A ruling is expected this summer in a lawsuit seeking to stop a 213-acre multi-warehouse project from being built in an unincorporated part of San Bernardino County.
A coalition of environmental groups wants a judge to overturn San Bernardino County supervisors’ 2022 approval of Bloomington Business Park, which would build three warehouses of 1.25 million square feet, 479,000 square feet and 383,000 square feet while demolishing 265 homes in the process.
To replace the homes, the project increases zoning density on a nearby 72-acre site to clear the way for 480 apartments or condominiums. The site’s previous zoning allowed for just 52 single-family homes.
A San Bernardino Superior Court hearing took place Thursday, June 20, on the lawsuit’s challenge to the project’s environmental approvals. A ruling is expected before an Aug. 30 hearing in the case, according to Miranda Fox, a spokesperson for Earthjustice, one of the lawsuit’s plaintiffs.
Critics contend the project — its footprint includes 141 acres of land previously set aside for housing — would bring more truck traffic and accompany diesel exhaust pollution to a rural, working class, predominantly Latino area already inundated with warehouses.
“As someone who grew up in this community, witnessing the rich culture of my community, I’ve seen how the warehouses have changed a lot here,” former Bloomington High School student Daniela Vargas said in a news release issued by plaintiffs.
“Many of us are concerned about being exposed to more and more pollution when the project is being put closer to our homes and schools.”
Tim Howard, of the project’s developer, Orange-based Howard Industrial Partners, declined to comment, citing the continuing litigation. The project’s supporters include construction unions who laud the local jobs it would create. San Bernardino County officials have said the project would bring more than 2,000 jobs.
Howard has said the project would result in about $20 million worth of new infrastructure, including a sheriff’s deputy with an office in Bloomington.
Earthjustice, the People’s Collective for Environmental Justice, the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Sierra Club are plaintiffs in the lawsuit, which was filed in December 2022 about a month after San Bernardino County approved the project.
The lawsuit contends the project’s environmental review process was flawed because documents weren’t provided in Spanish “even though a substantial portion of Bloomington’s residents only speak or primarily speak Spanish.”
The project “will substantially add” to air pollution and worsen public health “in an air basin that already suffers from some of the worst air quality in the nation,” the lawsuit alleges.
The project also violates fair housing laws with its location “in a Hispanic or Latino community and a community already experiencing negative health impacts due to air quality causing displacement of residents and compounding environmental harm to those who remain,” the lawsuit read.
In addition, the project “will contribute significant levels of greenhouse gas … emissions” and “impose severe and detrimental impacts on a variety of imperiled species, habitats, and other biological resources,” the lawsuit argues, adding environmental reviews “have failed to adequately address these impacts.”
“The County must stop approving warehouse projects without meaningfully engaging low-income communities of color like Bloomington,” Earthjustice attorney Candice Youngblood said in the plaintiffs’ release.
“We must zealously ensure these freight developer projects comply with laws meant to protect communities. Because we believe this project falls woefully short of legal compliance, we are asking the Court to send this project back to square one.”
