VANCOUVER, Wash. — It is a bit of a switch. Usually cities are trying to attract new business. But in this case, it's the type of business generated by mega warehouses and how they impact a community that's the concern in the city of Vancouver.
There are buildings, like one planned for land off Fruit Valley Road, which are not covered by the moratorium because their applications were accepted prior to it.
The Fruit Valley site will likely become a 365,000 square-foot warehouse. It has not yet been disclosed for what purpose, but the developer has worked with e-commerce giant Amazon to build warehouses in the past. That's a concern for those advocating for people in the Fruit Valley neighborhood.
“I do think it's important not to subject minorities and poor people who are already impacted by these projects to more of it without them having a chance to weigh in,” said Heidi Cody with Alliance for Community Engagement Southwest Washington, who pointed to increased truck traffic, noise and pollution as byproducts of such a facility.
Cody also noted the importance of Vancouver’s plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80% in the city by 2035, an ambitious framework.
“That’s only 12 years away, so if we don’t regulate large-scale warehouses that bring in lots and lots of diesel truck traffic, we’ve got a problem with pollution,” said Cody.
Applications by various developers for the Fruit Valley site and seven others in the city were red flags leading up to the end of last year. They had Vancouver’s community development department asking for time to study "how many is too many" when it comes to mega warehouses on limited industrial land.
The city noted that the large logistics warehouses don't generally bring lots of jobs, or ones that pay particularly well.
“That's where the main concern is; there are some other concerns about pollution and impact to neighborhoods from these very large warehouses and we're talking a scale we haven't seen before," said Chad Eiken, director of Community Development for Vancouver.
Eiken said the city set an emergency moratorium in December on plans for warehouses 100,000 square feet or larger. This week, the city council approved keeping the moratorium in place until May — this time for warehouses of 250,000 square feet and up.
They heard from business interests, who appreciate the increase on square footage connected to the moratorium but preferred having no moratorium at all.
“There's a lot of risk with the moratorium. It is a real – in the words of a lot of developers — 'blunt tool' to just halt development,” said Sherrie Jones, executive director of the Southwest Washington Contractors Association. She noted that there are many uses for warehouse space, and often space is shared by smaller businesses as well.
But new plans to fill large open fields with the biggest of warehouses is on hold, as the city considers how many it can handle, and where they should go.
“We also recognize that e-commerce, we're not trying to exclude them, we're just responding to some of the concerns that have been raised,” said Eiken.
The moratorium is in place until May, but the city’s Community Development Department will likely request that it be extended another six months to have the time they need to study the issue, engage all stakeholders and come up with a plan.