\t\t\t\t\tWhat’s at stake?<\/p>\n
The Elm Avenue rezone on Thursday, if approved, would walk back the remaining parcels that the 2017 plan rezoned away from industrial. The landowner’s application asks to convert 11 parcels at Elm and Annadale avenues from Neighborhood Mixed Use back to Light Industrial.<\/p>\n
For more than three years, the owners of roughly $47 million worth of industrial property in southwest Fresno \u2013 including a minority owner of the Sacramento Kings \u2013 have been trying to rezone 55 acres of one of California\u2019s most polluted neighborhoods back to industrial. The state\u2019s air regulator, the city\u2019s planning commission, city planning staff and the mayor all say no.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On Thursday, the Fresno City Council will vote.<\/p>\n
In recent days, Sacramento attorneys for the landowners sent letters to the city accusing it of rushing the process on flawed data and warning they are prepared to litigate. On Monday night, inside a church in Southwest Fresno, residents met on how to combat the landowners\u2019 rezone attempt.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs God would have it, it\u2019s not working,\u201d Pastor B.T. Lewis said about the landowners\u2019 tactics, at Rising Star Missionary Baptist Church on Monday night.<\/p>\n
Lewis, who also serves as a community engagement liaison in the Mayor\u2019s Office, drew 30 southwest Fresno residents \u2014 some in the pews, some on Zoom \u2014 to organize ahead of Thursday\u2019s hearing. The vote would reverse a key piece of the community plan Lewis helped build.<\/p>\n
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In 2017, Lewis was part of a years-long effort that produced the Southwest Fresno Specific Plan, which phased out industrial zoning in one of the most pollution-burdened communities in California. The rezone application has been tabled or continued four times over the past year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lewis said the landowners and their lawyers have been pushing to delay a separate city planning effort \u2014 the Central Southeast Area Specific Plan \u2014 so its housing units can be used to offset the losses from the Southwest rezone \u2013 a requirement under state law. \u201cThey don\u2019t have the right to try to delay the Central Southeast plan for their purposes,\u201d Lewis said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI pause because sometimes I\u2019m just in awe of people\u2019s arrogance.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lewis told the residents that the landowners push to get the rezone done \u2014 and save their land values \u2014 have gone too far.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have more support this week than we\u2019ve had in past years in City Hall,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re not just trying to push us around. They\u2019re trying to push City Hall around. And folks just don\u2019t like to be pushed around.\u201d<\/p>\n
What industrial landowners want rolled back<\/p>\n
The Southwest Fresno Specific Plan was a landmark achievement. A steering committee of residents, business owners and community members spent more than two years crafting a vision for a neighborhood that had long borne the weight of the region\u2019s industrial sector. The plan area ranks in the 97th percentile statewide for pollution and poverty, according to CalEnviroScreen.<\/p>\n
The plan\u2019s central promise: get industrial zoning out of the neighborhood. Its core policy directed that all land previously designated for industrial use be rezoned to office and mixed-use categories.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It was an attempt to reverse decades of land use decisions which had packed people and warehouses together like sardines, Lewis said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m always amazed,\u201d he said, \u201cat the idea that you can have light industrial right next to a school. \u201c<\/p>\n
\u201cAs if the air knows better.\u201d<\/p>\n
What\u2019s at stake<\/p>\n
But the plan has already been chipped away once. In 2022, the council rezoned 32 acres in the neighborhood back to industrial, amid widespread community opposition. Councilmember Miguel Arias voted for that rezone.<\/p>\n
State Attorney General Rob Bonta called the move \u201clikely unlawful,\u201d but no legal challenge was filed. After being originally cut out<\/a> of the rezone deal, the remaining landowners on the adjacent 55 acres saw the vote as an opening \u2014 and filed the current application.<\/p>\n The Elm Avenue rezone on Thursday, if approved, would walk back the remaining parcels that the 2017 plan rezoned away from industrial. The landowner\u2019s application asks to convert 11 parcels at Elm and Annadale avenues from Neighborhood Mixed Use back to Light Industrial. <\/p>\n