California’s top cop urges Fresno City Council to reject ‘likely unlawful proposal’
California Attorney General Rob Bonta, in a Wednesday letter, urged the Fresno City Council to abandon a proposed rezone in southwest Fresno, calling the proposal misguided and “likely unlawful.”
“Southwest Fresno contains some of the most over-burdened and under-invested environmental justice communities in all of California,” Bonta said in a statement. “In 2017, the city of Fresno undertook a long-overdue, years-long project to address the heavy pollution burden falling on southwest Fresno communities – eventually rezoning multiple parcels of land to less intensive uses.
“The city’s proposal to rezone this land once again is misguided, and I urge the City Council to abandon this likely unlawful proposal,” Bonta said.
In the letter, the attorney general’s office argues that the city hasn’t properly disclosed how the project will comply with state laws such as the California Environmental Quality Act and the Housing Crisis Act. The letter also encourages city leaders to follow the Southwest Fresno Specific Plan.
“Applicants now ask the City to reverse this progress and allow for continued and expanded industrial uses in perpetuity,” the letter says. “The Attorney General’s Office urges the city not to approve this legally-deficient project, and to stay the course it set in the Southwest Fresno Specific Plan.”
In August, Bonta met with Fresno residents to discuss their environmental concerns and promised to use his office to help them create healthier communities. He also met with city leaders.
Earlier this year, the Fresno Planning Commission dealt southwest Fresno residents a blow when it unanimously approved Mayor Jerry Dyer’s proposal to add an industrial overlay district in 92.5 acres of disputed land. The planning commission also approved sending to the City Council the long-standing application by developers and landowners to rezone the same 92.5-acre, 15-parcel site in southwest Fresno from neighborhood mixed use to light industrial use.
City Council meeting
The Fresno City Council is scheduled to vote on the action during its regularly-scheduled meeting on Thursday.
Dyer’s office said the mayor will wait until after Thursday’s meeting to comment on the issue. City Council President Nelson Esparza also declined to comment on the attorney general’s letter.
Councilmember Tyler Maxwell said he respects the attorney general and takes his recommendations seriously. Maxwell said he will do his best to review the lengthy letter before Thursday’s meeting.
“However, a growing precedent of sending alarming letters the day of or before important council votes in order to delay or sway such votes is a worrying one,” Maxwell said. “These concerns should be elevated to the council’s attention early on so as not to disrupt due process.”
But Councilmember Miguel Arias, who represents the area where the rezone is proposed, said he plans to recommend a compromise on the dais, something the attorney general’s office didn’t know. Arias opposes the rezone application for the entire 92 acres, he said.
Arias’ compromise includes rezoning only about one-third of the 92 acres to light industrial, with a laundry list of conditions, in areas where industrial operations already are occurring.
Arias said he believes it’s important that the existing operations match their zoning so that industrial operations aren’t allowed in non-industrial zones, such as residential or mixed use, in the future. He also said he believes the change will allow certain facilities to access the necessary capital to eventually become carbon neutral facilities. Plus, the light industrial zoning still will prevent heavy industrial use and will add the requirement of conditional use permits, he said.
“I am personally trying to honor that an industrial operation should be an industrial zoning,” Arias said. “Let’s not play semantics.”
The council on Thursday also will consider additional zoning proposals, including an expansion and rezone of the Busseto Foods plant and an amendment that will allow for denser housing projects in more places.
Arias said it remains to be seen how his council colleagues will vote on his proposed compromise, and there still could be changes made on the dais. He said he’s open to improving his recommendation.
Community opposition
Ivanka Saunders, a policy advocate with Leadership Counsel for Justice & Accountability, said the attorney general’s letter brings wider attention to the city’s “pattern of racist land use practices.”
“They need to understand that they are digging themselves into a hole,” Saunders said about city leaders making land-use decisions. “This city has not learned, by being sued, that they need to go above and beyond to rectify the wrongs. They will continue to try to only look at what is legally defensible, until when? Until they get how many lawsuits from the AG’s office?”
The potential rezone has seen many twists and turns already, including dividing a number of longtime southwest Fresno residents who typically stand together on issues facing their community.
The rezone proposal also comes around five years after the city council passed the resident-driven Southwest Fresno Specific Plan, a planning and zoning document that guides future growth and development in the area. The approved plan calls for more neighborhood mixed use and no new industrial zoning.
A coalition of residents including Pastor B.T. Lewis, Mary Curry and her daughter, Dr. Venise Curry, Debbie Darden and Bob Mitchell, opposes Thursday’s proposal. The coalition also opposes Arias’ compromise. The residents also were involved in the Southwest Specific Plan process.
On Wednesday, that coalition called on residents to get involved and voice their opposition to the rezone during public comment at Thursday’s meeting.
Lewis said in his email that Arias’ compromise would “dishonor the tremendous investment made by so many people in our community to change the trajectory of development in southwest Fresno.”
“We need your help to protect our community by standing by the Southwest Specific Plan as adopted in 2017,” Lewis wrote in an email. “The Southwest Specific Plan’s purpose is to protect our community from environmental hazards perpetuated by the city of Fresno for almost 75 years. We are asking that you invite the people in your networks to join us in firmly opposing this rezone.”
That coalition also opposes Arias’ proposed compromise and instead is seeking their own fix.
Lewis and his coalition are pushing an “overlay,” developed with the community coalition and city planning staff, that would allow the land owners of the industrial operations to change their property status without a rezone.
Arias said an overlay such as the one the coalition proposed has never been done in the city and may not allow for as many conditions on the operators as what he’s proposing. But, he’s open to making changes to his proposal.
“What I’ve heard is, ‘When everybody’s unhappy, it must be a good compromise.’ But on the other hand, when everybody’s unhappy, I’m open to improvement of my recommendation,” he said. “That’s why I have left my door open to the community, to the property owners, to the city’s planning staff, and to the AG. I am willing to consider any additional changes that they believe would meet our goal of reducing pollution.”
This story was originally published October 12, 2022 at 2:12 PM.