Bill separating new California warehouses from neighborhoods signed into law

Rules intended to shield California communities from harm associated with new large warehouses will be required by state law under a bill signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom.

The governor’s office on Sunday, Sept. 29, announced Newsom signed AB 98, which faced opposition from business groups, local governments and environmental justice advocates for different reasons.

“The signing of AB 98 represents an important step forward for communities impacted by the over proliferation of warehousing,” the bill’s co-sponsor, Assemblymember Eloise Gómez Reyes, D-Colton, said in a news release.

“This legislation strikes a delicate balance that puts in place a higher standard for logistic development near sensitive receptors,” she added. “I want to be clear, nothing prevents a local government from putting in place stronger protections to further protect vulnerable populations.”

The product of a late-hour push ahead of a legislative deadline, AB 98 forbids cities and counties from approving new warehouses or warehouse expansions unless a series of standards are met.

Depending where they are, warehouses must have setbacks of 300 or 500 feet from homes, schools, daycares and other so-called sensitive receptors, or land uses seen as vulnerable to harm from adjacent warehouses.

The bill co-sponsored by Assemblymember Juan Carrillo, D-Palmdale, also will impose landscaping and screening requirements, such as a wall or landscape berm, to shield warehouses from their neighbors, with landscaping buffers ranging from 50 to 100 feet.

Depending on their size, new warehouses will have to use zero-emission technology, meet energy efficiency standards and ban trucks from idling their engines.

Warehouses also will have to be built on arterial roads, collector roads, major thoroughfares or local roads primarily used by commercial traffic. And if homes are demolished to make way for a warehouse, AB 98 requires two replacement units of affordable housing for every razed home and money equal to 12 months’ rent paid to every displaced tenant.

The Inland Empire’s logistics boom has brought warehouses, ranging from several hundred thousand to 1 million square feet in size, closer to communities.

With that, critics say, comes more air pollution from truck diesel exhaust, light and noise pollution and heavy truck traffic disrupting neighborhoods. State officials have said warehouses disproportionately end up next to communities of color and low-income neighborhoods.

Critics argue that cities and counties haven’t done enough to require new warehouses to be good neighbors, and a coalition of progressive advocacy groups last year called on Newsom to intervene and impose a moratorium on new Inland warehouses.

But rather than hailing AB 98, environmental justice groups opposed it, saying it didn’t go far enough to protect the public. Business groups warned the bill is a job killer while a local government alliance argued it undermined local land-use planning.

“AB 98 is a massive unfunded mandate that will harm our cities, stifle job growth, and threaten the economic lifeblood of communities throughout California,” League of California Cities President Daniel Parra said in a news release. “We are committed to finding a fix to this harmful bill in next year’s legislative session.”

Inland Empire Economic Partnership CEO Paul Granillo joined leaders of statewide business advocacy groups in calling for immediate changes to AB 98 — especially with the prospect of more cargo going to the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach amid a possible strike by East Coast longshoremen.

“We demand those that wrote and lobbied for AB 98’s passage knowing it was deeply flawed, affects existing warehouses, and is so broadly written it impacts manufacturing and agricultural facilities as well, fix these issues immediately through an open and transparent early action budget bill as soon as the new Legislature convenes,” read a statement issued by co-chairs of the Goods Movement Alliance.