For years, warehouses have proliferated in the Inland Empire.But as the logistics industry spreads east along Interstate 10, some are hoping to draw the line —specificallythe line of Highland Springs Avenue, which serves as the western boundary for the city of Banning.
A new set of bright blue billboards along I-10 near that boundary line show an image of a red stop sign, reading“Stop the Banning Warehouse! No more truck traffic, pollution and noise.”
The development in question is a proposed 619,959-square-feet industrial warehouse just south of I-10 and northofSun Lakes, a community for people ages 55 and over.
That project is just one example of recent interest from developers in building warehouses and fulfillment centers along the San Gorgonio Pass— and in the Coachella Valley — as the growing e-commerce industry looks for space outside of the warehouse-saturated Inland Empire.
Beyond the Inland Empire
Amazon made its first foray into the Coachella Valleyin 2021 with a last-mile delivery facility in Cathedral City, which serves as the final local stop for products purchased through the e-commerce giant.Each day, products are brought on seven semi-trucks into a former Sam’s Club building on Date Palm Drivefor transfer into a fleet of about 60 delivery vans that bring products to customers throughout the Coachella Valley.
The Desert Hot Springs City Council approved zoning changes for its industrial zone on Jan. 18 to allow taller buildings, following the Palm Springs City Council, whichunanimously approved zoning changes for thearea near the I-10 and North Indian Canyonon Jan. 13to make it easier for developers to build large logistics facilities there. Officials in both cities cited the potential boom in tax revenue.
While Palm Springs already has inquiries, environmentalists worried about the potential impacts to air quality and desert resources have exerted their influence against this sort of expansion before.
A 2021proposal for the Eastern Empire Fulfillment Center near Whitewater would have brought a 1.4 million-square-foot distribution warehouse to a 148-acre site south of Interstate 10 along Tipton Road.
Local environmental groups pushed back, and developer Transwestern Development Company withdrew its application just a few hours before a review at the Feb. 24Palm Springs Planning Commission meeting. To the city’s knowledge, Transwestern will no longer be pursuing development in that location, according to Palm Springs Director of Planning Services Flinn Fagg.
The changes come as demand surges for warehouse space continues along with growth of the e-commerce industry. Commercial real estate firm CBRE estimates that the U.S will need 330 million square feet of additional distribution space by 2025just to meet the projected increase in online ordering during the next few years. This doesn’t account for potential demand from other industries that use warehouses, such as grocery companies.
“The Inland Empire is the logistics hub for the West Coast, but we’re starting to see the logistics industry creep out into other areas with just the sheer volume of warehousing space the industry needs,"said Faraz Rizvi, special projects coordinator for the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice.
But some of the most-impacted communities now say enough is enough.
“The primary reason for the Inland Empire was just because there was a lot of available land here that had yet to be developed… And it was located close to where a lot of the shipping corridors pass through the consumer market, so it was a prime location for the industry," he said."But in the past decade we’ve seen the proliferation of the industry and there’s been a lot of community pushback.”
That has prompted some Inland Empire communities to put limits on further warehouse development.Riverside placed a 45-day moratorium on new warehouses in its Northside community in March 2020, and added higher standards for warehouses once the moratorium was lifted. Colton and Chino also passed 45-day moratoriums on new warehouses last year, with Colton later extending the moratorium for an additional 10 months.
Warehouses have boomed in the Inland Empire
Increased truck traffic and air pollution are common arguments against further spread of warehouses.Warehouses draw heavy-duty diesel trucks and other sources of emissions, like cargo handling equipment, that contribute to local pollution.
According to the South Coast Air Quality Management District, sources associated with warehousesare responsible for nitrogen oxide emissions comparable to all of the refineries, power plants, and other stationary pollution sources in the South Coast Air Basin combined.San Bernardino County and Riverside County rank first and second, respectively, on the American Lung Association’s list of “most polluted places to live” for ozone and particle pollution.
University of Redlands students in Professor Daniel Klooster’s environmental justice courses worked with the People’s Collective for Environmental Justicelast year to map and analyze the 3,321 warehouses above 100,000 square feet in the South Coast Air Quality Management District, which covers large areas of Los Angeles County, Orange County, Riverside County and San Bernardino County.
Ontario has the highest concentration of large warehouses, with 289 warehouses larger than 100,000 square feet, followed by the City of Industry with 197, Los Angeles with 168, and Fontana with 140. Chino has 117, Rancho Cucamonga, 107, Riverside, 94, and San Bernardino, 76.
In the Coachella Valley, Coachella had three large warehouses, while Desert Hot Springs and Palm Springs had one each.
The report found that warehouses are disproportionately located in lower-income communities of color, and as the distances between warehouses and residential neighborhoods decrease,rates of asthma, cardiovascular problems,and housing inequality increases.
"These are things that we've been hearing for years from personal stories from community members, this shows the quantitative side. None of it was surprising, warehouses are put in the most heavily polluted communities that are disadvantaged, right in the backyards and near schools in communities of color, in areas that already have the worst air quality," said Alicia Aguayo,communications manager for the People's Collective for Environmental Justice.
Klooster said trends shown in the report suggested that future warehouses also would likely be built in lower-income communities of color.
"When you start seeing warehouse locations around Palm Springs, you're not going to see them in the southern and central areas of Palm Springs where the demographics are more likely to include people who have the political ability to resist something that's going to bring in lots of trucks and affect their air quality," he said.
The report also found “a huge disconnect on warehouse locations to e-commerce sales, meaning the communities who order the least online experience the direct pollution and health impacts of the industry by living close or right next to large facilities.”
Economic benefits vs. environmental impacts
In Palm Springs, city staff and councilmembers said the area near North Indian Canyon and I-10 makes the most sense for warehouse and fulfillment center development because it is near the freeway and away from residential areas. That area comprises the city’s Manufacturing and Energy Industrial zoning districts, which neighbor each other and generally cover the area extending west from North Indian Canyon Drive and north from the railroad tracks.
The zoning changes approved by the Palm Springs City Council included increasing the maximum building height from 40 feet to 95 feet to better accommodate large fulfillment centers, as long as buildings 30 feet and over are on at least 1 acre and buildings 60 feet and over are on at least 5 acres.
At a prior Planning Commission meeting on the zoning changes, some commissioners expressed concerns over the potential environmental impacts of large warehouses and fulfillment centers, including air quality issues, impacts to habitat, and visual impacts to the desert landscape.
“I don’t think it’s appropriate for Palm Springs and for the quality of life and the reasons we all choose to live here," Commissioner Lauri Aylaian said at that November meeting. "When I look at some of the cities, whether it’s Colton or Moreno Valley or Fontana, none of these are cities that I would choose to live in or that I would want to model Palm Springs after. The size is completely out of context with the desert natural resources and what we have here.”
But the fulfillment centers would bring economic benefits, and City Manger Justin Clifton said the addition of the kind of large fulfillment center that the zoning changes would make possible would be “a game-changer” for the city that could allow it to double its sales tax revenue.
“We’ve seen some parallel examples where annual tax collections for the standard 1% tax is as much as $40 million annually, and we would estimate conservatively $20 (million)to $40 million to be cautious at the outset not knowing the scope and scale, which would really depend on the applicant, but the revenue can be significant,” Clifton said.
Desert Hot Springs similarly changed the maximum building height in its industrial zone on Jan. 18, raising the maximum height from two stories and 50 feet to five stories and 120 feet.
"If we really, truly want to attract businesses here other than cannabis to diversify our economy and expand our tax base, anything that would resemble a distribution warehouse, they're going to need that height," Councilmember Gary Gardner said.
Noting that developers are beginning to think "it makes sense to put a distribution warehouse out here," Gardner continued, "I for one would like to capture that business in our industrial area."
Recognizing that the need for warehouses will continue as long as people keep shopping online, localenvironmental groups like the Sierra Club's Tahquitz Group and Oswit Land Trust are focused on mitigation efforts, such as siting warehouses away from conservation areas and requiring zero-emission technology.
In Cathedral City, Economic Development Director Stone James said the new last-mile facility has created jobs and helps to diversify the valley’s tourism-driven economy.
“We now have 152 jobs that pay the minimum wage or more, that offer 401ks, they offer medical benefits, and what I’m most proud of is they offer 100% tuition reimbursement. So if you went to work there, and even if you were making $15 or $17 an hour, not only do you get benefits and get your 401k, but if you wanted to go to school, they would pay for it… Those jobs could mean a world of difference for 152 people in our community,” said James.
As for the potential impacts on air quality or other environmental issues, James emphasized that Amazon was already delivering packages to Cathedral City and other parts of the Coachella Valley, but that previously the delivery vans were driving from the closest last-mile facility in Riverside.
“People are ordering from Amazon already, and the trucks are in our cities already… For the naysayers, the people who didn’t want it here, my thought was, ‘So you would prefer that they drive in from Riverside every day to deliver your package, you just don’t want them to drive from within Cathedral City to another spot in the city to deliver your package… That just doesn’t make good sense,” James said.
James also said he did the math for how many vehicle trips would be clocked to and from the last-mile facility if it was still a Sam’s Club, which occupied the building previously, and found that the number of cars driving to the store each day would number over a thousand, in addition to the semi-trucks still needed to supply the store. And as online shopping continues to grow in popularity, James questioned whether Amazon and other retailers might actually be reducing the total number of vehicle trips from shopping in-person.
“Is it better for me to make multiple trips in order to get stuff, like go to Costco, go to Home Depot, go to Lowe's, maybe drive to Los Angeles, or better to just order and have one truck come out here and deliver it for not just me, but an entire neighborhood?” James asked.
Banning city staff also touted the potential economic benefits while considering a warehouse near Sun Lakes. A city staff report noted that “significant impacts to the environment will occur yet are outweighed by the substantial economic benefit potential of the Project… the Project will create significant job opportunities, increase both property and sales tax revenue, and continue to diversify the City’s land use potential.”
Residents of Sun Lakes and other neighboring communities formed the Pass Area Action Group to oppose the project, and appealed the Planning Commission’s December approval, sending the project to the Banning City Council.
The Pass Action Group also fundraised to pay for the “Stop the Banning Warehouse” billboards along the I-10 freeway.
“Our contention is the traffic on Highland Springs Avenue would be ridiculous… and the environmental impacts from the diesel trucks, the NOx fumes and particulate matter are bad, as well as concern over light and noise pollution,” said Randy Robbins, president of the Pass Area Action Group.
Last year, the city made changes to the Sun Lakes Specific Plan to better accommodate warehouse development on the 47-acre property where Banning Point is proposed. The area was previously designated as retail commercial, but had remained undeveloped for over 30 years due to “overly restrictive zoning, failed real estate transactions, and community opposition,” according to a staff report. The city changed the land use designation of about 30 acres of the site to “Business and Warehouse District” to “take advantage of current economic trends,” according to the report.
“We have people that have lived here 20 and even 30 years, and myself who bought three and a half years ago, who saw that area was zoned for retail commercial but not for an industrial warehouse. So that might have been a factor if that was zoned for a warehouse at the time, we might have made a different decision on whether to move here,” said Robbins, who moved to Sun Lakes in early 2020 when he retired.
On the other side of the city, along Banning's eastern boundary, construction has also begun on the 1-million-square-foot Banning DistributionCenter, located just south of I-10 near the Banning Airport.
'A fact of life'
If the Inland Empire’s warehouse industry expands into the Coachella Valley, environmental advocates say the most important way to avoid reduced air quality is by requiring companies to use zero-emission vehicles.
Joan Taylor, chair of the local Tahquitz Group chapter of the Sierra Club, said Sierra Club is advocating for mitigation measures like requiring warehouse rooftops to be solar-ready, and requiring a certain amount of solar power, as well as using electric vehicles.
A recent ruling from the South Coast Air Quality Management District could help reduce warehouses’ potential impacts on air quality. In May, the South Coast AQMD adopted the Warehouse Indirect Source Rule, which requires warehouses greater than 100,000 square feet to directly reduce nitrogen oxide and diesel particulate matter emissions, or to otherwise facilitate remission and exposure reductions of those pollutants in nearby communities.
The warehouse rule uses a menu-based points system, allowing warehouse operators to choose from a list of actions annually to earn a required number of points. Mitigation measures include using near-zero emission or zero-emission trucks, zero-emission cargo handling equipment, and installing solar panels, among other options, according to Ian MacMillan, Assistant Deputy Executive Officer in South Coast AQMD’s Planning and Rules office.
Warehouse operators also could reduce exposure levels for nearby communities through efforts like purchasing high-efficiency particulate air filters for schools.Warehouse operators can also pay a mitigation fee to South Coast AQMD, which would use the funds to incentivize the purchase of cleaner equipment and zero-emission infrastructure in communities around the warehouse that paid the fee, according to MacMillan.
Warehouses will phase-in to the program over the next three years, starting with the largest warehouses that are bigger than 250,000 square feet this year. South Coast AQMD estimates the rule will reduce smog-forming emissions by 10% to 15% from warehouse sources.
In addition to zero-emission vehicles, Rizvisaid he also wants to see more community benefit agreements for future warehouses, which involve the warehouse developer agreeing to a certain benefit for the community, such as paying for sidewalk or road improvements or prioritizing local hires.
Taylor and Jane Garrison, president of Oswit Land Trust, say they want to make sure future warehouse development in the Coachella Valley is outside of important habitat areas —both groups opposed the Eastern Empire Fulfillment Center due to its proximity to the Whitewater Conservation Area.
"Like most conservation organizations, we are not a fan of these massive warehouses and fulfillment centers but we also recognize they are necessary," said Garrison.
"These fulfillment centers are very harsh on the environment so it would make sense for the city to put some of the income they will generate into helping the environment in other areas, such as preserving bighorn sheep habitat or acquiring critical habitat for wildlife corridors," she continued.
Taylor said she also wanted to avoid seeing warehouses placed right next to residential areas, and noted that "even with the highest standards, there's going to be huge amounts of traffic and idling of diesel equipment and so forth."
“I think warehousing is just starting to hit the desert and Sierra Club will be watching and trying to ensure they’re sited properly and mitigated properly,” said Taylor.
But she also acknowledged that as long as people keep shopping online, warehouses will need to be built somewhere.
“To a certain extent, they’re a fact of life,” she said.
Erin Rode coversthe environment for the Desert Sun. Reach her at erin.rode@desertsun.com or on Twitter at @RodeErin.