At the Oct 18 meeting of the Riverside County Board of Supervisors, Ordinance 927.1 (Regulating Short Term Rentals [STRs]) and Ordinance 671.22 (Consolidated fees for land use) were finally approved without any new requests for the planning staff to make further revisions. The board also accepted the report on the current STR moratorium and set…

More wildfires and greater areas burned is the forecast for the future as climate change continues. Recently, a new study published in the “Environmental Research Letters” expects fire severity to decrease. Fire severity is the extent of change in the local vegetation one year after a major fire. For example, if brushes and shrubs took…

At its April 3 meeting, the Riverside County Planning Commissionunanimously (4-0) recommended a policy authorizing digital on-sitesigns. Before it is effective, the board of supervisors will have toapprove it. The change would amend Ordinance 348, “Land Use Planning and ZoningRegulations,” to allow digital signage only on a business’s site. InIdyllwild, the sign’s height would be…

On Wednesday, Oct. 30, Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order intended to mitigate utility rate increases and possibly find ways to reduce these rates. In his order, Newsome directed four different agencies, all of whom have some role in overseeing state utilities, to investigate possible efforts to help utility customers save money in the…