Regarding Ordinance 927.1
Dear editor:
Editor: This letter was also sent to the Riverside County Planning Department.
For your consideration, AirBnB was founded in San Francisco in 2008. It has over 6,000 employees and received over $4.8 billion in revenues in 2021.
Vacasa was founded in 2009, has 6,500 employees with 2021 revenues of over $885 million.
I have yet to find in your Ordinance 348.4978, Article III, Section 3.1, Section 6.25 (permitted uses), regarding R1A, Mountain Resort Residential One family dwellings, where it says anywhere that dwellings may be owned, operated, managed, used for profit, or otherwise controlled by multi-million-dollar businesses.
Your planning department has correctly directed what purposes are legally allowed now in R1A-zoned parcels; clearly, AirBnB and Vacasa businesses are not allowed by your own ordinance.
So rather than create empty new ordinances that allow for these illegal, harmful and unwanted entities to invade our once-quiet, peaceful communities, you all need to do what townships all over this nation are doing. That is, prohibit them.
Or better yet, allow them in “commercially zoned areas only,” where they legally belong.
If you all don’t do anything to limit the number of short-term rentals (STRs) in Idyllwild, it won’t be long until we see this same headline again (www.nytimes.com/2022/04/07/travel/joshua-tree-california-airbnb.html), except it won’t be Joshua Tree, it will be Idyllwild they write about.
Please do something to reduce the number of STRs in our community.
Mark Dean
Pine Cove
Water districts
Editor:
I was driving to Banning the other day and saw several signs in Pine Cove showing drivers that Pine Cove Water District (PCWD) is in Stage 2 Water Conservation. They were very noticeable and good looking signs that let customers and visitors know to please conserve water. Well done, PCWD.
I also notice while riding my bicycle that Fern Valley Water District (FVWD) has several signs when entering its district stating it is in Stage 3 Water Conservation. Again, to inform customers and visitors to please conserve water. Kudos, FVWD.
I really wish Idyllwild Water District (IWD) would care enough to let its customers and visitors know what water conservation stage we are at.
Using IWD’s own ratepayer- and board-approved formulas and metrics, IWD has been in Stage 2 Water Conservation since August. Yet, the IWD general manager (GM) and directors refuse to protect our precious and very limited water supply and our community by going to Stage 2 and posting it so people know to conserve water.
If our local water districts are at Stage 2 and 3 in April, imagine where we will all be in August.
Come on, IWD, show some respect and caring for our community and our water supply by accurately being on the correct stage that you should have been since August. It doesn’t reflect poorly on you when we haven’t had enough precipitation. It does show incompetence and poor judgment when the GM and entire board are repeatedly shown the facts and they all choose to ignore them.
Our mountain is suffering from excessive tourism, overpopulation and lack of rain and snowfall. IWD Board of Directors and GM don’t seem to care about our mountain community at all. Very sad indeed.
Dave Hunt
4th Generation Idyllwild Hillbilly