption. 

“It’s pretty wide open because different communities have different standards. So I’ve seen, for instance, San Benito County follow exactly this legislation. They just basically copied and pasted and approved this definition of low impact camping. But other communities like Mendocino, Nevada, Humboldt, who are all working on their own policies right now, have really narrowed those definitions and what’s allowed based on what makes sense for their county. There’s a lot of flexibility there, but it really does remove a huge barrier for landowners who before had to get a state and local permit.

“And now they can just go to their local county and say, ‘hey, can we work together on this please?’ And a lot of counties are taking them up on that.”

The current cost of a Conditional Use Permit

So what would it currently take for a private landowner to provide campsites on their property without Assembly Bill 518? I reached out to the county to get a handle on the Conditional Use Permit process. As far as I could tell, there isn’t an exact breakdown of the CUP permit costs that fit the definition of low impact camping. The Land Use Services Public Information Office was very helpful and provided the figures and timelines: A Minor Use Permit costs $7,797 and Conditional Use Permit costs $15,249.  Depending on the project scope, location, and the environmental review, getting a permit typically takes 12 to 18 months.

“Nobody that’s running a residential offering can afford that…it would take decades for them to recoup that money. And for most people, it’s not about becoming rich. It’s about sharing their land and getting a little bit of a stipend and helping them support their families.”

Currently, there are no plans for Assembly Bill 518 to go before the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors.

Miyoko has started a petition to gather interest from private property owners, you can find it here.

You reach the Assembly Bill in its entirety here: https://legiscan.com/CA/text/AB518/id/3111945

Assemblymember Ward Delivers on Outdoors for All with Passage of AB 518

Assembly Bill 518 Explainer (released by Hipcamp) PDF Link

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