Hesperia Planning Commission recommends 1.06 million-square-foot warehouse on Caliente Road
Commissioners voted 4-0 on Oct. 8 to recommend a Covington Group warehouse with 173 truck docks on 90.1 acres near Interstate 15. The project's environmental report found air quality, greenhouse gas and transportation impacts that could not be fully mitigated.
The Hesperia Planning Commission voted 4-0 on Oct. 8 to recommend City Council approval of an industrial warehouse of about 1,061,780 square feet on vacant land along Caliente Road.
Commissioner Auman made the motion and Commissioner Hodson seconded it, according to the meeting minutes. Vice Chair Steeno was absent.
The vote is advisory. The City Council will make the final decision, and a date for its hearing was not in the records reviewed.
The project
Covington Group Inc. is the applicant.
A staff report places the 90.1-acre site west of Caliente Road, with Ranchero Road to the north, Farmington Street to the south and Verbena Road on the west. Interstate 15 lies across Caliente to the east.
The building would have 173 loading docks for trucks, and the site would hold 325 truck and trailer stalls and 659 car spaces, more than the 514 the city requires.
A separate 5.5-acre pad in the northeast corner, next to Ranchero Road, is reserved for later commercial use. The environmental report studied it in general terms as a possible mix of shops, a gas station, restaurants and a hotel.
The developer would widen and improve all three roads along the project frontage and rework the traffic signal where Caliente meets Ranchero.
The commission also recommended rezoning about 80.3 acres now zoned Auto Sales Commercial. The warehouse area would become Commercial Industrial Business Park, and the pad would become Regional Commercial.
About 10 acres inside the Oro Grande Wash are to keep their Rural Estate Residential zoning and stay undeveloped.
According to the report, the warehouse would be about 400 feet from the closest residential property line and over 1,000 feet away from homes on the other side of the wash.
Development agreement
A proposed development agreement would keep the approvals alive for 12 years, with an optional eight-year extension, compared with the three years the development code normally allows.
In return, the report says, the developer would pay the city $1 million once certain conditions are satisfied and $4 million after the first grading permit for the warehouse is issued. It would also pay 35 cents for each square foot of the industrial building into Community Facilities District No. 2022-1, which is 20 cents above the current 15-cent rate.
Environmental findings
The project's environmental impact report concluded that effects on transportation, air quality and greenhouse gas emissions would remain significant after mitigation, the staff report says.
At full buildout, the report projects about 22,856 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions a year, measured as carbon dioxide equivalent, against a threshold of 3,000. Its vehicle-miles-traveled figure of 66.5 is above the city's threshold of 39.
Approving the project with those impacts requires what the staff report calls a "statement of overriding considerations," a finding that the benefits outweigh them. Staff pointed to an estimated 1,077 jobs, property and sales tax revenue, and road and utility improvements as the benefits.
The draft report drew nine comment letters, according to the staff report. The minutes say another letter on the project came in the afternoon of the hearing.
