For City Council Meeting January 28, 2025
TO: Honorable Mayor and City Council
APPROVAL: G. Michael Milhiser, Interim City Manager
FROM: Colby Cataldi, Director of Community Development
Title
ADOPT URGENCY ORDINANCE NO. 1697, ENTITLED, “AN URGENCY ORDINANCE OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF RIALTO, CALIFORNIA, DECLARING A TEMPORARY MORATORIUM ON THE ESTABLISHMENT, MODIFICATION, EXPANSION, OR INTENSIFICATION OF “INDOOR STORAGE FACILITIES”, WITHIN THE JURISDICTIONAL BOUNDARIES OF THE CITY OF RIALTO”.
(ACTION)
Body
RECOMMENDATION
Staff recommends that the City Council consider and adopt Urgency Ordinance No. 1697.
BACKGROUND
Chapter 18.112 (Indoor Storage Uses) of the Rialto Municipal Code authorizes the establishment, modification, expansion, or intensification of indoor storage facilities, which includes fulfillment centers and storage warehouses, within the Light Manufacturing (M-1) zone, General Manufacturing (M-2) zone, and Specific Plan areas. However, due to the recent and rapid expansion of industrial developments within the City and neighboring communities, and particularly the development and expansion of indoor storage facilities, residents and businesses have experienced various adverse impacts related to these industrial developments, including incompatibility with adjacent uses, increased truck traffic, damage to local streets, loss of potential economic revenue, and deteriorating air quality and impacts to environmental health. In particular, the placement of these indoor storage facilities presents a current and immediate threat to public health, safety, and welfare.
As a result, the City requires time to study the adverse impacts of indoor storage facilities and develop comprehensive policy guidance to address the adverse impacts. Staff recommends that the City Council consider adopting a Moratorium on the establishment, expansion, intensification, or modification of indoor storage facilities in the City.
Pursuant to California Government Code Section 65858, the City is authorized to adopt an urgency ordinance to place a temporary moratorium on land uses that may conflict with a contemplated zoning proposal. This moratorium will provide the City with the necessary time to assess the full scope of the potential impacts and to formulate appropriate policies and regulations to guide future development.
ANALYSIS/DISCUSSION
Land Use Issues
Industrial developments are an important part of the City’s, State, and national economy and present both positive and negative impacts to the community. Currently, such developments, and in particular indoor storage facilities, have been in high demand due to changes in the economy including a higher dependence on e-commerce. For purposes of this Urgency Ordinance, the term “indoor storage facility” is defined as “any building primarily used for the indoor storage of goods, products, commodities, materials, supplies, and similar items for the primary purpose of supply chain distribution and fulfillment, including storage warehouses and fulfillment centers”.
The City’s Zoning Code, codified in Title 18 of the Rialto Municipal Code, does not give the City adequate tools or assurances to address the potential impacts related to indoor storage facilities. And while the City has updated some provisions of its code including provisions relate to truck routes in the City to minimize the impacts from truck traffic, there is a need for additional locational criteria and other policy guidance to protect sensitive uses and address the various impacts associated with indoor storage facilities throughout the City. For example, there are not sufficient policies and standards that would prevent the siting an indoor storage facility of significant size and height immediately adjacent to or across the street from an existing residential use or school.
Traffic and Safety Issues
Indoor storage facilities, including warehouses and fulfillment centers, by their nature, generate significant truck traffic that often occurs on a 24-hour and daily basis, depending upon the needs of the business. Truck traffic can cause traffic congestion, detrimental air quality, noise, vibration, and disruption to the peace and quiet that is necessary for the enjoyment of residential neighborhoods and efficacy of educational uses.
These trucks travel on truck routes as well as other streets to reach their destinations and pose unique and challenging issues because of their sheer size, such as:
• Increased safety risk for smaller vehicles, pedestrians, and bicyclists;
• Road wear and/or damage to City streets and property/facilities from collisions (reported and unreported); i.e., streetlights, traffic signal equipment, signs, trees, curbs, medians, etc.;
• Traffic congestion and reduced levels of service on streets and at intersections; and
• Increased impacts from improperly over-loaded trucks.
There is also a need to re-examine and potentially develop new policies to ensure there is logical relationship between the placement of indoor storage facilities and available truck routes to avoid the harmful effects of routing trucks past sensitive uses.
Environmental and Health Issues
Diesel engines emit a complex mixture of air pollutants, including both gaseous and solid material. The solid material in diesel exhaust is known as diesel particulate matter (DPM). DPM is considered a subset of particulate matter less than 2.5 microns in diameter (PM2.5). Most PM2.5 derives from combustion, such as use of gasoline and diesel fuels by motor vehicles, burning of natural gas to generate electricity, and wood burning. DPM is most concentrated adjacent to freeways, truck routes, and roadways traveled by trucks. PM2.5 is the size of ambient particulate matter air pollution most associated with adverse health effects of the air pollutants that have ambient air quality standards. These health effects include cardiovascular and respiratory impacts.
The trucks also cause noise and vibrations when travelling on City roadways presenting concerns for sensitive uses such as residential areas and educational uses. The increase in industrial developments, including indoor storage facilities, in recent years and the resulting increase in truck traffic has likely made the conditions worse for the residents and students who reside or go to schools adjacent to major roadways or adjacent to truck routes.
Moratorium
As discussed above, without more comprehensive regulations, the establishment, expansion, intensification, or modification of indoor storage facilities poses an immediate threat to the public health, safety, and welfare. To avoid any further adverse impacts, staff recommends that the City Council consider adopting a Moratorium on the establishment, expansion, intensification, or modification of indoor storage facilities. The Moratorium would allow the City the time needed to study and develop appropriate policies and development standards to address the impacts of indoor storage facilities and protect the public health, safety and welfare. Below are some examples of tasks that City staff will undertake during the Moratorium:
• Meet with property owners, businesses, residents, schools, and other community members to understand their issues and concerns;
• Examine the environmental and health impacts on the community from indoor storage facilities and truck-related uses to determine the appropriate mitigation measures necessary to better protect the community from these impacts such as locational siting criteria, distance separation criteria, sound walls, alternative pavement materials to reduce noise, and programs related to improving community’s health;
• Examine incompatibility issues between sensitive uses and indoor storage facilities to better address buffering between uses, permitted uses, hours of operations, and transitioning some industrial areas to alternative land uses;
• Examine whether the designated truck routes can be modified to both provide the most efficient truck routes and ensure the best protection of the residential areas and educational uses; and,
• Develop recommendations for Indoor Storage Facilities, including, but not limited to, the following:
• Amendments to General Plan goals, policies, and implementation measures related to indoor storage facilities, circulation, and truck traffic;
• Changes to Rialto Municipal Code Title 18 (Zoning) and/or Specific Plans to identify preferred locations for land uses involved in trucking.
Urgency Ordinance
To achieve this goal, the City Attorney has prepared an Urgency Ordinance (Exhibit A) provided with this report for City Council consideration (“Ordinance”). The Ordinance would prohibit the establishment, expansion, intensification, or modification of indoor storage facilities within the City, except for any application proposing a new indoor storage facility, or proposing a modification, expansion, or intensification of any existing indoor storage facility, that has been deemed complete by the City and is either less than 100,000 square feet in floor area or more than 500 feet away from any sensitive uses, including existing residential uses, churches, schools, parks, and natural open spaces. Any new or pending applications for indoor facilities that do not meet the exception criteria will not be scheduled for public hearings while the moratorium is in effect.
Per Government Code section 65858, the Urgency Ordinance requires an affirmative vote of 4/5th of the City Council to be adopted. If passed, the Urgency Ordinance will continue in effect for 45 days and, thereafter, will be of no further force and effect, unless the City Council extends the Moratorium. Any ordinance extending the Moratorium requires a noticed public hearing and can be for up to an additional 10 months and 15 days. Thereafter, the Moratorium may be extended again for 1 additional year.
During the period of this Moratorium, and any extension thereof, the City Manager or his designees must: (1) consider whether the establishment, expansion, intensification, or modification of indoor storage facilities may result in a threat to public health, safety, and welfare, and (2) issue a written report describing the measures which the City has taken to address the conditions which led to the adoption of the Urgency Ordinance. The report must be issued at least 10 days before the expiration of the Moratorium, or any extension thereof and made available to the public. The City Council will, in turn, analyze the report and determine whether conditions continue to exist to justify further extensions to the Moratorium.
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT
The requested action does not constitute a “Project” as defined by the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). Pursuant to Section 15378(a), a “Project” means the whole of an action, which has a potential for resulting in either a direct physical change in the environment, or a reasonably foreseeable indirect physical change in the environment. According to Section 15378(b), a Project does not include organizational or administrative activities of governments that will not result in direct or indirect physical changes in the environment. Additionally, pursuant to Section 15061(b)(3), the proposed moratorium extension is exempt from CEQA review as there is no possibility that the moratorium would have a significant effect on the environment, insofar as it prohibits the establishment or approval indoor storage facilities, including fulfillment centers and storage warehouse uses.
GENERAL PLAN CONSISTENCY
Approval of this action complies with the following City of Rialto Guiding Principles and General Plan Goals:
Guiding Principle No. 3: “Our City government will lead by example, and will operate in an open, transparent, and responsive manner that meets the needs of the citizens and is a good place to do business.”
Goal 2-9: Protect residential, schools, parks, and other sensitive land uses from the impacts associated with industrial and trucking-related land uses, as well as commercial and retail areas.
LEGAL REVIEW
The City Attorney reviewed and approved the staff report and prepared the draft Urgency Ordinance.
FINANCIAL IMPACT
Adoption of the Urgency Ordinance will not incur any direct costs on the City.