Get the latest news delivered daily!
Get the latest news delivered daily!
A plan to build a warehouse larger than the Moreno Valley Mall across the street from houses on half-acre lots is returning to the Moreno Valley City Council.
The council is set to decide Tuesday, June 21, whether to greenlight a 1.26-million-square-foot logistics project called the Moreno Valley Trade Center, on 80 acres south of the 60 Freeway.
The developer, Dallas-based Hillwood Investment Properties, has said the warehouse would stand 48 feet tall. The project’s final environmental impact report states that the building could reach 100 feet if occupied by a fulfillment center filling the orders of online shoppers.
A 1.26-million-square-foot warehouse is proposed to be built on this land, seen Friday, June 17, 2022, across the street from Moreno Valley homes. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
Silvia Flores, seen Friday, June 17, 2022, with children, Jillian Flores,13, at right, and Slater Flores, 11, opposes a 1.26-million-square-foot warehouse in her neighborhood. They are standing in the middle of Mozart Way, with Encelia Avenue behind them, where the proposed warehouse could rise. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
In advance of Tuesday’s meeting, letters from people on both sides of the issue have poured in to the city.
Walter Fus, saying he has been a Moreno Valley resident since 1977 and is a retired Air Force pilot, wrote Saturday, June 11, that approving the project “would be the most egregious decision this council could ever make.”
Cristina Rivera, in a Wednesday, June 15, email, urged approval in praising an amenity the developer promised, if allowed to build. The project “will bring a new desperately needed sports park to the City of Moreno Valley,” Rivera wrote.
Union carpenters submitted letters of support, saying the project would create construction jobs.
In October, the Moreno Valley Planning Commission rejected the project on a 4-0 vote, with one commissioner not participating due to a potential conflict of interest, concluding the center was incompatible with a neighborhood to the south. Hillwood Investment Properties appealed the decision to the council, which discussed the project in December but postponed a decision.
Now the project is back.
City planners are recommending the council approve it, by certifying the environmental impact report, approving a general plan amendment, changing the zone and making a determination that the project won’t “result in a net loss in residential capacity.”
In changing the property designation, the city would eliminate the potential for 145 single-family houses to be built, according to an environmental report.
Project proponents are seeking approval at a time when some Inland Empire communities are pushing back against warehouses.
For example, the Redlands City Council recently enacted a moratorium on industrial projects on the city’s west side. Earlier, Jurupa Valley limited warehouses to its Mira Loma and Agua Mansa areas, and adopted rules for other types of businesses that generate heavy truck traffic. And Pomona is considering a 45-day moratorium on new warehouses.
At the same time, online shopping is soaring and continues to drive a regional explosion in the logistics industry.
The Moreno Valley Trade Center arrived on the dais of the Planning Commission in fall, a few months after the city completed an overhaul of its general plan, a guide for future growth.
That document designated the 80-acre project site, west of Redlands Boulevard between Eucalyptus and Encelia avenues and mostly empty except for an 8.5-acre plant nursery, as a place for houses on half-acre lots.
Hillwood is seeking permission to deviate from that new growth guide. In part because of that, Planning Commission member Jeff Sims called on the council to kill the project in a Saturday, June 11, letter.
“Why have an approved General Plan and not honor it?” Sims wrote.
There are two other warehouse projects in the early stages.
One is called Edgemont Commerce Center, a proposed 142,345-square-foot warehouse distribution building on approximately 7 acres southwest of Bay Avenue and Day Street.
The other is Heacock Commerce Center, a pair of industrial buildings totaling 874,000 square feet on 46 acres southeast of Gentian Avenue and Heacock Street.
City spokesperson Matthew Bramlett said in email Thursday that environmental reports are being prepared for both projects and it’s not known when they will be completed.
Like Moreno Valley Trade Center, the Heacock project can’t be built unless the city lets the developer deviate from the general plan. Warehouses are allowed at the Edgemont site, though a zone change is required to build one bigger than 50,000 square feet.
George Hague, conservation chair for the Moreno Valley Group of the Sierra Club, said those projects are also in the wrong place because they are near homes and schools.
The California Air Resources Board submitted letters to the city warning that each project has the potential to “expose nearby communities to elevated levels of air pollution.”
In separate letters, Robert Krieger, chief of the California Air Resources Board’s Risk Reduction Branch, wrote that both projects are “in census tracts that score within the top 1 percent of State’s most impacted from air pollution from an environmental hazard and socioeconomic standpoint.”
As for the Moreno Valley Trade Center, since the December hearing Hillwood has made changes.
The warehouse footprint has been reduced by 65,582 square feet to approximately 1,263,271 square feet, a city report states. A 35-foot-tall earthen berm, landscaped with trees and shrubs is to be built along Encelia Avenue. Truck access is to be limited to Eucalyptus Avenue. The number of loading docks is to be reduced by four, to 117, on the south side of the building, and by seven, to 97, on the north side.
Also, Hillwood has offered to build an 18-acre park at Redlands Boulevard and Ironwood Avenue that features two lighted soccer fields, a lighted baseball field, a playground, concession stand and exercise equipment.
Manuel and Arminda Del Alto, who live near Encelia Avenue, said improvements such as the berm don’t alleviate concerns. They moved to Moreno Valley 14 years ago from Ontario because they wanted to escape the warehouses going up there.
“My main concern is what the trucks and cars will put in the air,” said Manuel Del Alto, who has had a lung transplant.
Arminda Del Alto said they enjoy hearing birds and coyotes in the distance, and worry they will disappear.
Silvia Flores, who lives nearby with her husband, Joe, and two children ages 13 and 11, said she worries about pollution and traffic.
“It’s going to be terrible to have all these trucks,” Flores said.
The environmental report states that the logistics center would generate about 2,320 vehicle trips per day, including 1,436 by passenger vehicles and 885 by trucks. Under the fulfillment center scenario, the total would be 6,607 daily vehicle trips, including 5,750 passenger vehicles and 857 trucks.
Hillwood made several proposals earlier to soften the project’s impact on the neighborhood, including setting aside:
Despite the offers, Sims, the planning commissioner, said, “you can’t negate the smog, the traffic and the noise.”
The warehouse building also would eclipse neighbors’ views, he said.
On most days, they can see foothills.
“On a clear day you can see the mountains looking up toward the Big Bear area,” Sims said. If the project goes in, he said, “all we will be able to see is a big wall looking to the north.”
What: The Moreno Valley City Council will meet and consider a 1.26-million-square-foot logistics project called the Moreno Valley Trade Center.
When: 6 p.m. Tuesday, June 21
Where: City Hall Council Chamber, 14177 Frederick St., Moreno Valley
Staff writer Monserrat Solis contributed to this report.
Get the latest news delivered daily!
We invite you to use our commenting platform to engage in insightful conversations about issues in our community. We reserve the right at all times to remove any information or materials that are unlawful, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene, vulgar, pornographic, profane, indecent or otherwise objectionable to us, and to disclose any information necessary to satisfy the law, regulation, or government request. We might permanently block any user who abuses these conditions.