Law Separating New Warehouses in California from Districts Signed – San Bernardino Sun

Regulations aimed at protecting California communities from harms associated with new large warehouses will be required by state law under a bill signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom.

On Sunday, September 29, the governor’s office announced that Newsom had signed AB 98, which was met with opposition from business groups, local governments and environmental justice advocates for a variety of reasons.

“The signing of AB 98 is an important step forward for communities impacted by the proliferation of warehouses,” the bill’s co-sponsor, Assemblywoman Eloise Gómez Reyes, D-Colton, said in a press release.

“This legislation strikes a delicate balance that sets higher standards for logistical development near sensitive receptors,” she added. “Let me be clear: nothing stops local government from introducing stronger safeguards to further protect vulnerable groups in society.”

AB 98, the result of a late legislative deadline, prohibits cities and counties from approving new warehouses or warehouse expansions unless a series of standards are met.

Depending on where they are located, warehouses must be within 300 or 500 feet of homes, schools, daycares and other so-called sensitive facilities, or from land deemed susceptible to damage from neighboring warehouses.

The bill, co-authored by Assemblyman Juan Carrillo, D-Palmdale, would also impose landscaping and screening requirements, such as a wall or landscape berm, to protect warehouses from neighbors, with landscape buffers ranging from 50 to 30 feet wide.

Depending on their size, new warehouses will have to use zero-emission technology, meet energy efficiency standards and prohibit idling of truck engines.

Warehouses will also have to be located on arterial roads, collector roads, main thoroughfares or local roads on which mainly commercial traffic takes place. And if homes are demolished to make room for a warehouse, AB 98 requires two replacement affordable housing units for each home demolished and money equal to 12 months’ rent paid to each displaced tenant.

The logistics boom in the Inland Empire has brought warehouses ranging from several hundred thousand to 1 million square feet closer to the community.

Critics say it means more air pollution from diesel exhaust from trucks, light and noise pollution, and truck traffic disrupting neighborhoods. State officials say the warehouses disproportionately go to communities of color and low-income neighborhoods.