OAK HILLS – The San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday unanimously rejected a solar developer’s appeal to build and operate a 20-acre solar facility in the community of Oak Hills.
The proposed site was in a rural living land use district on the northeast corner of Fuente Avenue and El Centro Road – too close for comfort for many residents who took an aggressive stand against the project.
Terry Kostak, president of the Oak Hills Property Owners Association, told the Bee that fellow residents joined together to lobby elected officials, to testify at all public hearings, and to raise awareness in neighboring communities against this ill-advised project from being built in residents’ backyards.
“Everyone’s hard work really made a difference in the outcome of what happened today,” Kostak said in an email to the Bee on Tuesday. “Oak Hills has truly become one huge ‘neighborhood’ with neighbors looking out for neighbors.”
The Sycamore Physicians Partners’ proposed project was denied by the Planning Commission in September 2013.
According to Planning’s denial findings, attention was given to public comment from the Planning Commission’s Aug. 8, 2013, public hearing, where “many speakers expressed concerns about land use compatibility, given the location of the project site in an area surrounded by rural residential uses.”
The commission’s findings revealed that these compatibility concerns extended to “aesthetic qualities and a variety of potential impacts on the surrounding neighborhood.”
It was noted in the findings that the City of Hesperia also had taken a formal position against the project “due to inconsistency with the city’s plan for its sphere of influence.”
Based on the testimony provided at the Aug. 8 hearing, the Planning Commission found that the project’s proposed use of development was not consistent with the policies and standards of the county’s General Plan and the Oak Hills Community Plan.
The commission specifically noted the project would be inconsistent with the Oak Hills Community Plan’s goal to “retain the existing rural desert character of the community,” while also “respect(ing) the existing positive characteristics of the community and its natural environment.”
