What's at stake?
Supporters called it a win for business while critics said it was bad for the neighborhood.
The Fresno City Council voted to let an industrial development project move forward in southwest Fresno, despite opposition from community members, environmental advocates, and some dissenters on the council.
The $100 million warehouse complex, which proponents say will bring hundreds of jobs to the city and increase Fresno’s tax base, will be built near Highway 180 at Marks and Nielsen avenues.
The area, where warehouses have expanded in recent years, consistently has some of the worst air quality in the city.
Scannell Properties, an international commercial real estate firm, is spearheading the development of the new Fresno warehouse.
The council voted 5-2 Thursday to approve the final version of an Environmental Impact Report submitted to the Fresno Planning Commission in compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act, as well as related reports on the water supply to the area and plans to mitigate pollution from the new development.
In their vote, the council also denied an appeal filed by a law firm representing an association of Fresno residents and labor organizations and another filed by Councilmember Miguel Arias, who represents the district where the new Fresno warehouse will be built.
Supporters of the development called the new warehouse complex an opportunity to make Fresno a more business-friendly environment.
“We unfortunately do have a reputation in Fresno for not being business-friendly,” said Mayor Jerry Dyer to the council Thursday. “Some of that deserved, some of that undeserved. But it has caused development to move into nearby jurisdictions.”
Opponents voiced concerns about the impact to air quality and amount of truck traffic the project will bring to the already heavily polluted area of Fresno, with Arias saying it’s part of a long history of the city using the southwest as an “environmental dumping ground.”
“The Planning Commission relies on a deficient Environmental Impact Report that fails to adequately disclose and mitigate the project’s impacts on workers, public health, and the environment,” said Kevin Carmichael, an attorney representing the residents and labor organizations opposed to the development.
Arias and Councilmember Luis Chavez, who both voted against approving the project’s EIR on Thursday, also raised questions about the lack of certainty in the report’s estimates of new air pollution and traffic the warehouse will draw. This stems from the fact that no specific company has been selected as a tenant for the warehouse yet.
“I can’t go to my neighbors and tell them that I approved the … distribution center, and when they ask me what’s going up there, say, ‘I don’t know,’” he said. “‘How are you going to mitigate the impact?’ ‘I don’t know.’”
Councilmember Nelson Esparza, who voted to approve the EIR, said he hopes the tenant will be in semiconductor manufacturing. He sponsored the Fresno CHIPS Incentive Program in November to attract companies in the semiconductor supply chain to Fresno, saying the incentive will help create jobs paying above the city’s median wage.
The new warehouse project also sparked debate Thursday over project labor agreements, which are deals that guarantee at least some of a construction project gets built by unionized workers. Paul Starn of Scannell Properties told the council they “cannot afford” a project labor agreement on this particular project.
Some proponents of the new Fresno warehouse development accused detractors of hiding their true intentions behind environmental critiques.
“The appeal is abusing the CEQA complaint process to hold the city hostage to a project labor agreement,” said Susan Siegert, a contractor, in remarks to the council via Zoom.
Councilmembers on both sides of the issue pushed back against the criticism of PLAs.
“This is a pro-labor council,” Esparza said.
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