NO GO: Beaumont Council Shuts Down Massive Warehousing Plan

After weeks of heated debate and discussions about a 5 million square foot warehousing project proposed for Beaumont's west end, city council has decided that's not the direction they want to take the city after all.

In a 4-0 vote Tuesday, with Councilman Jeff Fox not present, the Beaumont City Council decided to halt plans for the complex which could have been built on a 417.2 acre area located along the north side of State Route 60, south of Oak Valley Parkway and west of Potrero Blvd.

"I'd like to make a motion to just end this whole thing and deny this entire project," Councilman Dave Castaldo said about two hours into the meeting, to the surprise of many in attendance.

The crowd-- the largest that many on the council say they've ever seen-- erupted in applause to that suggestion.  

Approximately 100 citizens had gathered at Beaumont Civic Center in anticipation of a workshop and vote on the Heartland Commerce Center.  Gearing for a large crowd, the city moved the meeting from the normal room to the auditorium, filling the place with chairs.

The move came as a particular shock after the property owner, Lehman Brothers Holdings, also made a surprise announcement: They wanted to table the discussion for the time.

"Although the plan was approved by the planning commission, we've come to realize that there's some very large misunderstandings, misconceptions of the project," Lehman Brothers Senior Vice President Christopher Bley said towards the beginning of the workshop.  "Regarding the project-- both its current entitlements and proposed entitlements-- and because of these misunderstandings, we would actually like to table our application for the time being so that we have time to educate all the stakeholders of the city what the project is we are proposing and how we plan to go through with it."

But after Bley spoke, more than 15 people took the podium in front of council to state their case against the proposed commerce center which would have brought five distribution warehouses totaling 5.02 million square feet to the area-- along with thousands of jobs, according to developers.

"I'm very, very pleased that each of you was here tonight, letting us know how you feel," Councilwoman Brenda Knight said, adding that she had received a stack of letters from the area with concerns.  "From one end of our community that I've been to the next, I have been asked about this project and I actually ran across only two people that were in favor."

"We are paying attention to you," Knight said.  "We do want to know what you think and we do care about your families and your kids.  On that note, thank you."

Councilman Brian DeForge said he had been troubled by the warehousing idea himself.

"The EIR [Environmental Impact Report] bothered me," DeForge said, in relation to the report which the AQMD previously claimed needed review.  "With that age of a document being used to apply to this, it's just not right... When I got on council, I got on the council because I wanted to create a community my children wanted to come back for."

The councilman said he believed warehouses do not put out many jobs once they're built, and the ones that it are created are low-paying.

"There have been a lot of good comments here tonight," Mayor Roger Berg said during the workshop.  "I do think that prematurely the developer got this through the planning commission quicker than what we envisioned."

Berg-- who defended the project when it was first presented to council on June 4-- told Patch after the meeting he wasn't surprised with the direction the meeting took.

"Here's the way I look at it: We made this plan 20 years ago for houses out there, and if that's what everyone wants; fine, we'll build that," he said.  "But we are going to have to find some job base for people."

As for the project's representation at the meeting, which included developer Dan Floriani of Pacific Industrial as well as Bley, they said they, too, were surprised by the council's decision to deny the project.

"We saw the turnout that was here and obviously we're surprised by what happened as the end result, but one of the things we tried to do, because we've been down this process before, is when there is this many people here... we wanted to proactively table this conversation tonight because we haven't had a proper chance-- and I think we take responsibility-- to actually sit down with the residents and educate them on the process, and in this kind of forum you can't do that," Floriani told Patch following the vote.

Floriani said he was concerned that many of the residents had inaccurate information about the project, but because of the workshop and council meeting setup, he couldn't respond directly to their concerns.

"We realized there hadn't been [effective communication], and we were hoping to facilitate that," Bley said.  

Lehman Brothers still has an approved project for the property, since the 1994 plan calling for primarily-residential buildings remains intact.   The Heartland Specific Plan calls for approximately 1,200 homes on 207.6 acres, 50.3 acres of industrial use, 11.5 acres of commercial use, 9.2 acres of school use, 25.3 acres of parks and 89 acres of open space.