San Bernardino County has withdrawn its support for a long-planned 13-acre church complex in the San Bernardino Mountains in Rimforest.
For 19 years, Lake Arrowhead-based Church of the Woods has sought to build its Sonrise church campus complex and recreational development project off State Highway 18 and Daley Canyon Road in Rimforest. The church proposed a two-story assembly building, a two-story youth center, a ministry structure, a sports field, game courts and more.
In 2003, the San Bernardino County Planning Commission approved the project without an environmental impact report. A report was later approved in 2011, but the church withdrew the project in the face of opposition.
In 2017, the church tried again. The county Planning Commission approved the project in January 2020 over objections from environmental groups. The Board of Supervisors denied the groups’ appeal in October 2020, but did not certify the report or officially approve the project.
In November 2020, a group of environmentalists, including Save Our Forest Association, the local Sierra Club and the San Bernardino Valley Audubon Society, sued. Plaintiffs accused the church and county of violating the California Environmental Quality Act and state planning and zoning law.
On March 9, 2022, Superior Court Judge David Cohn ruled that the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors had approved the project without an adequate environmental impact report, effectively stopping the project. In June, the church let a deadline pass to appeal the ruling.
And a meeting Tuesday, July 26, the Board of Supervisors, without comment, set aside and vacated the approvals for the Sonrise project, following a June 6 writ of mandate by Cohn, ordering the county to do so.
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