Lake arrowhead >> The long-closed but fondly remembered Santa’s Village may open early next month — but only on a limited scale.

Developers of the 153-acre Skypark at Santa’s Village, in the Lake Arrowhead community of Skyforest, have asked San Bernardino County to issue a temporary use permit to operate on the footprint of the former amusement park, which opened in 1955 — the same year as Disneyland — but closed in 1998.

“My hope is that we are allowed to open the village as everybody remembers it,” project manager Bill Johnson said Friday.

• Photos: A look back at Santa’s Village

San Bernardino County “is now in the process of asking county, state and federal agencies if they have any concerns” about granting the permit, said county spokesman David Wert.

“The county anticipates it will be able to decide whether or not to grant the permit prior to Nov. 1,” he said.

The environmental document for the entire project could not be completed and approved in time for the Christmas season, Johnson said, so the focus shifted to opening just the Santa’s Village portion.

“That way, we could give the community Santa’s Village when they want Santa,” he said.

The mountain biking, fly fishing, campgrounds and other additions that will make Skypark a year-around destination will be pursued as part of the environmental review process and become operational next year, Johnson said. Opening up Santa’s Village this season will “at least get us down the road and get some income coming in.”

• Related More: Developments at Santa’s Village

A management staff has been hired, according to Johnson, and crews are preparing Santa’s Village with fiber optics and cash registers. There is also work being done to bring some of the original 18 1950s-era structures into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Johnson said they anticipate the seasonal workforce will peak at about 300.

Delaying the work until Santa’s Village gets permission to open wouldn’t work, Johnson said. “It’s not possible to do all that work on a last-minute basis. We have to take the risk and gear up the park in the hopes we can open it.”

Economy in need

“If this project doesn’t happen, it will be a tragedy for the mountain,” said Polly Sauer, executive director of the Lake Arrowhead Communities Chamber of Commerce.

“The economy here is in trouble. Many haven’t recovered from the recession,” she said in a recent telephone interview. “This is like the Phoenix rising out of the ashes to have Skypark open.”

Approval of the full project is essential, Sauer said, adding that the failure of the original Santa’s Village showed a seasonal model won’t work.

As the work at the park is getting done, some nearby “Santas” are also preparing for what could be in store.

“I can’t wait to welcome kids into Santa’s house for the first time in 18 years,” said Bill Priest, a Lake Arrowhead resident, who plays Santa at mountain-area functions.

Priest says he will be training other Skypark Santas and working as a Santa there himself.

“I’m just waiting for a phone call,” he said.

Leaders at Rim of the World High School are looking forward to working with park officials.

Athletic Director Scott Craft said he will be working to develop and lead outdoor activities at Skypark, including snowshoeing, hiking and mountain biking. Stephanie Phillips, Regional Occupation and Career Technical Education programs coordinator at Rim high school, said she is working with Skypark officials to place students from various programs at the park.

Environmental concerns

A phased approach to opening Skypark is partially the result of requests from both the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Lahontan Water Quality Control Board. Both want more specific information about development remedies in the county’s preparation of an environmental document.

That report may have suffered a further setback when developers worked on a marshland area on the property without notifying the Lahontan and getting permits, according to Lauri Kemper, assistant executive officer at the South Lake Tahoe-based Lahontan.

An on-site meeting was held earlier this month with those two agencies, the county and the National Resource Conservation Service. The meeting was to discuss environmental issues, which need to be resolved before San Bernardino County can finalize the California Environmental Quality Act document, according to officials with the Lahontan and the Fish and Wildlife Service.

Kemper said her agency “is still in an investigation stage” on what was done to the marshland and pond areas on the property. The agency and the developer need to “reach some agreement, which has yet to be developed.”

“Our staff was on site (Oct. 4) to inspect the site and meet with project proponent and contractor,” Kemper said. “Additional planting of willows and grasses are needed and a boardwalk is planned to protect the meadow and allow access by visitors, including environmental education.”

When a rock-lined channel was installed in Hooks Creek, a headwater stream in the Upper Mojave watershed, which originates on the property, it interfered with its natural flow, according to Patrice Copeland, senior engineering geologist with the Lahontan agency.

The result could cause the marshland to die, she said.

The project has the potential to “disrupt the watershed process and degrade the overall health of the watershed,” Jan M. Zimmerman, a Lahontan engineering geologist, wrote in a letter to San Bernardino County’s Planning Department last year.

Both Kemper and Jeff Brandt, senior environmental scientist at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, said they had few issues with the temporary use permit.

What’s next?

San Bernardino County has no estimate on when the environmental report might be completed to allow for the entire Skypark project to move forward.

“Things were looking good to go to the Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors by the end of this year, but then came the earth-moving issues, which created issues for state Fish and Wildlife and Lahontan,” Wert said in a statement. “At the very least it seems the EIR now has to be modified, so the county no longer has a time estimate.”

The National Resource Conservation Service has been working with Skypark for about three years to restore the property’s meadow area, according to Shea O’Keefe, a biologist with the agency.

The conservation service worked with the developers in the removal of thousands of logs, concrete, rebar, and chopped wood, she said. “It was really trashed” before the new group took over.

The federal agency has also completed engineering and design for re-establishing the water course and stream bank going through the meadow, some of which the Lahontan is objecting to now.

National Resource Conservation Service engineers also designed retaining structures to capture water runoff, O’Keefe said, since the runoff water contains oils and other substances that would harm the wetlands.

The last phase of the agency’s involvement with the project is to oversee the revegetation with native plants, Johnson, the project manager, said, the cost of which will be partially paid for by an Environmental Quality Incentive Program grant.