The recent tragedy on Maui has brought to the forefront the dangers we face as a community from a combination of fire and high winds. For the past year our group has been working with the county to limit the number of STR's and hold rental owners and operators to standards consistent with what they are: commercial lodging. By and large these efforts have fallen on deaf ears and, as tragedies like Maui and the mountain town of Paradise have shown, the results could be fatal. Too many tourists combined with local residents trying to get off the Hill at one time with only one way in and one way out in the event of a fire is a catastrophe waiting to happen.
Idyllwild/Pine Cove has a Tier 3 Extreme fire danger rating and is deemed more vulnerable than Paradise was before their fire. To preserve the health, safety and welfare of our town we need you to speak out via phone, zoom, or in person at the upcoming RivCo Planning Commission hearing next Wednesday August 23rd. This planning session is devoted soley to the new STR draft 927.2 which we believe ignores the potential fire hazards caused by too many STR's in our community. Therefore we are urging the county to do the following:
1) Adopt a hard 10% cap of 350 STRs for Idyllwild/Pine Cove;
2) Adopt a 300’ density limit between STRs preventing over saturation of any one given neighborhood;
3) No STR’s allowed on non county roads where fire trucks cannot pass or can pass with only great difficulty;
4) Business insurance requirement for STR’s;
5) Routine fire inspections to insure exit routes, safe wood stoves, extinguishers and fire suppression for each STR.
As noted, Aug 23, next Wednesday, is the Planning Commission hearing: Please call, attend in person or via zoom into the hearing and ask for these basic measures to ensure our safety! Links are provided below.
In addition you can also email ahead of the meeting: TLMA-STR@rivco.org, district1@rivco.org, district2@rivco.org, district3@rivco.org, district4@rivco.org, district5@rivco.org
Planning Commission Links and Information:
Speak live - Administration Center Chambers, 4080 Lemon Street, Riverside.
Register to speak or call in: https://rivco.org/constituent-speaking-request
Other info/rules at bottom: https://planning.rctlma.org/riverside-county-planning-commissioners
YOUR VOICE MATTERS!
Your 100% Local STR Solution Group