Redlands moves closer to a permanent ban on new warehouses

By DAVID JAMES HEISS
Redlands News Collective

The Redlands City Council has directed its staff to draft an ordinance banning new warehouses citywide, expanding on its moratorium enacted in summer of 2022, following its Nov. 18 meeting.
Prior to the decision, warehouses and large logistics centers had been permitted within industrially zoned areas.
Dick Corneille, president of ANCA (Accelerate Neighborhood Climate Action) Redlands, joined most of those who addressed the council during an open comment period on the matter to encourage the council to 
Corneille to adhere to the city’s climate action plan approved in July and strive to meet the city’s goal of limiting emissions to one metric ton equivalent per capita, and urged council to “adopt a ban on all future warehouses and the expansion of existing warehouses. This will be a show by your action that you are serious about meeting the goals of the climate action plan, and provide a cleaner, safer and healthier environment in the city,” by reducing additional trucking traffic.
Resident Andy Holder noted that the remaining areas of available agricultural land that could support a new warehouse could “potentially create more jobs,” despite at least one warehouse that was noted for sitting empty and not generating employment. “In the decision you make, try to be realistic: if not warehouses, then what?” 
Holder suggested that maybe someday in the future, rather than warehouses being serviced by diesel trucks, they would be replaced by electric trucks that might have fewer emissions, and encouraged the city to at least consider avoiding “the all-or-nothing-at-all sort of hardline approach, that it’s all bad or all good” mentality in the council’s decision.
Resident Bruce Laycook told the council that the issue at hand was not so much about warehouses specifically, rather, the lack of space that remains for affordable and inclusionary housing that gets displaced when the city allows for additional warehouses to be built.
Allowing for warehouses prevents the city from fulfilling its inclusionary housing ordinance, Laycook said.
Councilwoman Denise Davis supported “doing everything in our power to adhere to our climate action.” The council’s blessing “sends an important message to the residents of our community who have not been heard on this issue for many, many years — and to the region—we really need to be a leader and do a warehouse ban.”
Davis made a motion to have the city draft an ordinance that would allow existing warehouses to remain and rebuild to their current specifications if they suffered physical damage; prohibit new warehouses from being constructed citywide; prohibit the assemblage of land parcels that contain existing industrial or warehouse buildings for the purpose of building new warehouses.
Her motion, seconded by Councilman Paul Barich, passed unanimously, 5-0.

Photo by Brian Spears

A warehouse at the corner of Lugonia Avenue and California Street in Redlands.