This story was originally published by LA Public Pressan independent, non-profit newsroom advocating for a better Los Angeles. Support their work here.
In 1999, Pomona resident Joe Hinojos knocked on doors in southeast Pomona and organized neighbors against a wood products facility that was polluting the air and leaving sawdust in backyards.
For years, residents of the Southern California city’s industrial zone have pushed back against the growing number of waste facilities near residences in a mostly Latino neighborhood. These efforts culminated in the city council’s 2012 approval of a controversial waste transfer station.
The decision launched a wave of activism in Pomona. Two environmental justice groups, Clean and Green Pomona and United Voices of Pomona for Environmental Justice (co-founded by Hinojos’ daughter Linda), launched in 2012. Two years later, the groups successfully advocated for a ban on new waste and recycling facilities .
But the underlying zoning allowing industrial uses near homes remained, and online shopping increased demand for warehouses and air-polluting diesel trucks. The same groups that fought waste facilities a decade ago are now fighting another source of pollution in the same neighborhood.
But after 75 years, the city of Pomona is finally on track to make major changes to its zoning code this year for the first time since its initial creation back in 1949. The new zoning code is expected to be finalized by April.
“A lot of facilities that our communities didn’t want ended up in our city, and there wasn’t the zoning or accountability to stop it. While we’ve done various initiatives to try to reduce pollution, the zoning of how things are baked into the foundations of the city is quite important,” said Lisa Engdahl, president of the board at Clean and Green Pomona.
How does zoning work?
Across Southern California lies each community’s zoning code — a labyrinthine, technical and detailed set of rules that determine factors such as how far a house can be set back from the street, or which areas are suitable for warehouses and which are better suited for residences – substantiated. what neighborhoods look and feel like. Zoning and land use decisions are also the foundation of many environmental justice issues, as they determine how close polluting facilities can be to homes and schools and often place pollution disproportionately in low-income communities of color.
In Pomona, pollution disproportionately impacts the mostly Latino neighborhood in the city’s industrial zone. The southeast corner of Pomona, where warehouses have proliferated in recent years, is one of California’s most polluted neighborhoods. As of 2018, the neighborhood falls within the 92nd percentile of areas in California with the highest pollution burdens, meaning that only 8 percent of areas in the state experienced a higher pollution burden. Every day, all around 8,000 trucks travel to and from Pomona’s 125 warehouseswhich emit pounds and pounds of greenhouse gases and particulates, which have been linked to respiratory problems and other health problems.
Like many other cities, Pomona’s development was shaped by discriminatory redlining practices of the 1930s. Red-line zones, mostly communities of color, were considered “dangerous”, while white communities were deemed suitable for investment.
Pomona’s first – and current – zoning map is from 1949
Pomona adopted its first zoning map in 1949 when these practices were more common, and that map has endured for nearly 75 years, still shaping today’s health disparities. Reservoir Street, which now adjoins the industrial zone, was described in 1939 redline maps as being in “decline” and “largely owned by the low-income working class.”
“The fact that it took so long to update the zoning code certainly reflects past professional malpractice, that critical updates affecting community health did not occur,” Engdahl said.
When the code was adopted, multifamily housing was intentionally placed next to industrial zones to protect single-family neighborhoods. But since single-family homes then contained deed restrictions that kept non-white families from buying them, this meant that communities of color were deliberately placed near industrial sites, a division that continues today. More than 90 percent of Pomona’s Hispanic population live within industrial zones or high density zones in proximity to major highways, while the majority of the city’s white population away from the industrial zones.
“Systemic discrimination is still rampant in the city of Pomona based on the condition of our streets, our homes and our neighborhood,” said Nora Garcia, a city council member who represents southeast Pomona. “There’s no doubt in my mind that having such an antiquated zoning code has helped things persevere. But I am also cynical enough to believe that these were also old prejudices against communities like mine.”
Today, the 67-year-old Hinojos still lives on Phillips Boulevard, where his home of 40 years is technically a “nonconforming” use that doesn’t match the area’s industrial zoning. It is one of many such houses in this zone, which is home to more than 17,500 residents. After decades of living in this polluted neighborhood, Hinojos needed a double lung transplant two years ago.
“What is our health worth? What is the dollar value of a life worth their cleaning up this pollution? My insurance was billed $1.7 million for my surgery, so my life is worth $1.7 million so far,” he said.
“Historically, that’s been Pomona’s reputation,” Linda Hinojos said as she drove past warehouses and scrap yards in the industrial zone. “But we are changing it now…. We now have a different vision for what we want the city to be.”
The zoning code update, one of several measures currently underway addressing structural racism in Pomona’s land use policy is one way the city is trying to achieve that vision.
There are currently no specific regulations or standards for large warehouses and other logistics facilities in Pomona’s zoning code, which has not been fully updated since 1949. The city’s current zoning code has only one manufacturing zoning definition, which allows for a wide variety of manufacturing and industrial uses. Without more specific definitions of what is allowed, city staff interpret whether each business application fits the zoning. And while the old zoning code only provided a permitted “use,” such as warehouses as a use in the industrial zone, the new zoning code would further define what is allowed in certain areas by other categories such as building size and function. “Warehouses” will no longer be a use, but instead will be a “type” of building, which recognizes that a warehouse can serve a variety of uses, such as a brewery or a fulfillment center, according to Ata Khan, planning manager with the city.
According to Engdahl, the current zoning has also made it difficult to hold companies accountable because many facilities are under their own conditional use permit with their own rules. “When you don’t have consistent zoning, you don’t know what rules have been agreed upon with that particular facility, […] how well thought out those rules were, and how consistent can depend on who is in leadership at the time and planning circumstances in the city,” Engdahl said.
A moratorium on warehouses in Pomona
Environmental justice groups won a moratorium on new large warehouse and trucking facilities in July 2022, which the Pomona City Council has voted multiple times to extend. The warehouse moratorium was also tied to the zoning code update, with the moratorium intended to prevent new large warehouses from being approved under the 1949 zoning code while staff worked on new and more relevant regulations for the 2023 logistics industry.
But in early December 2023, the city council voted to let the moratorium expire, ending the long-running but ultimately temporary measure. The city council failed to get the necessary six out of seven votes in support of an extension at a Dec. 4 meeting. Vice Mayor Elizabeth Ontiveros-Cole and Councilman Robert Torres both voted against the extension after some pushback from industry representatives, despite a majority of public comments in support of the extension.
This means that as of January 1, 2024, Pomona’s zoning around warehouses has gone back in time to 1949, and will remain there until the city finalizes the zoning code this spring. The typical timeline for approving permits to build new warehouses means it’s unlikely developers can submit an application in January and be approved before the zoning code is updated, Khan said at the December meeting. But the city regularly receives applications for licenses on existing properties, which can be reused in logistics facilities.
“For the past two years, about once a week, our department has regretted releasing a license for something where someone thought they were going to do something and they ended up doing something else,” Khan told the Dec. 4 city council said. e-commerce on one line on a business license, there is no description, and we have nothing to hold them. I might come back to that property in two months, and it’s full of a hundred trailers, and we have no code to stop it.”
This story was supported with grants from the Los Angeles Press Club.
