Two years were spent on guidelines meant to protect unincorporated Riverside County residents from diesel fumes, noise, harsh lights, truck traffic, and other problems associated with mega-warehouses taking a bigger share of the Inland landscape and economy.
But the “Good Neighbor” guidelines, approved Nov. 19 by the Board of Supervisors, won’t apply everywhere after a split vote gave each supervisor the ability to opt his or her district out of the policy. So far, at least two are opting out — including the one who proposed the concept. And, regardless of who adopts the policy, environmentalists say it’s not strong enough.
Supervisor Karen Spiegel, whose district includes part of Riverside along with Corona, Norco, Jurupa Valley, and Eastvale, said Wednesday, Dec. 4, she would follow the guidelines, which she sees as appropriate for the compact nature of her roughly 170-square-mile district.
Supervisor Jeff Hewitt, whose district includes the Pass, Moreno Valley, Perris, and Menifee, will not. When a major logistics project comes to the district, Hewitt said Wednesday that he wants “to have the flexibility to make good decisions for my constituents.”
Supervisor Kevin Jeffries, who represents most of Riverside in addition to Lake Elsinore, Wildomar, and Canyon Lake, also won’t use the rules — despite being the driving force behind them. In an email, he said he wants to be able to seek larger buffers between warehouses and sensitive areas of his district.
“The challenge of course is that a majority of the board does not support any (buffer) beyond 300 feet, so there is a real possibility that I will be overturned when a proposed warehouse in the First District is on the board agenda,” Jeffries said.
In an email, Supervisor Chuck Washington said that while he’s “not supportive of large warehouses” in his district – Temecula, Murrieta, Hemet, and San Jacinto – he’ll apply the guidelines “when and where appropriate with the flexibility and understanding that different communities have different needs and sentiments.”
Supervisor V. Manuel Perez, whose district stretches from the Coachella Valley to the Arizona border, did not respond to a request for comment about whether he’d let the guidelines apply in his district.
The guidelines – if adopted in a district – apply to future logistics projects with any building at least 250,000 square feet in size with more than 20 loading bays. They don’t apply to warehouses built in cities, which set their own land-use rules
The rules oversee how warehouses are designed, built and operated. For example, warehouses must take steps to conceal themselves from the public view, abide by limits on how much land grading can be done per day, and limit truck routes to warehouses and how long trucks can idle.
The board delayed the start of the guidelines to make changes and hear from the public, including the logistics industry. Also, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra’s office offered suggestions, including increasing the buffer between warehouses and sensitive receptors from 300 to 1,000.
When it came time for a vote on Nov. 19, Hewitt expressed concerns. Noting that projects must go through “a very extensive” process under the California Environmental Quality Act, Hewitt worried that smaller companies might be shut out of warehouse construction contracts because they couldn’t afford equipment that met higher emission standards called for in the guidelines.
He proposed that supervisors choose whether to use the guidelines in their districts. Perez seconded the motion.
“I don’t like the idea of one size fits all,” Perez, whose district spans roughly 5,000 square miles, said at the time. “I have an area that’s very vast and very open … and I do think that, perhaps, we could find locations out there for these types of (logistics) centers that, quite frankly, are not close to a home or to sensitive receptors.”
Hewitt’s motion passed 3-2, with Spiegel joining Hewitt and Perez. Jeffries and Washington voted no.
“After two years of working with county staff on the Good Neighbor proposal, I am of course disappointed that it was gutted by virtue of it being an optional standard,” Jeffries said this week.
Is 300 feet enough?
And environmentalists say the policy provides too small a buffer between warehouses and sensitive areas such as homes, schools, parks, and other land uses that could be harmed by next-door logistics.
The 300-foot buffer “is a complete joke,” said Andrea Vidaurre, policy analyst with the Jurupa Valley-based Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice.
Such a buffer is inadequate, she said, because it doesn’t cover diesel emissions from idling trucks waiting to get into a warehouse. In arguing for a 1,000-foot buffer, Becerra’s office cited data showing localized air pollution drops off after 1,000 feet.
Allowing supervisors to follow or ignore the guidelines will lead to disparities between communities in terms of how warehouses affect residents’ health, Vidaurre added.
County planning chief Juan Perez told supervisors Nov. 19 that industrial uses typically require only a 50-foot buffer.
In an email, county spokeswoman Brooke Federico wrote that the county is not aware of any other agency requiring a 300-foot buffer for warehouses.
Spiegel defended the 300-foot requirement.
“If there’s nobody else doing it, we’re being pretty progressive by requiring 300 feet,” she said Wednesday. “You’re got to start somewhere and 300 (feet) is a beginning.”
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Riverside County warehouse rules to buffer unincorporated-area homes won’t apply everywhere - Press-Enterprise
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