Residents call on council for temporary warehouse moratorium, health study and Prop 70 protections

Several residents and community organizations urged the Ontario City Council to adopt a temporary moratorium on new warehouse development and to conduct a comprehensive study of health, air-quality and traffic impacts. Speakers referenced Prop 70 land as a valuable agricultural resource and urged conservation rather than conversion to industrial uses.

Anna Gonzales of the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice thanked council members for entertaining a moratorium and asked the study to examine respiratory-illness rates, cumulative pollution burdens, noise and light pollution, soil contamination, job quality, and whether warehouse jobs provide family-supporting wages. "These findings must be documented in the administrative record so that informed transparent policy decisions can follow," she said.

Multiple commenters supplied quantitative claims: several said the city has "over 600 warehouses" and cited "95,000,000 truck trips" as evidence of cumulative impacts; councilmembers acknowledged hearing these concerns and one speaker, Michael Rios, praised Councilmember Bowman's earlier suggestion of a moratorium. Advocates asked staff to publish a map of pending projects, project locations and expected truck-trip increases and to set a public timeline for workshops and permanent standards.

No formal moratorium or ordinance was adopted at the meeting; community groups asked the council to place a legally supported pause and an administrative timeline on a future agenda for study and decision.