Kudos and congratulations to the Flamingo Heights community!!  The proposed FH 640 Glamping project was DENIED by the Planning Commission today!  

Twenty-eight people commented, some in person at the County Building in San Bernardino and most via video from Joshua Tree. The comments were substantive, well-articulated, and quite comprehensive – and, clearly persuasive! 

The developer now has 10 days to appeal their decision before this project will be permanently laid to rest. 

We’re hoping they see the light and decide to donate this 640 acres to Mojave Desert Land Trust.

Flamingo Heights, we’re celebrating with you today!  Well done!!

What might this mean for the Wonder Inn proposal?  We’re still digesting the news, but it’s hard to see it as negative; we’ll have more to say on this soon. One particular item of note:  Rather than voting FH 640 down outright the Commissioners just failed to make a motion to approve it.  So, no vote was taken and essentially the proposal was denied by default. 

Second item of note, and this is the biggie:  Announcement was made during the hearing that the Wonder Inn Proposal will be on the agenda March 23.  So get ready, people – it’s our turn next! 

In our last communication with County Land Use Services on the topic (March 3), Planning Director Heidi Duron again confirmed that LUS is “currently anticipating the [Wonder Inn Hotel/Resort proposal] to be on the  agenda for the March 23 Planning Commission hearing.”

This seems awfully fast, doesn’t it?  That date would be almost exactly four weeks after we and many others submitted many hundreds of pages of substantive comments on the Initial Study.  Is LUS really going to be able to process all those comments, generate a response, and resolve any issues with the developers in that brief time?

Let’s take a moment and compare with another project in the Basin:  Flamingo Heights 640 Glamping Proposal.  FH 640 involves a “Conditional Use Permit to establish a 75-site campground on a portion of a 640-acre parcel, consisting of various structures and accessory buildings associated with the use of the site, including a restaurant and bar that are not open to the public.”

The FH 640 proposal received a Mitigated Negative Declaration, the same as the Wonder Inn proposal did.  That public comment period ended April 21, 2022 – more than ten months ago.  The proposal is only now coming before the Planning Commission this Thursday, March 9.  LUS rejected the requests for an EIR, but some revisions were made in the FH 640 Proposal in view of comments received.  Specifically, according to the Homestead Valley Community Council, “Changes to the original development plan include no public access to the proposed restaurant and bar; the amenities are now only available to patrons of the campground. In addition, the proposed helipad remains a part of the site plan as an emergency-use-only helicopter pad, with no aerial tours being conducted from the site.”

Yes, a helipad. 

We suggest you visit HVCC’s Save Our Deserts page to learn more about just what could be happening to the poor folks over there.  Of course it is a “glamping” proposal, not a hotel, but some aspects of the proposal will sound familiar to Wonder Valley residents – for instance, pool, restaurant, and bar, with special twists including a 5500-sf “Art Barn” and yoga deck.  (And at one point there seems to have been an idea which was dropped for festivals of 25,000 people!)  You can also learn about the many concerns the local residents share about the proposal – concerns that will also sound familiar to us here in Wonder Valley.

Sadly, the many comments submitted by the public on FH 640 did not succeed in triggering a reconsideration of the need for an EIR. LUS has recommended APPROVAL of the project with the changes noted above.  But our neighbors in Homestead Valley are not giving up and will be showing up at the Planning Commission this Thursday, March 9, to testify for their community, and we can show up and comment, as well, to support them. 

We here at SWIP have been watching the progress of the FH 640 proposal closely, both because it shares many concerns with the Wonder Inn project here in Wonder Valley and because we might expect roughly similar treatment with the Wonder Inn proposal.  However, as noted above, it took over 10 months for FH 640 to come before the Planning Commission, and right now the projection from LUS is for Wonder Inn to come before the PC in just over four weeks.  What to make of this?  Not clear.  But we’re doing our best to find out.

In the meantime, join us in supporting our neighbors in the homestead communities of the west Basin by showing up at the hearing on the Flamingo Heights 640 Glamping Proposal this Thursday, or send in a comment.  This and the Wonder Inn are both precedent-setting changes in Rural Living zones and must not be allowed to proceed.   

Wonder Inn developer Jason Landver is now on the record confirming plans to build 20 villas on the 138 acres adjacent to the site of the proposed luxury resort.  Per the San Bernardino County Sentinel:

Last week, Landver in a statement to the Sentinel confirmed that he and [Alan] Greenberg, who are being assisted by development consultant David Mlynarski, are purposed to see the entirety of the 160 acres built upon.

In his free-ranging interview, Landver said that he and Greenberg will abide by the existing zoning on the 138.78 acres they own that will be left after the hotel is built. In this way, he said, roughly 20 homes will be placed on the property. He emphasized that they will be prefabricated single-story structures of right around 2,000 square feet each.

Landver’s acknowledgement of the residential component of their development was significant. Though there had been rumors to the effect that what Greenberg and Landver had embarked upon would not confine itself to the resort complex alone, their application to the county gave no indication that they were going to construct anything other than the 106-room hotel along with an all-night restaurant, a spa/wellness center, conference hall and event center, a 6,000-square foot swimming pool, hot tubs, outdoor showers and a 205-space parking lot.

When asked by the Sentinel for a response, Stop the Wonder Inn Project’s Rick Hamburg pointed out:  “None of this is disclosed in the initial study/mitigated negative declaration. Such plans are contrary to the California Environmental Quality Act statute prohibiting ‘spot zoning’ and ‘piecemealing’ and should be addressed by the county with a full environmental impact report.”

What is “piecemealing”? 

Piecemealing or segmenting means dividing a project into two or more pieces and evaluating each piece in a separate environmental document, rather than evaluating the whole of the project in one environmental document. This is explicitly forbidden by CEQA, because dividing a project into a number of pieces would allow a Lead Agency to minimize the apparent environmental impacts of a project by evaluating individual pieces separately, each of which may have a less than-significant impact on the environment, but which together may result in a significant impact.  Segmenting a project may also hinder developing comprehensive mitigation strategies.  –– CEQA Portal, Association of Environmental Professionals

The Sentinel has further confirmed that County Land Use Services had not been informed of these plans:

Landver did not seem to appreciate the significance of his acknowledgment that the development at the site was to go beyond the resort hotel.

Neither of the two San Bernardino County Department of Land Use Services staff members who are processing Greenberg and Landver’s application, Senior Planner Azhar Khan and Supervising Planner Chris Warrick, were aware that the entire 160 acres that Greenburg and Landver had acquired were to be developed, essentially, together. This puts the soundness of their decision to allow a mitigated negative declaration to suffice as the environmental certification for the hotel project in doubt. Allowing the residential properties to be developed while allowing Gammel Road to remain unpaved, would seem to involve less than sterling quality planning. Moreover, if Gammel Road were to be paved, a more comprehensive environmental examination of the developmental impacts would be in order. Landver’s acknowledgment that he and Greenberg intend to proceed with a project or combination of projects entailing nearly eight times as much land as was previously indicated throws into doubt whether they can proceed with the project by carrying out an environmental certification on the cheap.

Mr. Landver had a lot more to say in his interview with the Sentinel, and SWIP’s Rick Hamburg pushed back with vigor.  We recommend reading the full article.  Further, we hope to examine more of Mr. Landver’s claims in detail in future posts on this blog.  (If you have trouble accessing the article, you can see a pdf here.)

In the meantime, if you want to know more about the concerns with “piecemealing” with this project, see pp 16-19 of the SWIP Response Comments to the Wonder Inn Hotel/Resort Initial Study. 

The Stop the Wonder Inn Project’s comments in response to the Initial Study are complete, submitted to the County, and viewable below.  It’s 187 pages, so the download might require some patience. 

A note on style: These comments were generated by a grassroots group of concerned
neighbors, not experts. There’s a variety of styles, including different ways each person may have expressed their concerns and/or highlighted their questions.  Rather than edit them into sameness, we chose to let the different voices of our community come through. 

A lot has been going on and we’ll see if we can catch up, but first:

Did you get in your comments on the Wonder Inn Initial Study?  Deadline is Wednesday Feb 22 at 4:30 pm!  So if you haven’t yet, go right now and get them in!

The community has really responded to the call for comments, with so far over 150 sent in to the County just through our website!  Go, Wonder Valley!  The Stop Wonder Inn crew has been hard at work putting together our own comprehensive comments, and we expect to have those posted to the website very soon.

But we’ve also taken time out to talk to the good folks at the podcast 90 Miles from Needles, and you can listen to the episode here:  S2E4:  Protecting Wonder Valley.  Be sure to catch the moving segment where Lucas Basulto walks the area adjacent to the project site and discovers…a baby tortoise!  It is a thrill to share his excitement.  This, among other things, is what we’re fighting for.  A big thanks to Chris Clarke and Alicia Pike at 90 Miles for helping to get the word out.

And in case you missed it, last week in the Desert Trail Beth Sheffield outlined the burden the Wonder Inn project would place on Wonder Valley’s already stressed public services, such as fire and paramedic, which are paid for by you, the taxpayer.

And now, a special dispatch from the We’re So Surprised Dept:  Like us, you’ve probably been suspicious of what the Wonder Inn developers intend to do with the rest of the many acres they own there on Amboy.  Well, now we know – or at least, we know another part of the story. 

The Wonder Inn developers stated in the Initial Study that the proposed project does not include the construction of new homes. Thanks to an alert researcher on our team, however, it was discovered recently that the owners of the Wonder Inn have begun publicly advertising the sale of 24 “luxury villa homes” which would be built on the remaining 113.4 acres they own adjacent to the Wonder Inn.  The Modly web page seems to blink in and out, but look at this screen shot:

On the 160 acre site, we will be constructing 24 private villa homes, each sitting on a private 5-acre site.  Each contemporary home will consist of 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms with all the amenities you’d expect including a swimming pool, hot tub, outdoor showers, fire pits, solar panels and an electric car charger.  Homeowners can occupy the homes year-round or they can opt-in to have the hotel manage the homes for guests to rent them out at $1000 Average Daily Rate.  This is a fantastic opportunity to own a second home which pays for itself.  Residents can move into their Wonder Valley Villas by Q4, 2024.  Lot prices will be starting at approximately $150,000.

Think this is just some joker with a random website?  Want more confirmation of this plan to construct luxury villas?  Take a look at branding concern Bain Hospitality, where “the focus has been working with financial corporations on acquiring historic assets and converting them into high-end, one-of-a-kind luxury hotels.”  The Bain website includes this description:  “The Wonder Inn is set to become Joshua Tree’s first full-service resort, sitting on 160 acres of majestic desert landscape. Consisting of 106 design-forward guestrooms, 20 branded residences, a three-meal restaurant, and 90-foot wide oasis style pool, a serene health and wellness center, and a full-scale event space.”  (Of note, the Bain Wonder Inn web page is still up as of this date.)

This plan of the Wonder Inn developers to establish a $1000/night short-term rental villa community that would be managed by the hotel/ inn exploits a known loophole in San Bernardino County’s Short-Term Rental ordinance that allows multiple co-developed “single family homes” to be managed as a hotel. The Wonder Inn developers can effectively create hotels of unlimited size in areas where zoning would not otherwise allow them.

Further, the developers failed to inform the County of their plans to build these additional 24 homes, they are already soliciting buyers for these homes, and they’ve shown blatant disregard for CEQA and the County of San Bernardino Land Use Services by withholding their intent for this land use to build residential private villas.  

Obviously, there’s lots more to unpack here.  But for now, we’ll just let that shoe sit right where it dropped. 

This juvenile tortoise was observed on the periphery of the proposed Wonder Inn in the past week. We have conclusive documentation that the developers know that there are active tortoises on the proposed property. For this and many other reasons this project should not be built. Take action now!

The deadline to comment on the Wonder Inn Initial Study is Feb 22, and we’ve been promising you resources to help you comment effectively.  

We’ve put together two options for you:

1. Use our click-and-send comment letter with an option to include additional comments of your own.  
2. Write your own comment and send it in yourself. 

Commenting on the Initial Study can be intimidating, and the click-and-send letter is a simple way to be effective. Just click, add Additional Comments if you want to, hit send, and you’re done! 

But we also want to empower our community and demystify the CEQA process, which is a sunshine law meant for the use of citizens.  It’s an important tool that we’ve been learning about ourselves, and we want to share what we’re learning with you. 

So if you feel ready to take that on, we’ve created a page with tips and information about how to comment effectively on the Initial Study. And a Guide to the Initial Study, for those who want to dive in themselves.

We also have a new Resources page with links to all the documents you might need, plus the addresses of County officials for submitting comments. 

By the way, you can find the video from the Jan 28 Informational Meeting and keep up to date on the latest ways to stop the Wonder Inn by going directly to our new Take Action Now page.

Remember:  Comments must be received or postmarked by 4:30 pm on Feb 22.  So whether you click-and-send or write your own, be sure to get your comment in!

Update: Our YouTube account has been restored! Upon review YouTube has appropriately decided that we did not violate their Terms of Service. So you can once again view community meetings regarding the Wonder Inn!

Hmm…  We discovered this morning that our YouTube account has been terminated. 

We just started the account this week, and the only things on it were a recording of our Community Informational Meeting from January 28, plus a playlist created to share videos the community recorded during the public meeting held at the Wonder Valley Community Center in May of 2022.

It’s hard to see how this constituted “severe or repeated violations” of YouTube Guidelines, specifically “spam, scams or commercially deceptive content.” We never received a warning, as required by YouTube policy. 

We are appealing.  In the meantime, we’ll investigate other avenues to make the full record of our community meeting available.  And you can still find a few clips from the Jan 28 meeting and many clips from the May 2022 meeting if you search “Wonder Inn community meeting” on YouTube.

On a more positive note:  We have a new Resources page!  So far it includes links to the Initial Study documents (with all 895 pages of the Appendices!); important policy documents such as the Countywide Plan and the Wonder Valley Community Action Guide; and guides to CEQA, including Pat Flanagan’s helpful “CEQA 101” presentation. 

And check this out:  County Giving Them the Bum’s Rush on Resort Approval, Wonder Valley Residents Say in the San Bernardino County Sentinel.  The article includes some background on David Mlynarski, the “politically well-connected development professional who is working on behalf of the project proponents”, and his company Transtech Engineers, Inc.    

Steady as she goes, neighbors. 

Thanks to everyone who turned out at the Informational Community Meeting on Jan 28 at the Wonder Valley Community Center!  We covered a lot of ground at the meeting, including the concerns we all have with the Wonder Inn proposal, where we are in the permitting process, and how each of us can respond. The meeting was videotaped and we’ll get that out as soon as we can for those who couldn’t attend.  And reporter Jene Estrada captured a lot of the proceedings in today’s Hi-Desert Star.

We’re working at getting related content up on this website, resources to help you make effective comments during this Initial Study review period, so watch for that.

Edited to add: The video is up! Watch the meeting on our new YouTube channel!

But right now, let’s catch up on where we are in the process, and where we’re going.  

A reminder: What is the Wonder Inn project?  A proposal to build a 106-room luxury resort with restaurant, 6300 sq ft pool, spa, event space, and 210-space parking lot on Amboy Road at the old “pink building” near Gammel Rd. The proposal would require a Conditional Use Permit and a rezoning of 20-plus acres from Rural Living to Commercial. Here’s why we oppose it.

 What’s happening now?  The proposal is in the environmental review process with County Land Use Services (LUS).  An important document has just been released (called the Initial Study/Mitigated Negative Declaration), which declares that the project would have no significant environmental impacts.  We have 36 days to review it and respond to LUS with comments.  The deadline is Feb. 22 at 4:30 p.m.

What are we asking for right now? This proposal should not move forward until there is a full study of the potential impacts on our community.  From our review, the current document (the Initial Study) is not adequate.  County LUS needs to deny the proposal in its current form and require a full environmental study, called an Environmental Impact Report (EIR).

What happens next?  Our goal is for Land Use Services to initiate a full environmental review with an EIR.  But if they don’t, things could move fast:  LUS would send the proposal (maybe as early as March) on to the County Planning Commission, who would approve or deny the project, followed by finalization by the Board of Supervisors. After that, only a lawsuit would have a chance of stopping the project.  So it’s crucial we get an EIR now to expose the real impacts of this proposal, before it goes any further! 

What can YOU do?  Respond with comments to LUS requesting an EIR by the deadline of Feb 22.  How do you comment?  To help you, we’re developing sample letters and guides on critical topics to post on this website as quickly as we can.  So make sure you’re on the mailing list and checking back on the website, so you can participate!

Can we win this? Yes, we can!  Many communities have fought and won on projects like these using the CEQA process.  And we already had our first victory:  LUS extended the review period from 21 to 36 days in response to pressure from community members like you. 

Thanks to all of you, together we can stop the Wonder Inn!

The Stop Wonder Inn Working Group has been busy reviewing the over 1,000 pages of study documents of the Wonder Inn 106-room resort complex.  And we want to share what we’re learning with you.  

We will host an informational meeting on Saturday, January 28, at 1 pm
at the Wonder Valley Community Center,
80526 Amboy Road, Wonder Valley.

We’ve been looking closely at what the developers claim about the potential impacts of their proposal. And we’ve been asking questions like these

• Will a new commercial project of this scale really do nothing to change our community? 
• Can they really use that much water without affecting our aquifer?
• Will lighting for a full resort, and 210-space parking lot really not
  change our night sky? 
• Will the increased traffic have no effect on our roads?
• Have the developers really done their due diligence?  Do we have the full facts, both
  about the project itself and about the environment they’ll be affecting, and do the studies seem complete and credible?

At the January 28 meeting, we’ll share our findings so far.  We’ll also help you understand the County and CEQA review process, where we stand in it, and what happens next.  And, most importantly, how you can participate and make a difference in the outcome.

So if you want to stop the Wonder Inn or you want more information about the problems with the project, join us on Saturday, January 28, at 1 pm at the Wonder Valley Community Center!

Note:  The Stop Wonder Inn Working Group is paying for the rental of the Wonder Valley Community Center for this non-partisan event.