Massive 1.2 million-square-foot warehouse rejected in Moreno Valley
A giant warehouse project was denied by the Moreno Valley City Council on Tuesday night, April 18 — 16 months after the council postponed a decision on it.
The vote was 4-1, with Mayor Ulises Cabrera, Mayor Pro Tem Ed Delgado and Councilmembers David Marquez and Cheylynda Barnard voting against the project. Councilmember Elena Baca-Santa Cruz was in favor. The council was voting on the developer’s appeal of a city planning commission vote to reject the warehouse. Four votes sided with the panel’s conclusion; one disagreed with it.
The proposed project would have included a 1,263,271-square foot warehouse and logistics center south of Eucalyptus Avenue, north of Encelia Avenue, east of Quincy Street, and west of Redlands Boulevard.
“I wish the developer had found another location for this project,” District 4 Councilmember Barnard said before the vote.
Barnard noted that, though she is pro union, her job at the meeting was to be a steward for the community — and it did not want the project.
Baca-Santa Cruz, the project’s sole supporter on the council, said: “I’m hoping we think about all of Moreno Valley, not just the residents that live on Encelia.”
A revised project came back to the council after concerns from the city’s planning committee and the public were voiced in December 2021.
That caused the council to delay consideration of the warehouse, which would have included an 18-acre park with two full-sized soccer fields, a baseball field, a snack bar, public restrooms, a playground and exercise equipment — all new additions by the developer, Dallas-based Hillwood Investment Properties.
Changes to the proposed project included:
- A reduction in loading docks on the south side of the building from 121 to 117 and a reduction in loading docks on the north side from 104 to 97
- A reduction in trailer parking spaces from 238 to 228
- Elimination of driveways on Encelia Avenue
- Eliminating truck access from Redlands Boulevard, while limiting it to Eucalyptus Avenue
- Installation of a 35-foot-tall earth beam, landscaped with greenery, between the southern boundary and Encelia Avenue
- Installation of a water quality/detention basin at the southeastern corner of the site
The developer had also offered up to $204,000 to fund electric vehicle grant programs, $113,000 to fund solar programs and to set reimbursement for residents who would add air-filtration and noise-insulation systems to their homes and for pressure washing, a city report states.
It didn’t stop there.
The developer offered a one-time, $15.5 million donation to the nonprofit Moreno Valley Community Foundation, which addresses homelessness, helps older residents and funds programs at animal shelters. Hillwood would have contributed $1 million a year to the foundation for the first 15 years.
Other community benefits would have included a $250,000 donation to the Kawhi Leonard Foundation and Kawhi Leonard Academy. It’s not clear if the amount would have been for each organization or a split between the two.
A Los Angeles Clippers basketball star and a Moreno Valley native, Kawhi Leonard had a park in Moreno Valley dedicated to him in 2021.
Residents and union members had plenty of reasons to either approve the developer’s project or block it.
“How can we honestly look at ourselves and continue to push for something that is so poisonous to our community,” Shane Ysais, a member of the nonprofit activist group Center for Community Action and Environmental Access, asked councilmembers.
Ysais, a father of two young children, said public health should be a priority for the city.
Jimmy Elrod, a spokesperson for the Southwest Mountain States Regional Council of Carpenters, a union for laborers from carpenters to cabinet makers, pointed to the benefits the developer was offering the city and said they would be a “tremendous investment into the community.”
A vote on the warehouse was postponed during a June city council meeting.
Though the project was denied by the planning commission in a 4-0 vote in October 2021, the developer appealed that decision. A council vote was postponed in December.
Previous concerns stemmed from the project’s environmental report.
Some residents worried about truck traffic and air pollution, and some complained that they came to Moreno Valley to escape warehouses and now might have to live next to a cluster of them.
This story is developing. Check back for updates.
