City Council is set to discuss a moratorium on warehouses

Issue of e-commerce growth seen as necessary for future planning

In the coming weeks, San Bernardino plans to discuss whether to impose a citywide moratorium on new warehouses.

Such a mandate would be a first for the region, Councilman Ben Reynoso said in a text message on Friday.

“The idea of protecting the entire city from further warehouse development … has never been attempted,” he said. “The city of Riverside did it for one section of their city, but not the entire city.”

City staffers are expected to present the City Council a detailed report on local warehousing ahead of the discussion.

San Bernardino presently has 72 warehouses, Reynoso said Wednesday.

Last month, most council members approved the construction of a 1.1 millionsquare-foot warehouse near San Bernardino International Airport, a stone’s throw from the 660,000-square-foot Amazon Air Regional Air Hub at the former Norton Air Force Base.

“This is not anti-business,” Reynoso said Wednesday. “This is a diversification of business. This is an opportunity people have been asking for.”

Not all elected officials on Wednesday voted to broach a citywide warehouse moratorium.

Councilman Theodore Sanchez, who, along with Councilman Fred Shorett, voted against deliberating such a move, said analyzing warehouses’ impact on the community and seeing if mitigating measures can be taken as a result could be folded into a larger, ongoing discussion about the city’s general plan.

“We can’t make good decisions without good information,” he said.

Shorett, meanwhile, called a citywide moratorium on new warehouses “the worst message to send to the development community.”

“We’re in an e-commerce world and it’s the young people that have brought us here with their technology,” Shorett added. “I don’t think we’re going to stop it.”

Friday, Reynoso said the current City Council has the opportunity to “get this done.”

“The community is with us on this,” he added. “We have enough warehouses.”