Moreno Valley will not join other nearby areas in temporarily banning new warehouse developments after the City Council voted against a proposed moratorium Tuesday.
Concerns about warehouses have increased in recent years among Inland Empire residents who say they have clogged streets with diesel trucks and sometimes introduced heavy layers of smog.
In recent years, more than a half-dozen area cities have established moratoriums as they consider the environmental impacts and the health of residents.
Proponents argue that warehouses bring jobs to a region that has become dependent on the industry.
Moreno Valley, with a population of nearly 214,000 that is nearly 62% Latino, is the second largest city in Riverside County, which has seen a rapid influx of warehouse developments over the past decade. City staffers reported that there are only about 92 acres left for development.
The city is already the future home of the World Logistics Center, a 40-million-square-foot complex that is expected to house 27 buildings and create more than 33,000 jobs.
The moratorium proposal came at a time when Moreno Valley was set to update its general plan, which is a guide for future development in the city. A pause on warehouse development would have prevented complications with applications under the current general plan, said City Atty. Steven Quintanilla.
On Tuesday, speakers from labor unions were among those urging the City Council to vote down the 45-day moratorium.
“Moreno Valley has been a place where people come to work, build careers and move up,” said Juan Serrato with the Laborers International Union North America. “This moratorium sends the opposite message. It tells investors and developers to wait, and when they wait, our members sit at home.”
Mayor Ulises Cabrera and Councilmember Erlan Gonzalez, who had previously supported moving the moratorium forward, voted against it Tuesday. The 3-2 vote was not enough to approve the proposal, which was a “interim urgency ordinance” requiring a four-fifths vote.
Resident Louise Palomarez addresses the Moreno Valley City Council during the public comment on a 45-day moratorium on warehouses in Moreno Valley. “What a waste of time, 45 damn days. What’s that gonna buy us,” Palomarez said.
Cabrera said he did not support a “blanket” moratorium and instead wanted the city to consider projects on a case-by-case basis.
“I don’t support a moratorium and do look forward to having more extensive conversations about the future of economic development to make sure that we continue bringing in the right businesses to the city, bringing in labor jobs,” Cabrera said.
Councilmember Cheylynda Barnard, who authored the motion, expressed frustration with claims that a pause would deter businesses and result in job losses. The moratorium’s proponents said it would give the city time to plan future development and prioritize residents’ health.
“I have to think about these things because I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m not going to live forever, and sometimes for me, quick and fast money does not negate the fact that there are people’s lives and people’s health that we have to account for at some point as a responsibility,” she said.
Feb. 2023 images of trucks lined up at a Walmart distribution center located along I-15 in Eastvale.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
In Redlands, the City Council voted unanimously in November to ask staffers to draft a ban on warehouse development, while Perris has extended its moratorium for another 10 months. Residents in those cities have said that few of the promised jobs have come to fruition, and those jobs are often low-paying.
In Moreno Valley on Tuesday night, teacher Brielle Fierro said that as a lifelong resident and educator, she values quality of life over investor profits.
“We’re absorbing the pollution so that the rest of the country can benefit from two-day shipping, express shipping. No community should be treated as a dumping ground, especially not Moreno Valley,” she said. “The moratorium is not anti-business. It is pro-community, pro-health and pro-Moreno Valley.”
A large warehouse is the backyard view of homes on Slate Creek Drive in Moreno Valley.
As of 2021, warehouses accounted for more than 1 billion square feet in the Inland Empire, according to the Robert Redford Conservancy for Southern California Sustainability at Pitzer College, which mapped the region’s warehouse boom. A researcher from the conservancy noted that 40% of the nation’s goods now travel through the Inland Empire by diesel truck, train or plane.
While the boom steadied the region during the COVID pandemic, which saw entire industries changed overnight, some warehouses now sit empty, with many shuttering during a recent downturn.
But the acres of concrete buildings remain, and diesel trucks continue to disrupt neighborhoods. A new state law putting tighter restrictions on warehouse development, authored by Assemblymember Juan Carrillo and state Sen. Eloise Gómez Reyes, whose districts includes the Inland Empire, went into effect this January.
Warehouses surround Rialto Middle School in the Inland Empire.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
Karla Cervantes Pacheco, co-founder of Inland Valley Alliance for Environmental Justice, said entire neighborhoods have been transformed, and there has been a shift: Where once residents looked forward to the promise of jobs, they are now asking elected officials to pause further development.
“There are people that were on board with warehousing at first, and then it became a big issue. They’ve seen the pollution,” said Cervantes Pacheco, noting that the sentiment crosses partisan lines.
Ismael Gonzalez, a member of the Sierra Club, San Gorgonio Chapter and a member of the Inland Valley Alliance for Environmental Justice, stands on a vista which overlooks a proposed site, back right, for a 40 million square foot warehouse on 918 acres which is across the street from a residential neighborhood in Moreno Valley
Tuesday’s vote in Moreno Valley bucked that trend.
The proposed moratorium would not have stopped the giant World Logistics Center, which was approved by the City Council in 2015 and remains largely unbuilt. But it would have stopped other projects and kept the city’s remaining land from being developed, said Ismael Gonzalez, a member of the Inland Valley Alliance for Environmental Justice as well as the Sierra Club, San Gorgonio Chapter.
Residents both for and against the moratorium brought up the center in their remarks at the City Council meeting.
“Every acre, every square foot, every inch of land, at this point is worth saving because so much of it has already been developed,” Gonzalez said.