Saturday, May 7, 2011

ICRC forced to postpone playground work

This unfortunate news arrived late yesterday afternoon. Construction of the ICRC playground will be delayed while ICRC pursues a county Conditional Use Permit. Here's the full message.

Dear Playground Supporter,

The Idyllwild Community Center Playground build date of June 22 - 26 has been postponed due to additional permitting required by the County of Riverside for the project.

After our initial consultation with the Riverside County Planning Department last fall regarding the playground build, we prepared our application for permit review on March 4. At that time ICRC was advised that the project would require even more extensive review by the Planning Department.

Then on Wednesday, May 4, the Planning Department notified ICRC that because of zoning regulations at the Community Center property a Conditional Use Permit (CUP) would be required in order to move forward with installation of the playground and associated equipment in its current design.

The Idyllwild Community Center land where the playground is to be built is currently zoned as CPS (Commercial Zoning) which requires that recreational uses such as sports and recreational facilities, playgrounds, gymnasiums and the like obtain the CUP for further development beyond the standard uses designated in the CPS.

ICRC has already begun the process of seeking the CUP and anticipates that it will take four to six months once the application has been submitted which is scheduled for June 1st. An announcement of when the new playground build date will be set is forthcoming once ICRC is able to determine when the new permitting process will be completed.

We would like to thank Riverside County 3rd District Supervisor Jeff Stone for his assistance in helping ICRC navigate this process and Supervisor Stone's Legislative Assistant Olivia Barnes for her invaluable guidance.

We also thank all of our contributors and donors for your generous support of the project as we look forward to bringing this world-class facility to Idyllwild.

John Simpson, ICRC President
Dawn Sonnier, ICRC Vice President

3 comments:

  1. The County's fault?
    Sounds like a predatory businessman/woman who can never be wrong blaming others for their own incompetence or limited willingness to understand/work the true issue at hand.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Kind of like the predatory school teachers and religious zealots from our community who are never wrong.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Only government can operate at this pace. Why should a CUP take 6 months? The county needs to justify its beauracracy. The community is obviously behind the playground, why do we need to wait?

    ReplyDelete

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