A nonprofit group made up of mostly Harbor Gateway residents has filed a legal challenge to a proposed warehouse and distribution center for development in that community, saying it could bring more than 750 trucks into the area daily on a round-the-clock basis while contributing to traffic and pollution.
The Friends of Air, Earth and Water Inc. filed the petition Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court, asking a judge to order the City Council to vacate its October approval of the Prologis Vermont and Redondo Project pending a more adequate assessment of its impact on the environment. A representative for the City Attorney’s Office did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
In a unanimous vote, the council denied an appeal filed by concerned residents and advanced the project sought by Prologis, a company specializing in supply-chain and logistics real estate. The one-story, 53-foot tall, 340,298-square-foot warehouse would be built on a combined 15-acre lot at 15116-15216 S. Vermont Ave. and 747-861 W. Redondo Beach Blvd.
“Despite comments from Friends of the Air and another environmental justice group urging the city to evaluate the project’s inconsistency with the general plan, including policies in the Harbor Gateway Community Plan update, it refused to do so,” the petition alleges. “Instead, the city delayed approval of the updated Harbor Gateway Community Plan and plowed ahead with approving the project.”
The development includes a 25,000-square-foot mezzanine and up to 40,000 square feet of office space, 194 parking spaces, 36 dock-high truck loading positions and more parking spaces for up to 71 truck trailers.
“The challenged project proposes to build a 340,298 square-foot industrial warehouse center that would operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, attracting an estimated 768 additional polluting truck trips per day to a site that is wedged between residential homes, an elementary school, two nursing homes and a public park, all within a neighborhood that is already one of the most heavily polluted in the state,” the petition states.
“The Harbor Gateway community is an urban area that is already heavily burdened by multiple sources of pollution, including numerous oil drilling sites, two superfund sites, industrial and port-related activities and a high volume of heavy truck traffic, the petition further states.
Harbor Gateway North residents are 94% minority members, including 63% Latinos, according to the petition, which alleges violations of the California Environmental Quality Act as well as the state planning and zoning law.
Lauren Achtemeier, VP, Investment Officer, Prologis, said in a previous statement that her team had worked with the Harbor Gateway residents and local leaders to shape a project that would benefit the community.
“We’re proud to move forward with a project that will create jobs and generate economic opportunity for the Harbor Gateway community for years to come,” Achtemeier said.
The development was approved by the nine-member city Planning Commission earlier this year with concessions. The company agreed to reduce the project’s size and decrease the number of parking spaces, among other minor design changes. The company also agreed to increase the height of a sound and screen wall from 14 feet to 18 feet, and allow murals as a way to beautify the facility.
However, the City Council’s Planning and Land Use Committee later reduced the sound and screen wall to 14 feet, and decided that no murals would be permitted.
The council committee unanimously approved the project and denied the residents’ appeal opposing it on health and congestion grounds, but agreed that Prologis would enter into the city’s mitigation monitoring program. The company offered to make a one-time payment of $1.2 million into a community benefits fund for the immediate vicinity of the project — a measure spearheaded by Councilman Tim McOsker, whose district includes Harbor Gateway.
Additionally, Prologis agreed to provide electric vehicle charging stations, use solar power and reduce the number of truck trips to the facility between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m., as well as limiting the use of its 36 loading docks by 25% — prohibiting use for loading and unloading — for that same time frame.
