Rejection of Inland Empire warehouse project signals a retreat from California’s decadeslong boom

The residents of an embattled Riverside neighborhood gathered Monday night for a meeting that had implications for their lives, the future of their community and, in a real sense, for the state of democracy.

The meeting was held at a Riverside County building, in a room that can host some 300 people. It was full. An overflow room had space for over 100 more. It was full. A cafe in the building had a few more seats. Those filled up, too. Some people stood along the edges.

The reason, as it so often has been in the Inland Empire in recent years, was warehouses — specifically a proposal to build an industrial and warehouse complex on the edge of the old March Air Force Base.

But the result on this night was different, breaking with decades of political and economic inertia and cementing a genuine sea change that formally emerged last year. After Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill in September reining in warehouse development statewide, San Bernardino County Superior Court overturned an approval for a gigantic project in Bloomington a few weeks later.

Then came Monday’s hearing. A developer, Meridian Park West, had proposed a 3 million-square-foot warehouse space as part of what planners called the West Campus Upper Plateau project, an 818-acre swath of land west of the decommissioned base and surrounded mostly by homes, a church and ballfields. 

The prospect of warehouses on that land infuriated the neighbors, who already navigate the trucks and traffic that come with the Inland Empire’s self-created place in international commerce, a waystation between the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports and the American interior. The warehouse boom in recent decades has brought jobs but also disruption to Riverside and San Bernardino counties, and this project crystallized what has become a difficult choice for many communities: The jobs are tempting, but the price is safety and public health.

In community after community, that debate resolved in favor of jobs. In 1980, there were 234 warehouses spread across this region. Now there are more than 4,000. They cover nearly 40 square miles of land. 

That rampage was virtually uncontested in the early years. But concentration has multiplied the environmental and community impact of these projects. It also focused public attention. Proposals that once sailed through now are encountering more determined opposition. That was starkly on display this week as the March Joint Powers Commission met to discuss, one more time, the ever-evolving proposed project.

The developer this time came with some concessions and window dressing. Recast as the March Innovation Hub, the warehouse pitch was accompanied by a promise to create a center of research and “innovation,” backed by a $4 million endowment. The project footprint had been reduced, highlighted by the new center, which, in theory, would act as a place to explore advances in biotechnology, aviation and transportation, according to the authority’s staff. 

The authority’s staff also recommended the commissioners, made up of various Riverside County politicians, approve the modified project. Their constituents were having none of it. 

Authority officials and the developer made their pitches, leaning heavily on the prospect of new construction jobs and an estimated 3,100 permanent jobs once the complex was built and operating. Hundreds of residents who had assembled for the evening stirred uneasily during those presentations, occasionally interrupting with jeers

When a public opinion researcher hired by the developer reported that the community was evenly divided about the project, “What a lie!” one resident called out. 

Speaker after speaker rose to address the commission. Those in support came almost exclusively from organized labor, in particular building and trade unions. Carpenters, pipe fitters and others spoke up for the jobs that would be created in the construction of the complex.

Unanimous vote

The evening was dominated, however, by opponents. One after another, they ticked off their reasons for wanting the project stopped:

It would bring thousands of truck trips through residential communities. These residents were not buying the staff’s assertion that trucks would be restricted to certain roads — these communities already are overrun by truck traffic, so they’re not easily fooled by assurances.

It would provide jobs, yes, but most of them seemed ill-suited to this area. Warehouse employment is often minimum wage or just above it, and rents in Riverside and surrounding communities are high. One speaker noted that a full-time employee of one of these new warehouses might take home $2,800 a month — income, to be sure, but hard to stretch in an area where rents average $2,000 a month. Workers, then, would have to live in cheaper areas and commute, meaning more traffic.

It would contribute to the region’s stultifying air pollution and health problems that flow from it. Parents told of their asthmatic children struggling to breathe; residents spoke of loved ones moving away in search of healthier places. One doctor responded to the claim that “there’s no such thing as a bad job” by retorting: “There’s no such thing as a good cancer.”

It would demolish the character of the communities around it. These are neighborhoods of private homes. A large church that runs a school and sports programs sits to the south of the project area. What about those residents and parishioners and their priorities, the speakers asked?

It would, to opponents, represent a triumph of money and influence over popular will. “You are our elected officials,” one speaker noted. “Your responsibility is to represent us, not a wealthy developer who does not even live in the county.” Cheers erupted. And others made the same point, to the same applause. “We deserve,” one speaker pointedly noted, “to be protected by the leaders we elected.”

As the night ground on, the developer’s representatives seemed to feel the momentum swinging against them. When it came time to vote, some commissioners entertained the prospect of a compromise: They would approve the project but insert language that specifically prohibited the developer from using any of the land zoned as “industrial” for logistics, the planning word for warehouses.

Desperate for a win, the developer agreed to that condition. That alone offered powerful evidence of how far this debate has shifted. In order to salvage a commercial, industrial project here in the land of warehouses, the developer was willing to jettison the warehouses themselves.

Read More: California’s warehouse boom forced one Inland Empire town to embrace a future that risks its past

And yet, even that was not enough. Opponents, sensing the possibility of a broader victory, objected. They pressed for a straight up vote on the overall project.

There were a few last gasps. Riverside City Councilmember Chuck Conder sputtered a bit in frustration, defending the region’s air quality and arguing that the project would make traffic “better, not worse.” He stared down disbelieving members of the audience and demanded that residents who opposed this project come back with ideas of their own. 

“Something’s going to be built,” he noted. “Tell us what you want.”

But that felt like the death rattle of an old idea, and the matter plowed ahead to a vote. The commission’s clerk called the roll, and the project died. The vote was unanimous.

Jennifer Larratt-Smith has been one of the leaders of the campaign to kill the warehouses, which she has been fighting for years, often just grateful for a delay. She was among the speakers Monday night, and as she left the meeting room, she beamed, absorbing the congratulations of her neighbors and others. 

She noted that public sentiment against warehouses is shifting. And she noted, with relief, that democracy, as exemplified by the hundreds who petitioned their leaders for help, sometimes prevails.

“Every once in a while,” she said, exhausted and elated. “Every once in a great while.”