Rialto Latest City To Declare A Warehouse Approval Moratorium

As was done by the city councils in Colton, Chino and Redlands in recent years, the Rialto City Council on Tuesday, January 28 suspended logistics facility construction in its 24.09-square mile, 104,030-population city with the imposition of a 45-day moratorium on new warehouses.
If myriad issues relating to the impacts and implication of the facilities can be worked out within the next six to seven weeks, the halt in the consideration of new warehouse projects will come to an end on the Ides of March. If those areas of concern are not resolved to the satisfaction of a majority of the council’s five members, the panel will be able to renew the ban for as much as another year, provided four of its members are resolved to keep such projects, which have been prodigiously proliferating throughout the Inland Empire for upwards of a decade, in check for that long.
A major issue at play in Rialto at this point pertains to zoning for the facilities. In Rialto, which was incorporated as a city in 1911 and was referred to by the name Realito in Raymond Chandler’s 1939 novel The Big Sleep, has been marred over the last century by a hodge-podge approach to development and construction. In many cases, industrial buildings are not too distant from homes and schools. That tradition has continued, particularly as warehouse development throughout San Bernardino County and the Inland Empire has intensified in recent years.
There is more than 934 million square feet of warehousing in San Bernardino and Riverside counties at present, with more being built. That includes 3,034 warehouses in San Bernardino County. In Ontario alone, there are 289 warehouses larger than 100,000 square feet. Reportedly, there are 142 warehouses in Fontana larger than 100,000 square feet. In Chino there are 118 warehouses larger than 100,000 square feet; 109 larger than 100,000 square feet in Rancho Cucamonga; and 75 larger than 100,000 square feet in San Bernardino. Since 2015, 26 warehouse project applications have been processed and approved by the City of San Bernardino, entailing acreage under roof of 9,598,255 square feet, or more than one-third of a square mile, translating into 220.34 acres. After Ontario, Fontana, Chino, Rancho Cucamonga and San Bernardino, the city in San Bernardino County with the next largest number of warehouses of more than 100,000 square feet is Redlands, with 56, followed by Rialto with 47.
Fontana has been so aggressive in building warehouses over the last dozen years that the city’s mayor, Acquanetta Warren, is known by those who both oppose and favor warehouse development as “Warehouse Warren.” In 2021, California Attorney General Rob Bonta sued Fontana over its affinity for warehouses, forcing the city into a settlement that calls for far greater regulation of the construction of logistics facilities in the city of 215,465.
Increasingly, some elected officials, local residents and futurists are questioning whether warehouses constitute the highest and best use of the property available for development in the region. The glut of logistics facilities in the Inland Empire has some thinking their numbers are out of balance. In refuting the assertions of the proponents of warehouses that they constitute positive economic development, their detractors cite the relatively poor pay and benefits provided to those who work in distribution facilities, the large diesel-powered semi-trucks that are part of those operations with their unhealthy exhaust emissions, together with the bane of traffic gridlock they create.
In 2021 and 2022, the cities of Colton, Chino and Redlands each imposed a temporary moratorium on the further construction of warehouses in their jurisdictions and the San Bernardino City Council by a five-sevenths majority very nearly did the same in June 2021. That effort to declare a moratorium on further warehouse construction within the county’s largest city failed because the five-sevenths margin of passage was less than the four-fifths vote of a governmental entity’s legislative body that is required under California law.
In Rialto this week, adequate sentiment to impose a moratorium manifested. Mayor Joe Baca Sr, Councilman Ed Scott, Councilwoman Karla Perez and Councilman Edward Montoya Jr supported the ban, which does not apply to projects already approved by the city but relates to any processing or consideration of applications made or yet to be submitted.
Councilman Andy Carrizales voted against the short-term ban without explaining his rationale for opposing it.
Carrizales was heavily supported in his successful bid for reelection in the 2024 election by elements of the building industry, including those with interests in warehouse projects or potential warehouse projects. Those donors include GR Advisors Group, which gave him $5,500; Michael Tyre of Howard Industrial Partners, who gave him $5,500; the San Bernardino County Business Owners Political Action Committee, which gave him $2,500; the Building Industry Association of Southern California, which provided him with $2,500; and the National Association of Industrial and Office Properties, which boosted his electoral effort with another $2,500. Citizens and Friends of Acquanetta Warren also provided him with $300.
Sixteen people who either stand to make money through warehouse development or who are associated with them showed up at the January 28 meeting and sought to dissuade the council from enacting the moratorium.
Amy Smith said warehouse construction projects bring “jobs and income.”
Jayson Baiz, a unionized worker involved in the construction industry, said the moratorium would be tantamount to “cutting off the lifelines” to his four children. He said, “We depend on these jobs for all these people who depend on us.”
Brenda Parker countered that allowing warehouses to be built in residential neighborhoods would have an “impact on our homes, our parks and our children.” Warehouses have already contributed to the deterioration in the quality of life in Rialto, she said.
“Take a step back and… really consider the damage that you have already done,” Parker said, referencing warehouse projects that have been approved and constructed in and next to residential neighborhoods.
Councilman Ed Scott spoke for the council majority when he referenced a warehouse on Locust Avenue that encroaches on a row of adjacent houses. Of the warehouse, Scott said, “People had no idea how intrusive it would be until it was too late. It blocks airflow, ruins backyards and is just not how anyone should have to live. We have an obligation to our residents to make sure that [if] they live in the same house that they bought, [that they will not] 15 years later have to walk out the back door and look at that,” he said, displaying a photo of the towering warehouse on Locust Avenue.

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