A lawsuit brought by a coalition of four environmental groups challenging San Bernardino County’s 2022 approval of a warehouse/logistics center complex in Bloomington has forced at least a temporary suspension of the project, which came after more than 100 of the 117 homes located on the property have been razed.
On November 15, 2022, the San Bernardino County board of Supervisors approved Howard Industrial Partners’ proposal to construct the 213-acre Bloomington Business Park entailing a 1.25 million square-foot warehouse, one 479,000-square-foot warehouse and one 383,000-square-foot warehouse. The “warehouses” were planned to include internal space used for warehousing, distribution and manufacturing. Other structures are to be utilized for d office space, according to Howard Industrial Partners. Later phases of construction would potentially bring the total combined area of construction to 3,235,836 square feet under roof.
The project area was situated on both sides of Locust Avenue between Santa ana Avenue on the north and Jurupa Avenue to the south, with Maple Avenue and Linden Avenue forming the property’s east border and extending to Alder Avenue on the west.
The property, which historically had consisted of agricultural uses and included 141.4 acres previously zoned for low-density and very low-density single-family housing, lies within an area that is semi-rural, with many of the large lots in the area having been converted outright illegal, semi-legal and semi-legitimate trucking related uses, some of which were resented but still tolerated their residential neighbors.
Initially, what was listed as 265 housing units of varying descriptions were situated upon the area to be converted to the business park. Subsequently it was stated that those 265 units were contained within 117 succinct, stand-alone structures.
While the project was supported by Howard Industrial Partners and its owner, Tim Howard, the project consultants and the Laborers’ International Union of North America, representing construction workers, the project had multiple opponents and detractors, including the Colton Joint Unified School District, Concerned Neighbors of Bloomington, the People’s Collective for Environmental Justice, the Center for Biological Diversity, the Sierra Club and the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice, along with scores of local residents as well as Assemblywoman Eloise Gomez Reyes and State Senator Connie Leyva, who in a letter to the county stated, “Benefits from [the project] pale in comparison to its numerous environmental, economic and social impacts.” Bloomington’s residents, Gomez Reyes and Leyva said, “should not have to sacrifice their air quality for the promise of jobs.”
The county put together a draft environmental impact report for the project that was released on September 23, 2021 and a final environmental impact report on October 29, 2022, two weeks before the county’s scheduled hearing on the project. While the county in the environmental impact report stated that the project’s impact on air quality was “significant and unavoidable,” ultimately the county board of supervisors came to a conclusion that the upside of the project outran the downside of the project. The board entered a finding of “overriding considerations” in which the project’s eventual provision of the more than 2,000 jobs, the $10.7 million in one-time fees to be generated by the project, roughly $20 million worth of infrastructure and off-site improvements to accompany the development, some $8 million in tax revenue per year, and the company paying for a sheriff’s deputy and an office for him to work out of in Bloomington offset the negative aspects of the project.
The site for the Bloomington Business Park is immediately adjacent to/no more than 80 feet from the Colton Joint Unified School District’s Zimmerman Elementary. Howard Industrial Partners closed a deal with the district in which it traded a piece of ground nearby to the district in exchange for the school campus and agreed to defray the $44.5 million needed to construct a replacement school.
A feature of the proposal was that Howard Industrial Partners was to make up for knocking down the 117 residential structures where as many as 250 families lived on the property that was to accommodate the project by purchasing a 71.6-acre site not too distant from the land in question which was previously zoned for 52 single family homes. Instead of building those single homes on 1.37 -acre lots, Howard Industrial Partners would obtain “upzoning” for the property from the county and build 480 apartments or 480 condominiums or a combination of both, where the displaced families would be able to move to. While the county and Howard Industrial Partners represented this as a step forward for the area, others saw it as a step backward, as it intensified the use of the property through the upzoning.
At the November 15, 2022 hearing the county board of supervisors gave go-ahead to the Bloomington Business Park project.
In reaction, the People’s Collective for Environmental Justice, the Center for Biological Diversity, the Sierra Club and the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice sued the county, alleging the county board of supervisors had abused its discretion in certifying the environmental impact report and giving approval to the project, violating the California Environmental Quality Act and state housing law.
In the meantime, some of the residents on the property slated for the project’s development departed. Others have remained, anticipating an outcome of the litigation that would prevent the project from proceeding and keep their homes intact. Based on the exodus from those residential properties, Howard Industrial Properties demolished the homes. At last count, at least 92 of the houses had been leveled.
In that way, the ruling handed down on September 18 by San Bernardino County Superior Court Judge Donald Alvarez was bit late.
While Judge Alvarez did not interfere with the county exercising its discretion with regard to those areas where there were factual disputes or disputes as to standards where both the proponent and the complainants had differences and had marshaled evidence, facts or documents to support their contradictory claims and did not overturn the county’s approval of the project on that score, he Alvarez ruled that the county’s review of the project, including its environmental analysis, did not in all respects comply with the standards of the California Environmental Quality Act and he issued an order that construction at the site cease while the county revisits the environmental review process and files a revamped environmental impact report that takes into consideration six of the factors relating to the project that were inadequately dealt with or glossed over in 2022.
According to Judge Alvarez, the county and the board of supervisors did not adequately examine project alternatives and made inadequate evaluation of traffic impacts, air quality impacts and noise impacts arising from or potentially arising from the project.
Judge Alvarez made a finding that the county abused its discretion in approving the environmental impact report. In failing to a reasonable range of alternatives for building a warehouse on the property, Judge Alvarez determined the county, while acknowledging there were significant and unavoidable impacts on air quality from the project, did not provide enough information about what those impacts consisted of. The county further, Judge Alvarez ruled, failed to properly support its conclusion that air quality impact mitigation measure for the project, because of their cost, were infeasible. Judge Alvarez found that the county’s conclusions with regard to excessive greenhouse gas generation at the project were contradictory. Judge Alvarez also entered a determination that the county failed to abide by the California Environmental Quality Act by not analyzing renewable energy options and by using an inappropriate noise level threshold for the project in its analysis.
“We at the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice are happy, relieved, and inspired by the court’s decision,” said Ana Gonzalez, executive director at the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice. “This ruling not only underscores the legal oversights of the county and developers but also validates the community’s relentless advocacy against this destructive plan. Our fight continues, and this victory fuels our commitment to protecting our neighborhoods and ensuring a healthy environment for all residents. We thank our attorneys at EarthJustice for their incredible work and resilience.”
-Mark Gutglueck