In Upland, sharp differences have manifested over the proposed development of what appears to be the largest and most energetic non-residential construction project in the City of Gracious Living in more than a decade.
In June El Segundo-based Bridge Development Partners previewed during a city workshop what it then said were its plans to construct a three-building warehouse complex involving 977,000 square feet under roof, entailing 150 truck bays/loading docks.
The project was to be sited on 50.25 acres east of Central Avenue and just north of Foothill Boulevard in Upland below Cable Airport on property owned by the Bongiovanni Family Trust, where the Bongiovanni Construction Company was once headquartered and which subsequently hosted Dineen Trucking and later a construction materials and composite supply operation owned by Ken Beck.
In October, Brendan Kotler, the vice president of development for Bridge Development Partners, told a special confab involving the Upland City Council, the Upland Planning Commission and the Upland Airport Land Use Committee that proposal had been scaled back by more than two-thirds, involving a single building of 276,250 square feet, described as a retail and logistics center. According to Kotler, the number of truck bays was radically reduced to 25.
On December 16, the penultimate refinement of the project description was released by the city as the central element of the initial study/mitigated negative declaration process needed to comply with the California Environmental Quality Act, which requires that it be circulated for a review period prior to its consideration for adoption by the city council.
Under the California Environmental Quality Act, an initial study on any development proposal is required. Based on the study’s conclusion relating to the seriousness of the impacts the development will have, one of two primary types of environmental assessment of the project must be carried out before it can be given clearance to proceed. One consists of a full-blown environmental impact report in which all of the consequences of the project both during construction phase and after its completion are cataloged, together with the plans to mitigate those effects. The other type of environmental assessment is a so-called negative declaration or mitigated negative declaration. A negative declaration is a written statement prepared by the agency overseeing the jurisdiction in which the project is proposed which describes how it is that the project will not have a significant effect on the environment, together with the assertion that the preparation of an environmental impact report for the project is therefore not necessary. A mitigated negative declaration is a negative declaration that incorporates revisions  to the originally proposed project that will avert or mitigate impacts generated by the project such that no significant impacts on the environment will occur, together with an assertion that an environmental impact report is not needed. The revisions outlined in a mitigated negative declaration are also referred to as mitigation measures. For a project to gain approval and be allowed to legally proceed, the legislative/decision making body overseeing the jurisdiction in which the project is to be located must sign off on and approve either the environmental impact report, or in the alternative the negative declaration or mitigated negative declaration for the project.
As was presented in June, the facility upon completion was to feature an operation that would entail on a daily basis at least 263 eighteen-wheeler trucks delivering merchandise to the warehouse and several thousand delivery vans dispatched from the warehouse to deliver packages of merchandise to customers. Extrapolating on that representation, together with the assertion by Bridge Development Partners that the building was intended for occupancy by a “Fortune 10 company” and Upland Development Services Director Robert Dahlquest’s subsequent identification of the facility as one involved in “e-commerce delivery,” residents were driven to the conclusion that the tenant was to either be Amazon, the internet product delivery giant, or Walmart, which has experimented with the on-line delivery of ordered products in some out-of-state locates, such as Indiana.
For a good number of Upland residents, the prospect of such an operation, generating a significant degree of traffic emanating away from the complex north and south on Benson as well as east and west on both Foothill Boulevard and Baseline/16th Street was too onerous to be contemplated.  Networking and coordinating with one another, they galvanized dozens, then scores and now hundreds of Upland residents to oppose the project.
They decried the traffic, air and sound pollution and visual blight the project would represent.
Bridge Development, in apparent reaction to the resident discontent, previewed the project in its scaled back form in October.  The reduction of the complex from three structures to one, the square footage from 977,000 to 276,250 and the number of truck bays//loading docks from 150 to 25 did not appreciably diminish the opposition. The project’s adversaries pointed out that the number of 18-wheelers coming onto the property were only a portion of the problem. Rather, they said, it was to be the sheer number of delivery vans leaving and returning to the warehouse that represented the greatest potential erosion of the citizenry’s quality of life. They zeroed in on the more than 1,300 parking spaces the project will involve, translating to a tremendous number of vehicle trips to and from the premises daily, subjecting the Upland environs to what they said was an intolerable degree of traffic and unhealthful vehicle exhaust emissions. The conversion of the property from its current use into the project envisioned by Bridge Partners would entail an intensification of the use of the property northeast of where Central Avenue dead-ends into Foothill Boulevard.
Parenthetically, the project opponents noted the heavy lobbying campaign the company was carrying out, which included schmoozing influential members of, and entities within, the Upland community, including the Upland Chamber of Commerce, which endorsed the project. This effort to charm the powers-that-be using the company’s largesse and political reach belied the unhealthy nature of the development proposal, its opponents asserted.
On December 16, when the draft initial study/mitigated negative declaration was publicly posted with the initiation of the 37-day review period for that document, it was revealed that the project building is proposed to be one level at a height of 44 feet with a total of approximately 201,096 square feet under roof, of which approximately 191,096 square feet would be warehouse/parcel delivery uses and 10,000 square feet would be office/retail uses. The office/retail component would include an office area for employees, and a small area for visitors to pick up pre-ordered packages.
Heather Crossner, Bridge Development’s first vice president for development, this week told the Sentinel that the citizen alarm over the project was unwarranted. The project, she said, represents a major step forward for the Upland community. “This is likely the first and last opportunity for Upland to do something with this property,” she said. Queried as to how the project would enhance rather than negatively impact the city and its residents, Cossner said, “There are a number of things. This site is naked land except for the dirt and rock crushing operation there that generates dust and has numerous pollution issues. We believe this improvement to the Foothill Corridor will be a huge catalyst for the community.  Upon completion, it will provide 300 permanent jobs, not including the 700 to 800 jobs it will provide during the grading and construction phase. We will be planting more than 1,000 trees on the property. This will transform that now-blighted property into something that is much more attractive than it is now, fitting to be the gateway to Upland. It will be one of the first things people will see coming off the 210 Freeway.  We will be totally repaving 13th Street along the project site and Central Avenue as well. There will be improvements to the landscaping along Central Avenue, where now there is no curb, gutters or sidewalks. We will be putting in curbs, gutters and sidewalks. This will make the entire area much more attractive to investors.”
Crossner said the project as it is proposed by Bridge Development is ideally suited to the property. “It is next to an airport,” she said. “You can’t have hotels or a hotel tower next to an airport. If you look at what we are doing, that is the best that can be done within the area we had to work with.”
Bridge Development had taken the public reaction to what had originally been proposed to heart, Crossner said. “What we have done is reduced the scale. We cut something that was close to one million square feet down to 200,000 square feet. We tried to be responsive to what people asked us to do. We are trying to make it as compatible as possible with the surrounding area. The largest step we have taken is complying with how people objected to the number of trucks. We heard that loud and clear. We have reduced the number of daytime trucks to only five.”
She said there would be 25 truck deliveries to the terminal daily, implying that 20 of those deliveries will come during the night or in the dark of early morning.  “We made a huge reduction during daytime operations,” she said.
The primary activity at the facility, Crossner said, will consist of the loading and departure of delivery vans. Though she did not give a precise number of vans, based upon information in the mitigated negative declaration and the context of her comments, roughly 650 to 700 vans will function out of the facility on a daily basis.
“We will have 25 product delivery trucks [eighteen wheelers] come into and unload right into the building, with most of that occurring overnight,” she said. “The only thing that will happen during the day is vans will take the goods and deliver them to people who are already getting home deliveries. We are not going to create any new demand by our presence, but we will be better able to serve those purchasing on-line, who will now be getting their packages quicker. The larger trucks will bring the projects in and the smaller vans will bring it to peoples’ doors. The Upland operation will make the company more nimble, more flexible. Many of those served will be Upland residents, but not exclusively.”
Though Crossner did not identify the company, her description seemed to be a further confirmation that the company that will operate from the distribution center will be Amazon.
The impact on the city’s streets and traffic circulation will be minimal, Crossner insisted.
“At peak hours, there will be 50 van trips onto Benson, which is only about two percent of the traffic on Benson at that time,” she said. “On Baseline Road there will be roughly 20 trips during peak hours, which is less than one percent. That is a pretty small addition to traffic that is there right now.”
Upland, Crossner said, would derive the benefit of being host to a major outlet for “a Fortune 10 company, which in and of itself will make the city so much more attractive to investment. This will spur the development of other establishments which will come in to service the employees. There will be more and newer building. This will be a huge catalyst.”
Last night, Thursday January 9, the Upland City Council, the Upland Planning Commission and the Upland Airport Land Use Committee held a joint workshop at City Hall to carry out a discussion of the draft initial study and draft mitigated negative declaration for the project. The vast majority of those who spoke indicated opposition to the project.
Mark Walters, a member of the city’s traffic and safety committee as well as of the  Upland Coalition of Concerned Citizens, said “A cost-benefit analysis shows this will cost the City of Upland way more than the benefit, and I recommend you vote no to this potential city-bankrupting project. Bridge Development states this “unknown company’s” vehicles, which include semi trucks, vans and cars, will only be using Baseline Road, Benson Avenue, Foothill Boulevard and Central Avenue to access their facility. Using my calculations, it has been determined that these four roadways are 24,051 feet long, or in other words, 4.55 miles. Using the national average, it costs $1.25 million dollars per mile to repave a roadway. To repave these designated roadways, it will cost our City of Upland $5,687,500 for just one repaving. Also using national averages on a heavily-traveled road, you can expect the need to repave these roadways every ten to fifteen years. Being a 50-year lease, and using this national average, the City of Upland will spend $22,750,000 out of Upland’s general fund to maintain these designated roadways. Please keep in mind this does not include inflationary costs, nor does it include lane striping or intersection sensors.”
Steve Bierbaum, who has a leadership role in the Upland Coalition of Concerned Citizens, said, “I absolutely believe that site should be developed. I am opposed to it being developed in this manner because I’ve seen over the past two years, quite frankly, how the city has operated, the position they have taken, the direction they have taken to ensure that this particular development moves forward. They’ve been aware of it, the illegal operations that have occurred, the deals that were made two years ago over this, subsequent deals over a year-and-a-half ago to provide easements from West End Water to Bridge Development [through the landowner] Bongiovani.”
Bierbaum said he had made “personal observations of illegal operations on Airport Drive and the Bongiovani site. I can absolutely prove by documentation, video and photographs that the city was aware of illegal operations, the importing of dirt onto that site which did not discontinue until San Bernardino County Environmental Health got involved. Yet there is an MND [mitigated negative declaration] that we’re supposed to just accept and just move on while there’s all these new projects going on on the west end of the city. Please ensure that you request an environmental impact report on this.”
Irmalinda Osuna focused on Bridge Development’s failure to identify its tenant. “Amazon has a very bad reputation,” she said. “This is why their name is not disclosed in this plan and many of the other plans you see in the Inland Empire. They pay poverty wages. They pay millions of dollars into cities to influence policy decisions. I’m concerned this would set a very dangerous precedence with this company.”
Roger Stevenson, a civil engineer said, “The building is almost a third smaller but the activity hasn’t decreased. There will be highly active loading areas on the north and south side. Those areas should be included within the overall square-footage of the building when you are figuring things like parking and employee-area-related stuff. The square-footage should really be up around 300,000 or more. A careful reading of the Upland general plan, looking at the proposed zoning for the site, says limited warehousing. On the south side of Foothill [Boulevard], it specifically says warehousing and distribution. So, the general plan is based on a distinction between warehousing and warehousing and distribution. On that basis the proposed site does not meet the general plan. Finding A [of the mitigated negative declaration] indicates that it is compatible. Well, it might be compatible but that doesn’t mean it meets the zoning requirements. The existing traffic impact analysis did not adequately represent the traffic that would result from this particular facility and that’s both total trips and, more importantly, the hourly distribution of travel to and from the facility.” Stevenson said the data used in the analysis was inaccurate “and therefore any recommended road improvements [in the mitigated negative declaration] aren’t valid.”
Moreover, Stevenson said, “The retail analysis memorandum [included in the mitigated negative declaration] has got nothing to do with anything. The site isn’t zoned that way and I think that was put in there as a diversion from doing what is needed, which is to look at the details of the project.”
Leland Marks, a 13th Street resident, decried the traffic congestion on his street. “I can’t even get out of my driveway most of the time or I get ran over,” Marks said. “I came up here to speak about the people who have to live with this traffic. It’s horrendous. With all the impact of Amazon building this facility and the impact of the traffic just from what they’re going to do, what’s this going to be like when we have this and the people who have to live here are impacted? This is not the City of Gracious Living like it used to be when you have to fight and put up with this.”
California State University at San Bernardino Economics Professor Eric Nilsson said  “I took a close look at the air quality assessment and a close look at the greenhouse gas emissions assessment, and frankly I did not like what I saw. To not mince words, the studies are so poorly done they need to be set aside as inadequate. There needs to be a full scale environmental impact study performed. There are mathematical errors in some of the tables. The tables refer to appendices that do not have material that is supposed to support the material in the tables. So, someone revised these reports and failed to actually make things synchronize. It is pretty shoddy work. As one example of questionable assumptions that are included in the air quality assessment and the greenhouse gas assessment: Built into the model that the consultants generated was the assumption that when a vehicle leaves the warehouse to deliver something, the average number of miles they go is going to be 6.9 miles. 6.9 miles for an Amazon delivery? It takes that long to get to La Verne, but then once the truck gets to La Verne, it drives around for a couple of hours delivering packages, racking up sixty miles more above the 6.9. That is just one error out of many, or one questionable assumption of many. The implication of that is the air quality assessment reports and the greenhouse gas assessment reports, what they do is they grossly underestimate the number of miles that will be driven by vehicles associated with their warehouse. By grossly underestimating the number of miles that will be driven by those vehicles, they grossly underestimate the greenhouse gas emissions and other sort of noxious fumes that will be generated by those vehicles.”
Natasha Walton said, “I think this definitely needs a biological impact report. Just looking over the biological section of the habitat assessment, people need to know what they are going to be losing. We should know what we are going to be losing biodiversity-wise. We are going to be losing the cottontails, the squirrels, the habitat there for raptors to come and forage. We’re going to be losing the plant diversity there.”
Walton, who is herself a biologist, said the study was inadequately done, as it was based on a single day of observation by a biologist in late August when many of the species of the area are dormant.
April McCormick said, “I have never called this a warehouse because it is not a warehouse. This is a logistical terminal. I assumed the planning board and the unified planning ordinances would list a terminal as well as a warehouse as a permitted use. To my surprise there is no terminal classification in Upland. The city code says it is strictly prohibited. This can’t even be approved with a special use permit or a variance.”
McCormick said surrounding cities that have Amazon facilities have not classified them as warehouses. Amazon will be moving “motor freight” from the facility, McCormick said. “What this needs to be is a terminal,” she said. “There are 1,100 delivery vans and 25 trucks. Anything over five trucks is considered a terminal. You have a fiduciary duty not to approve this because it is not permitted in the land use code.”
During a break in the proceedings, McCormick’s remarks relating to the city code not permitting a truck terminal within the city limits provoked what turned into something of an embarrassment for the city when exchanges between Upland Development Services Director Robert Dahlquest and City Attorney Steven Flower inadvertently picked up by a microphone were broadcast citywide on the video of the proceedings. That conversation revealed that neither Dahlquest nor Flower had a grip on whether or not the Bridge project fit within the city’s zoning codes.
“So, what about that warehousing definition, facilities for the storage of commercial goods?” Dahlquest can be heard asking Flower. “So, can I say that it’s within the definition of warehousing and light industrial? That’s a permitted use?”
“Is that your opinion?” Flower responds. “You obviously thought so all this time.”
“No, no, I want to know what your opinion is,” Dahlquest says.
“Like I said, it’s industrial,” Flower says.
“What should I say it is?” Dahlquest, who is supposed to be the highest land use authority in the city asks.
When Flower, whose command of the city’s development codes is limited, was not able to provide a definitive answer, Dahlquest is heard saying, “So, what I’ll say is based on staff ‘s opinion, this falls within the definition of light industrial and warehousing, and is a permitted use. Or should I not say that?”
“No, that’s fine,” Flower responds.
“Right, yeah, okay,” Dahlquest says. “That’s what I’ll say, based on staff and the city attorney, this is a permitted use and falls within the definition of light industrial and warehousing. I’ll just leave it there unless you want me to say something different.”
“Okay, perfect,” says Flower.
“Well, we’ll have to change the code to take out some of the uses, then,” Dahlquest says.
Later, when it became apparent to those segments of the public who heard the exchange and saw the fashion in which Flower and Dahlquest ad libbed a response to McCormick’s question without any consultation of the actual letter of the city’s code in an effort to uphold the preconceived deeming of the project as falling within the city’s zoning parameters, the city acted to stem the negative publicity and scrubbed that portion of the video from the recording of Thursday night’s council/commission/committee proceedings.
In her remarks, Brinda Sarathy referenced the tier-three thresholds in the greenhouse gas emission assessment contained in the report accompanying the mitigated negative declaration. “Because Upland is the lead agency on this, you actually have discretionary authority in relation to what threshold you use for greenhouse gas emissions,” Sarathy said. “I was quite surprised to see that you chose the industrial threshold for a stationary source, which is a heavy industry threshold of about 10,000 metric tons of CO2 equivalent per year, whereas if you chose the commercial/retail threshold that’s around 3,000 to 3,500 metric tons of CO2 equivalent per year. Elsewhere in the report you actually categorize the project and there’s a lot of comparisons to retail. So, I am quite surprised that the city has used a higher bar in characterizing this project as industry. I talked to the South Coast Air Quality Management District about this. They thought it was quite a fair point and strongly encouraged me to put it into the mitigated negative declaration commentary. So I ask you to please look at that and justify why you have categorized it with a higher threshold.”
With regard to the traffic and air quality studies in the mitigated negative declaration document, Sarathy said, “You use levels of service measures, and you might want to consider vehicle miles traveled. It’s a common measure used in a lot of metropolitan areas, so it is ground tested, and that might give you more accurate numbers. I am deeply concerned about traffic congestion. It’s not simply about widening roads. We’re talking about air quality, idling. What does that mean? A more localized impact. This is a singularly unique type of facility. You can’t simply compare it to a Lowe’s or a Home Depot. This is retail vs. warehouse. This is a semi-logistical hub. So it is incumbent upon you to perhaps go look at facilities such as Chino and elsewhere. There is the whole Institution of Traffic Engineers. This is a recent development in the area. They are trying to figure out how to quantify high-cube warehouse projects. There are even different categories for what high-cube warehouses qualify as, parcel, hub, etcetera. So there’s a lot there. Please, I ask for an environmental impact report.”
David Wade said, “With 1,100 vans going out and coming back, that’s 2,200 trips. We’re talking 3,300 trips, 4,400 trips. We don’t need this kind of traffic running through here. We already have two-hour delivery from Amazon. Why do we need it here to be supporting other cities when we don’t make any sales tax? It is ridiculous. Industrial zoning dos not state anywhere about having a distribution hub or a terminal facility in it, nor does the commercial zoning for Upland. Our planning commission has not been doing a proper job in updating our codes, updating our general plan. I don’t see any benefit from something that’s not zoned properly that’s going to overburden our roads. You put apartments on Central Avenue and now you want to run semis s right by them.”
Wade challenged city officials to seek to find an Amazon warehouse anywhere along Foothill Boulevard in the cities east and west of Upland. “You won’t find one,” Wade said. “It is not the proper place, to be in our commercial corridor. We need to have proper studies and we need a planning commission that’s willing to represent us. It is not about progress. It’s about the best use of that land. Is this really the best use of that land? No local tax. All these environmental issues. More traffic than I even care to try to imagine per day. It’s not a good ideal.”
Marjorie Mikels said, “We have a history here and we are going to put an Amazon distribution center right next to the T & A [adult entertainment venue] and we don’t know all of what is going to be distributed at our front door from Claremont. You’ve got a lot of people out here tonight. We need to go for an environmental impact report. They’re saying we don’t have time and we have to get this in by next August or it just won’t work.  Amazon needs to step up to the plate, and they won’t even come and sign the contracts and you’re going to try to impose on them [conditions]. Who is going to monitor this?”
Lois Sicking-Dieter said, “I have reviewed much of the initial study. I am against this proposed project going forward without an environmental impact report. I find that this report has flawed methodology, used outdated software by 20 years in some instances, indicated generalized conclusions based on an analysis and results not well-defined as to inputs to model, analysis software programs not disclosed. Most raw data output was not included as expected. In my opinion, as an environmental engineer, this initial study does not meet standard engineering best practices, which also leads me to question whether it has been peer reviewed, which is part of due diligence by city planning staff.”
Continuing, Sicking-Dieter asked, “What is the scope of the Bridges fulfillment center project? It is to go on a 50.25 acre vacant lot, which is comparable to 40 football fields.  Also, the project consists of 32 football fields of asphalt or building foundation, which is impervious to rainfall and natural recharging of the groundwater table, and eight to landscaping. There are over 1,100 delivery van parking spaces, which for Amazon is typically a Ford Transit, 20 feet long, which lined up is equal to 4.2 miles of Amazon deliver vans. Amazon has also used a UPS type van which is 36 feet long, which equates to 7.5 miles lined up. That is a lot of vehicles, not counting the 330 employee vehicles and 25 heavy duty trucks. It follows this has an emissions impact and a public health impact. However, Upland city staff signed off on this initial study without conducting a health risk assessment. This is a standard practice to conduct the calculations for how many deaths from cancer and chronic and acute health hazards.”
Sicking-Dieter entreated, “I ask you to direct staff to take the necessary actions for an environmental impact report to be conducted. Furthermore, this environmental impact report needs to be peer reviewed and that review be disclosed.”
Crossner told the Sentinel the environmental review done in conjunction with the mitigated negative declaration was both exhaustive and adequate. “There might be some confusion,” she said. “It was prepared for the city by Kimley-Horn and Associates. Kimley-Horn works with dozens of cities throughout California. The document they generated is four inches thick, double-sided. It has 1,800 pages and ten technical reports, all of the environmental analysis that would have happened in an environmental report. What is in the MND [mitigated negative declaration] is completely comprehensive. No stone was left unturned. You have in it the same technical analysis, traffic, air quality, environmental hazards, every single thing that would be in an environmental impact report. We are going beyond the 20 days this initial study and mitigated negative declaration has to be circulated to 37 days. We are providing the public with every opportunity to see it and to respond. Any questions that are asked, we will respond and update it as needed up to the last minute, every step of the way to make sure this is thorough.”
Crossner emphasized that the studies were done on behalf of the city at Bridge’s expense. She said the project’s opponents were misinterpreting that to suggest the study was skewed in favor of Bridge and the project.
“Kimley-Horn is a reputable firm,” she said. “Third parties looked at the MND. So did the city engineer and city planning. There have been many sets of eyes on the document to make sure it is accurate and thorough. We paid for Kimley-Horn’s work because we didn’t want the city to bear the costs. We paid for the traffic studies.”
Crossner added that Bridge is anxious to become a full community partner in Upland. She said Bridge Development was going to put up $5.7 million dedicated to road maintenance needs throughout the city at a rate of $370,000 annually; $400,000 to beautify, maintain and enhance four nearby parks, with $100,000 going to Cabrillo Park, $100,000 going to Citrus Park, $100,00 going to Baldy View Park and and $100,000 going to Greenbelt Park; $100,000 to each of Upland’s 14 public schools, for a total of $1.4 million; $400,000 to the Upland Police Department to address homelessness; and $50,000 to support local businesses through the Chamber’s Shop Upland initiative. This money would be paid in addition to the $2.25 million Bridge is paying in development fees, Crossner said.
While few Upland residents voiced support for the project, Cable Airport owner Bob Cable did.
Cable said he wanted to encourage the city council and the planning commission “to look at what is best for everyone in the city. They should not be swayed by social media and look at the facts and truth.”
Cable said, “Cable Airport has long had an issue with residential housing being re-zoned from commercial to residential in the City of Upland.  We have certain areas within our traffic pattern that are deemed unwise by the Caltrans Division of Airports to build residential under our flight path. Now we have a project that is appropriate for the current zoning, yet some Upland City Council members and a small group of citizens calling themselves the Upland Coalition of Concerned Citizens are being very vocal on not allowing this project to proceed.”
Cable asked, “So why is the UC3 against this project? That’s a good question, as they really don’t want anything to go in. Unfortunately the small group of individuals are not the ones that will be impacted by any development that goes in. The businesses around it are the only ones that may see a slight increase in traffic, if any at all. Cable Airport will be the most impacted as one of the access roads is the only public entrance to Cable Airport. This can easily be controlled by assurances in a conditional use permit.”
Whereas others are critical of Amazon coming to Upland, Cable said the arrival of the company, one of the largest in the world, will be a boon.
“The word ‘Amazon’ is floating around as a possible tenant for this 201,000 square foot project,” Cable said. “As a result, it seems that the ‘pot of gold’ has arrived for Upland.  None of the Upland Coalition of Concerned Citizens or city council members live next to the project. It’s a shame they don’t. I’m sure they would love all the dust currently produced by the current recycling operation, the vagrants walking down the street leaving trash as they enter the vacant field, the fires that have been started and of course none of their family members or clients have been attacked by any of the ‘vacant field dwellers’ either. Unfortunately Cable Airport has….and if enough demands are made by the City of Upland, the leprechauns that put that pot of gold there may just grab it and run, leaving the land in the state that it is, bad for Upland and bad for businesses that are neighbors.”
Cable said the city was faced with “the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. The Good: The project is currently within the guidelines of the zoning for the area. It will produce over 300 jobs. There will be over 1,000 trees planted. That may be more than all parks combined in the city. There will be over $10,000,000 in fees and guarantees to the City of Upland, Upland schools and the Chamber of Commerce. The Bad: The project is denied, nothing goes in and the businesses in the area get to continue to live with the problems of fires, vagrants and dust. The Ugly: The project is denied, the property owners sue the City of Upland for denying the project without cause, the developers sue the City of Upland for denying the project with cause and the City of Upland is yet again involved in a multi-million dollar lawsuit.”
-Mark Gutglueck