The Riverside County Planning Commission delayed a decision Sept. 23 on an amendment that would set boundaries for where future industrial projects, including warehouses, are allowed in Mead Valley — an unincorporated community that is already overburdened with warehouses, say concerned residents and advocates. The commission will revisit the amendment Oct. 21. 

The Inland Empire is home to over one billion square feet of warehouses and growing. According to Region in Crisis 2, a follow-up to the 2023 study on logistics in San Bernardino and Riverside Counties, Mead Valley leads the region in warehouse footprint per resident — around 1,500 square feet. While the proposed amendment would establish a boundary, concerns mount over industrial encroachment. 

The proposed amendment would cover nearly 3,200 acres east of Day Street, south of Nandina Avenue, north of Nuero Road and west of Interstate 215. It would create an industrial core overlay — a zone with strict guidelines for industry — within the Mead Valley Area Plan. 

Planning Director John Hildebrand said the area along the I-215 has long been identified as an industrial corridor. The proposed overlay is intended to set a western boundary for industrial projects. 

“It doesn’t build anything,” Hildebrand told Inland Empire Community News (IECN). “It simply is an expectation of a boundary of where industrial can go and where it should not go.”

The county considers the amendment exempt from further environmental review under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and its Common Sense Exemption because the amendment proposes no physical development and will not have significant environmental effects. 

Hildebrand said the boundary would not automatically approve warehouses or other industrial projects. Developers would still have to go through the county’s normal approval process, including public hearings and environmental review. 

IECN spoke with Franco Pacheco of the Freight Communities Action Coalition, who argued that the proposed boundary does not go far enough to protect Mead Valley from more warehouses. He questioned if the proposed overlay is really intended to set a western boundary.

“If that was truly the case, they could just implement a warehouse moratorium on any new project,” Pacheco said. “And instead, we get a plan like this, which invites warehousing under the guise of ‘we’re actually limiting it,’ which is not true.”

Hildebrand provided a follow-up response over email. 

“The County’s proposed approach is not intended to prohibit industrial development altogether,” he wrote, adding that the goal is to establish where projects may be considered while limiting further westward expansion in Mead Valley. “This approach allows the County to address where industrial development is appropriate through long-term land-use policy rather than through a broad moratorium on new projects.”

The commission scheduled to revisit the amendment to Oct. 21 after requesting additional maps showing the proposed boundary in relation to Mead Valley, active projects and the separate Mead Valley Community Plan. 

Whatever the commission recommends, the amendment will have to go before the Riverside County Board of Supervisors for a final decision.