JOSHUA TREE – The Morongo Basin Municipal Advisory Council has been tasked with designing a checklist to be used by county land use planners when applications for solar projects in the Basin are submitted by developers.
Phil Paule, chief of staff to Supervisor James Ramos, gave the MAC a 30-day deadline during its public meeting Monday night, Feb. 10.
“We’re just getting beat up by the community over solar projects out here,” Paule told the packed room at the Joshua Tree Community Center. “But solar developers have rights in the legal planning process.”
“One year ago today, the county solar ordinance was completely silent on regulating solar projects,” Chris Carrillo, Ramos’ Deputy Chief of Staff, said stepping in. “The three new solar projects will be subject to the new ordinance criteria, they will be test subjects for how strong the new ordinance is. There are safeguards now, there are 32 different criteria and the burden is on the solar developers. They’re not going to rubber stamp sites.”
The three projects Carrillo referred to are two Coronus projects in Joshua Tree and a project in the north sphere of influence of Twentynine Palms.
“A very high-up county official told me, ‘the MAC is not the plan checker,’” MAC member Mark Lundquist said.
“The starting point should be this MAC,” Carrillo insisted.
“Design it and bring it to us so we know what you want in the planning process,” Paule stated. “The process now is what planning people in their cubicles want to see, but it’s not what works for you. Come up with a document that we can include in the county code.”
Pat Flanagan from Twentynine Palms observed that the county “might not know its own processes,” and suggested getting a copy of the land use department’s criteria and checklists before the MAC started designing its checklist.
Max Rossi, MAC member from Wonder Valley, wondered how the new ordinance and the MAC’s checklist would affect the 31 projects he saw in the pipeline, including one just discovered for 560 acres on the dry lake bed in Wonder Valley.
“It won’t affect those,” Paule admitted, “but we’ll see it doesn’t happen again.”
Carrillo reminded his listeners that the county will be working on the General Plan update for the next 18 months and that it will be a good opportunity to be part of the broader vision.
“This community has to stand up and fight, it has to educate the rest of the supervisors and make them care, keep them engaged,” Carrillo told a room stocked with veterans of the Green Path North fight. “We’re open minded, we’re listening and we will continue to fight and stand up for you.”
MAC chairman Mike Lipsitz said Tuesday, Feb. 11, that a public workshop to create the checklist is being contemplated for sometime in the next two weeks. The date, time and place has not yet been set but Lipsitz thought it would be in Joshua Tree at the community center or in the Ramos offices in the county building.
Full story by Rebecca Unger at hidesertstar.com/the_desert_trail.
