Colton City Council Hears Community Concerns

Votes to Maintain the TripleExtended Warehouse Moratorium Until It Expires in May 2023

Aryana Noroozi | Staff

In May 2022, the City of Colton declared an extension of its warehouse moratorium that began May 3, 2021, for a third time. Earlier this month, the possibility of an early termination of the moratorium was put on the table.

Since 2010, approximately 100 warehouses have been built across the Inland Empire, encompassing more than 12,500 acres, according to a data tool developed by researchers at the Robert Redford Conservancy for Southern California Sustainability.

Colton is one of a half-dozen cities in the Inland Empire to enact a moratorium against warehousing, after the community made their concerns known.

A period to identify solutions

A moratorium is a period of time that allows for expert assessment of the impact of the warehousing industry on the community. During the moratorium new warehouse expansion projects are halted. Once the findings and recommendations are provided to the City Council, a moratorium can be terminated. On Tuesday, Feb. 7, Colton City Council Members and residents gathered to discuss and vote on the possibilities of ending the moratorium earlier than planned.

At the beginning of the moratorium period in May 2022, an Ad Hoc committee was established to assess the impacts of warehouse development in Colton and develop recommendations that would benefit the community.

The committee met several times and drafted proposed regulations which were presented to the council for review. After taking the council’s initial feedback into consideration and revising their recommended regulations, the committee disbanded. However, the item was not brought back to the council for either approval or further direction until the Feb. 7 City Council meeting.

During the meeting, Colton City Council members voted to allow the moratorium to continue until the initial end date of May 3, 2023. They also voted to adopt the recommendations – which include a 300 foot buffer zone between homes and schools as well as updated guidelines for warehouse design, parking, noise, and operational standards –developed by the Ad Hoc committee through its assessment of the warehousing industry’s impact on Colton.

All council members, except Mayor Frank Navarro, voted in favor of keeping the May 2023 termination date.

Environmental activists agreed that the City Council heard the community’s desire to extend a halt on warehouses for as long as possible. However, Colton community members explained that their experiences show that moratoriums are not necessarily a definite or viable solution.

Some community members remain concerned

“[A lot of] community members are kind of annoyed and questioning… Why would you end it [the moratorium] and why does it have to end?” explained Marven Norman, the policy coordinator for Community Center for Action and Environmental Justice. He said, in theory, a moratorium is a window of time that allows for research and policy development. “It’s an assessment period, [that tells us] this is what’s happening and this is what we can do about it.”

The community also expressed concerns