Rialto Planning Commission approves 194-trailer truck yard at Jurupa and Willow avenues with variance
The 5-0 vote on Oct. 21 lets a truck yard open with two homes across Jurupa Avenue, which city code would otherwise bar. No members of the public spoke at the hearing.
The Rialto Planning Commission on Oct. 21 approved a truck yard on 6.55 vacant acres on the northwest corner where Jurupa Avenue meets Willow Avenue, including a variance from a city rule against truck yards across the street from homes.
The vote was 5-0, with Vice Chair Jerry Gutierrez and Commissioner Terrie Schneider absent, according to the minutes. Commissioner Dale Estvander made the motion and Commissioner Terry Thompson seconded it.
The commission approved the variance, a conditional development permit, a precise plan of design and an addendum to an earlier environmental document. No one from the public addressed the commission.
The item had been on the Oct. 7 agenda but had to be noticed again because the published hearing notice contained a clerical error, the Oct. 7 minutes say.
The project
The applicant, Dedeaux Properties of Santa Monica, plans to lease the yard to one tenant with a truck fleet, according to the staff report.
Plans show an 8,400-square-foot maintenance and office building with three repair bays, 25 car spaces and parking for up to 194 trailers.
Trucks would use only a 50-foot driveway on Willow Avenue. A driveway on Jurupa Avenue would be for cars. Block walls 8 to 14 feet tall would screen the yard along its east, west and south edges.
A traffic scoping study by Kimley-Horn estimates up to 163 daily trips, with 10 during the morning peak hour and 13 during the evening peak. Trucks would make up to 95 of the daily trips. It found nearby intersections would keep operating at their present service levels, the report says.
The variance
City code does not allow truck yards beside land zoned or used for homes, or across a street from it. Two legal nonconforming single-family homes in Rialto sit across Jurupa Avenue from the site, according to the report. Another home across Jurupa and one to the west are in unincorporated county territory.
Staff backed the variance. The report points to a truck terminal north of the site and a repair shop for trucks and trailers to the east, and notes the Rialto homes are in the same light manufacturing zone.
The trailer yard would sit about 175 feet away from the closest of those homes, and the truck driveway about 500 feet away, the report says.
At the hearing, Commissioner Thompson asked whether the intersection of Riverside and Jurupa avenues, which he said carries heavy semi-truck traffic, could handle more. Community Development Manager Daniel Casey said the traffic study showed the project would not lower service at that or other nearby intersections, according to the minutes.
A representative of the applicant said it accepted the project's conditions.
Environmental review
The commission approved an addendum to a mitigated negative declaration adopted in November 2023 for a 119,908-square-foot warehouse once planned on the same parcel. That project was never built, and its approvals expired in 2025.
The addendum found the truck yard would cause no new significant effects beyond those studied for the warehouse, the report says.
