The Banning City Council last week approved the Banning Commerce Center Project, an industrial development that includes a 1.3-million-square foot warehouse building east of Hathaway Street and north of the 10 freeway on a 131-acre site.
“The building will include loading areas and loading docks and doors, off-street parking, trailer parking for large vehicles and semi-trucks as well as charging facilities,” David Newell, Community Development Director, said at the July 8 meeting. “There will be on-site landscaping as well as on-site stormwater retention, and there will be additional improvements off site for infrastructure for the project.”
As part of the development agreement, the developer would contribute $9 million toward transformation improvements, help fund some of the off-site improvements to reduce some of the traffic impacts, contribute $357,000 per megavolt-ampere to assist with impacts to electric facilities and dedicate land for an electric substation and sanitary sewer lift station.
The developer would also pay into a community facilities district to cover the city’s cost of street and facility maintenance and is required to make additional improvements along Hathaway Street. The developer is also obligated to make its best efforts to hire locally.
“The project is anticipated to generate roughly 1,400 permanent jobs, and about 1,900 temporary construction-related jobs during the one-year period the project was under construction,” Newell said.
Additionally, the project is anticipated to generate a net increase of recurring revenue to the city of just over $500,000, not including the community facilities district.
The council previously approved the project at the May 27 meeting, but had to rescind that decision during the July 8 meeting after the Center for Biological Diversity last month sent a letter saying that the city had failed to provide notice of the decision for the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) as required by the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).
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When city staff reviewed the city’s noticing and distribution procedures, staff found that the group had not received a notice due to an “administrative oversight.” In order to fix the issue, the council rescinded its approval of the project design review application, tentative parcel map application, the final EIR and Mitigation, Monitoring and Reporting Program (MMRP) as required by CEQA and the development agreement, which is good for 15 years with a potential five year extension.
“While those decisions were made, tonight’s hearing is really a de novo hearing and review,” Newell said. “Essentially, the council is to set aside that decision and consider the application without deference to its prior decision.”
Because of this, Newell not only had to give the council another presentation on the project, but another public hearing was held, giving people another chance to voice their opinions. Those who spoke at the meeting included representatives for the Western States Regional Council of Carpenters, Ironworkers Local 416 and Californians Allied for a Responsible Economy (CARE CA), all of whom spoke in support of the project.
“The city of Banning deserves to have projects with this many benefits,” Amy Smith, with CARE CA, said. “Banning is a wonderful community, and it deserves to have positive developments come to its area.”
As part of its approval, the council certified the EIR, affirmed the CEQA findings and adopted an MMRP, which seeks to reduce the potentially significant impacts on air quality, biological resources, cultural resources, geology and soils, greenhouse gas emissions, transportation, tribal cultural resources and wildfires to less than significant.
The council also adopted a statement of overriding considerations, which found that the project would result in significant and unavoidable impacts with respect to air quality, greenhouse gas emissions, and transportation after implementation of all feasible mitigation measures, but that those impacts were acceptable because the proposed benefits of the project outweigh the negative environmental effects.
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