But the Inland Empire’s warehouse boom has turned what once was a serene escape into a never-ending chorus of beeping loading docks surrounded by staggering gray walls. 

When I first covered this topic in my article with the Frontline Observer, I approached it not just as a first-time journalist but as a resident of Rialto. I live right across from the Target Distribution Center. As I’m writing this, I hear beeping trucks outside my window. 

The noises and obstructed views alone raise pertinent issues, but reporting on warehouse development made me realize the true cost of warehouses is much worse. 

What once was white noise to me, blending into my everyday routine, became a sounding alarm for the action that needs to happen for the region’s future. 

Community members have already been sounding the alarm for years. On Tuesday, Nov. 18, the Perris City Council voted 5-0 to draft a moratorium that will be considered on Dec. 9. 

The decision reflects the community’s initiatives towards confronting the cumulative impacts of warehouse development. 

With nearly 4,000 warehouses concentrated in the region, most of which rely on diesel trucks that release nitrogen dioxide, the transportation and logistics industries are jointly responsible for growing environmental and health concerns. Both San Bernardino and Riverside counties rank among the top five most ozone-polluted areas in the United States, posing a greater risk to the communities within the region.

The demand for online shopping transformed the Inland Empire into a hotspot for warehouse development. To meet growing demands during the pandemic, corporations rushed to construction without considering the proximity of warehouses next to neighborhoods, schools and parks. 

Two warehouses in Bloomington are located less than a mile from Joe Baca Middle School. Caitlin Towne, an educator at the school, says many of the students suffer from asthma. 

Granted, the number of warehouses across the Inland Empire has opened many jobs to the community. Currently, the transportation and logistics job category is second in job growth, with projections of a 1.7% increase by 2028. 

Towne says many of her former students were working at warehouses in Fontana and Bloomington during the height of the pandemic.

What seems like a great economic industry for the region is, however, an overreliance on low-wage labor. Transportation and logistics are among the lowest-paid positions available, according to the University of California, Riverside’s Inland Empire Labor and Community Center. 

Many residents in the Inland Empire endure pothole-filled roads and congested commutes only to work low-wage, high-risk jobs. Some residents even have to travel outside of the region to get a fulfilling and well-paying job.

Even more concerning is that the low-wage jobs available in the region may be cut in half as automation is expected to expand to cut costs and increase efficiency. 

As of August, the Inland Empire’s unemployment rate was 6.1%, surpassing both California’s seasonally adjusted 5.8% and the nation’s 4.5%. 

Many people are struggling to make ends meet. Entering the workforce and landing a job in logistics isn’t much of a choice, but it is the only option. As Towne said to me, “It’s almost like that’s all they expect of the people in Bloomington is to just work in a warehouse.”

The Inland Empire – a place that offered many homeowners mountain views is now covered in lines of warehouses. We have reached a dead end, and the dead end is warehouses. Caring about the environment and the region’s economy are not mutually exclusive. We must care about both our economy and our environment. 

We have seen what courageous community involvement can do for the region. The dead end that we have long faced with warehouses does not have to define our future. We can use our voices to pave a new path for ourselves by calling on our city leaders to make these changes.  

To ensure a promising future, both economically diverse and environmentally sustainable, we must demand more than warehouses. Warehouses and low-wage positions shouldn’t come at the cost of the community’s public health, quality of life and environment. 

The Inland Empire residents deserve to breathe freely and find peace in the comfort of their own backyards.

The post When Your Backyard Becomes a Warehouse: Inland Empire Communities Are Paying the Price for Convenience appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

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.

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.”

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The e-commerce giant plans to hire more than 2,000 full-time and part-time workers to staff two new facilities in Fontana and Jurupa. The new facilities, called “inbound cross docks,” launched operations earlier this month and are designed to receive cargo and sort merchandise to send to fulfillment centers, which handle customer orders.

Paul Granillo, president and chief executive of the Inland Empire Economic Partnership, said in a news release on Tuesday that the infusion of new jobs represented a “significant boost” to the local economy.

Granillo said in an interview that Inland Empire communities depend heavily on logistics jobs, since starting wages are typically higher than minimum wage. And the logistics sector was one of just three in the region that saw job growth in 2024, along with healthcare and government, he said.

“Amazon is probably our largest private employer and is important to the economic vitality of the region,” Granillo said.

The new Amazon jobs offer starting pay of $20.75 per hour and benefits such as healthcare, dental and vision coverage, a 401(k) with company match and up to 20 weeks of paid parental leave, according to Amazon spokesperson Carly Levy.

The new positions will be added to Amazon’s website in the coming weeks, she said.

Michael McCarthy, an adjunct professor of environmental analysis at Pitzer College had a less rosy view of the region’s freight and logistics sector. He said tariffs being pursued by the Trump administration don’t bode well for Inland Empire warehousing. And, he said, growth in freighting has slowed in the years since the pandemic boost, with warehouses seeing higher job vacancy rates.

“We are overly dependent on warehousing. Devoting such a large share of our land use to it and not diversifying our economy is a problem,” McCarthy said.

The opening of new facilities comes amid tensions over environmental impacts of industrial development in the region. Developers have pursued properties along Inland Empire freeways, demolishing neighborhoods to make way for industrial facilities to convert the area into a logistics corridor for e-commerce arriving in Southern California ports. Community activists and residents have pushed for limits on this type of development, which they say drives pollution, traffic congestion and other problems.

Last year Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a hotly contested bill that established new standards for building and design of industrial warehouses meant to protect the health of residents in surrounding areas. The legislation, which will go into effect in 2026, faced major opposition from those who saw it as a job killer, putting restraints on economic opportunity and infrastructure development.

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The Meridian Gateway Aviation Center Project has been in the planning stages for four years, but its ramifications became the center of controversy with the release in May of a draft environmental impact report that profiled all aspects of the project.

“We believe the impacts will be negative,” Catherine Fischer of Murrieta told City News Service. “We want to keep this area nice. But the Inland Empire already has some of the worst air pollution in the country. The sky is supposed to be blue, not dark brown. With Gateway, we’ll have not only more airplanes emitting pollution, but all the diesel trucks. It’s so damaging to our health, especially our children’s.”

Fischer’s group, Community Alliance for Riverside’s Economy & Environment, CAREE, has been sounding the alarm on Gateway’s potential downsides, mailing thousands of “Save March” circulars, asking residents to contact the March Joint Powers Authority Commission to express their concerns.

The group cited many of the points contained in the draft EIR, a nearly 700-page document that generated more than 200 comments.

One of the EIR’s highlights was the “significant and unavoidable” finding tied to aircraft noise. Under the current operations model, Gateway would lead to 128 additional two-way flights every month, and during the Holiday Season, that would increase to 256 flights. The total number comes to over 10,000 more arrivals and departures annually, all involving cargo aircraft at the March Inland Port Airport, the section of the base dedicated to civilian functions.

Riverside-based environmental consulting firm Dudek, which prepared the EIR, noted the traditionally accepted baseline noise levels tied to commercial operations is 65 decibels during the day and 60 at night. If Gateway goes live, some residential areas near March could experience peak noise levels closer to 70, the study found.

The EIR also pointed to inevitable increases in pollutants, acknowledging the “project would exceed operational regional thresholds of significance for volatile organic compounds, oxides of nitrogen and carbon monoxide emissions.”

The project site is within a tract designated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 1991 as a priority for Superfund Program rehabilitation due to the “use, storage and disposal of hazardous materials and waste.”

The area immediately surrounding the base has been ranked between 78 and 98 on the CalEnviroScreen tabulator that identifies pollutant impacts to disadvantaged communities. It’s an inverse scoring method, so a higher score — one over 50 — reflects “a higher pollution burden,” according to the California Environmental Protection Agency.

The EIR said greater emissions would be inevitable with more aircraft and more trucks in and out of the docking bays of the proposed 180,000-square- foot warehouse where the planes would be delivering and retrieving loads.

“There’s the airplane noise, traffic and the pollution that, overall, would be degrading to our quality of life here,” said Chris Bardeen, a chemistry professor at UC Riverside who has lived in the Mission Grove area of the city, beneath March’s flight paths, for 20 years. “There’s a bigger effect on health. What sticks in my craw is these guys could come in and ignore the community’s concerns, do a poor job on the EIR and still probably get everything they want. Once they build this, we’d have no power whatsoever.”

The CAREE activists challenged cargo hauler DHL when it was utilizing March as a west coast hub in the 2000s. Aircraft noise at all hours was a major complaint, brought before the Riverside County Board of Supervisors. DHL pulled up stakes during the Great Recession. Amazon is now a major user of the March Inland Port Airport.

“If the residents surrounding March are going to be subjected to more aircraft noise, I’d prefer to have that noise from military aircraft, performing national security operations,” Supervisor Kevin Jeffries, who sits on the March JPA Commission, told CNS. “Developing vacant land on the base, adjacent to the military runway, for the purpose of private sector cargo flights would seem only to complicate future military flight operations.”

Jeffries’ fellow supervisor and JPA Commission member Yxstian Gutierrez did not respond to requests for comment, nor did any of the council members from Moreno Valley and Perris. Riverside City Councilman Jim Perry told CNS his staff “is still in the process” of analyzing the EIR.

Fischer and Bardeen said there’s a nexus between Gateway and a nearby industrial park development, the 800-acre West Campus Upper Plateau, which is proposed in JPA-controlled space west of Interstate 215. Elements of the same consortium are spearheading both projects.

“Warehouses near an air cargo port generate more income,” Fischer said.

One of the co-developers of the projects, Upland-based Lewis Group, said they’re “completely independent” of one another.

“We are very supportive of the (Gateway) project,” Lewis Group Vice President Randall Lewis told CNS. “Gateway is consistent with the goals of the March JPA General Plan. It supports March ARB through infrastructure enhancements. The proposed flight operations comply with the existing joint-use agreement. The benefits that Gateway will provide will (improve) the region for many years to come.”

March JPA CEO Grace Martin said Gateway, as with all projects proposed to the JPA, is undergoing a thorough “vetting process.” The final EIR, due out next year, will be left to the JPA Commission to consider, and based on that, make modifications to the plans or reject them altogether.

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Two weeks ago a San Bernardino Superior Court overturned the county’s approval of a massive warehouse complex on more than 2 million acres in the community of Bloomington.

Then on Sunday Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill that reins in warehouse development statewide by tightening building standards and restricting diesel truck routes in neighborhoods. 

The new law is likely to have a big impact in the Inland Empire, which already includes 4,000 warehouses that sprawl over nearly 40 square miles. Those facilities bring jobs, but also air pollution, noise and traffic.

Environmental activists applauded the court case reversing the Bloomington warehouse approval.

Developers of the Bloomington warehouse complex proposed building three new distribution centers, including a cavernous facility of more than a million square feet. Their plan involved buying and demolishing more than 100 homes.

A coalition of nonprofits sued San Bernardino County and the developer in 2022, saying officials missed the mark on environmental standards. On Sept. 17 Superior Court Judge Donald Alvarez agreed. He overturned the project approval and its environmental impact report, ruling that it failed to offer reasonable alternatives or properly analyze impacts on air quality, noise, energy and greenhouse gas emissions.

“We are very happy that the judge has looked at all the evidence and agreed” the environmental review was inadequate, said Alondra Mateo, a community organizer with the San Bernardino-based People’s Collective for Environmental Justice, which sued to stop the project.

The demolition of homes that carved away a swath of the community goes beyond typical development concerns, Mateo said: “It’s not just an environmental impact; it’s a cultural impact, it’s a mental health impact.” 

Then on Sunday Newsom approved the warehouse law authored by Inland Empire Democratic Assemblymembers Eloise Gómez Reyes and Juan Carillo. The law passed in the final hours of the legislative session in August, provoking criticism from all sides. While advocates for the logistics industry panned the law as a job-killer, community groups say its public health protections aren’t strict enough.

Paul Granillo, president and CEO of the Inland Empire Economic Partnership, described the law as bad policy “created in a smoke-filled room without experts.” He predicted it will hurt jobs in 

the Inland Empire and other parts of Southern California.

Environmental groups weren’t any happier. The law requires warehouse loading docks be set back 300 to 500 feet from to sensitive sites, including homes, schools and playgrounds. That’s not enough of a buffer to protect nearby residents, Mateo said, arguing that the ideal distance should be about one kilometer, which is more than 3,280 feet.

Reyes has said the law offers a starting point that local governments can expand on to protect public health. Mateo maintained it gives developers an out, enabling them to comply with the letter of the law by meeting minimum limits.

Lawmakers acknowledged the law will require amendments. The critics are ready to go. Industry groups say they’ll press for more flexible rules, while environmental groups want stricter ones.

“If anything we’re going to push even harder,” Mateo said.

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The location has good visibility and direct access to the major trade route Interstate 10 and can serve the Southern California ports to the West region.

The property is entitled and ready for development. Shopoff anticipates breaking ground in the third quarter of 2024, and the project is expected to take 12 months to complete.

Ian DeVries and Chris DeVries of Colliers International along with Brad Yates and Stefan Pastor of Stream Realty will handle tenant lease up. The firm will begin marketing the projects to tenants prior to project completion.

Upon completion, the project will total more than 1 million square feet, with 167 docks, 498 trailer stalls and a 42-foot clear height.

Stream Realty Partners Executive Vice President Brad Yates told Commercial Property Executive that as e-commerce and consumer demand continue to grow, the need for large-scale warehouse facilities is expected to increase. Desert Hot Springs, with its available land, infrastructure and proximity to major markets, presents opportunities for the expansion of million-square-foot warehouses to meet the evolving needs of the logistics industry.

I-10’s significant role

Interstate 10 plays a significant role in the economic landscape of Arizona and Southern California, serving as a major commerce corridor that fuels economic growth. Here are some key incentives and benefits it brings to the region:

The I-10 corridor runs across the U.S. from California to Florida, connecting major ports, cities and markets, and is a vital route for transportation and distribution.

Tanner Jansen, Stos Partners vice president of Acquisitions, told CPE that recent strikes by the dockworkers backed up ports’ production, but that has since been resolved and their supply has increased.

“There’s been larger demand due to the reduction of Panama Canal traffic from the drought conditions in Central America,” Jansen said. “This delay is causing increased cost, and some logistics demand that typically lands on the east coast, is landing on the west coast and is being transported across the country.”

“California and the West Coast markets are also seeing a recent reversal in their population declines that they suffered during the pandemic, which will bring back further demand for warehousing along the I-10,” Jansen added.

Improving the corridor’s infrastructure

Significant investments have been made to improve the corridor’s infrastructure, according to Yardi Matrix’s Doug Ressler.

The San Bernardino County Transportation Authority and the California Department of Transportation have invested in adding Express Lanes to I-10 in San Bernardino County, which will improve travel time and relieve congestion.

The project components are expected to yield a benefit/cost ratio of 8.0, representing over 500 million person-hours of savings over a 20-year analysis period. Freight benefits are estimated at $1.4 billion over the same period.

The corridor is being upgraded to address a nationally significant freight bottleneck, which will improve the efficiency and reliability of regional freight flows.

I-10 is considered the backbone of the transportation system, providing businesses and their customers with essentials like food and fuel. The interstate supports Arizona’s position at the heart of a regional economy that stretches from Southern California to Texas. This trillion-dollar market relies on I-10 for efficient links to trade and commerce.

Arizona has invested significantly in I-10, with projects such as widening the highway between Phoenix and Tucson. This $400 million investment aims to alleviate traffic pressure, improve public safety and accelerate future growth. These improvements and expansions of I-10 also position Arizona to receive additional federal funds, which can further enhance the state’s transportation infrastructure and economic prospects.

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Revisions to the 2008 Good Neighbor Guidelines and city zoning codes were five years in the making, but now the city has the strictest requirements for new warehouse developments in the region.

Critics have said both the original city guidelines and a county version passed last year lacked the teeth needed to give communities the power to hold warehouses accountable on air pollution, truck noise, and changes to neighborhood character.

“I think this is a big stepping stone in seeing that local elected and local officials are more responsive to the needs of the community and are understanding that [the] logistics industry does come with some drawbacks,” said Faraz Rizvi, spokesperson for the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice.

The industry is one of the largest employers in the Inland Empire, and Rizvi says with the pandemic online shopping boom and grassroots efforts to gain the attention of elected officials, those drawbacks have become impossible to ignore. 

The revised rules include a limit on warehouse square footage, computer modeling of air quality impacts, and a health risk assessment for proposals that would put sites within 1000 feet of areas like neighborhoods, schools, and hospitals.

Warehouse projects that are currently in the approval process are exempt from the new rules.

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