Residents make their voices heard in protesting warehouse

An open field south of the Floyd Avenue neighborhood is the proposed site of a distribution center.

By Doug Spoon, Editor

A community meeting designed to address residents’ concerns prompted a lot more grievances than solutions Thursday night at Menifee City Hall.

Residents of nearly 30 homes in a rural part of northwest Menifee continued their fight against developers from Ares Management Company, which owns a vacant field planned for a large distribution center just south of their neighborhood.

The 517,720-square-foot structure is planned for a site south of Ethanac Road and Floyd Avenue and north of an SCE utility corridor and McLaughlin Road. It would be built between Murrieta Road – a narrow two-lane road at that point -- and Geary Street, a dirt road that is currently closed because of another construction project. Most of the residents affected live on Floyd Avenue, an unpaved private road that runs east-west between Murrieta Road and Geary Street.

As reported here earlier, these families were in escrow with another development group that was planning a warehouse in the area. They had agreements to be bought out by Panattoni Development Company in 2022. However, with the real estate market changing and a lawsuit by the City of Perris looming, Panattoni backed out of the deal.

Unfortunately for the residents, Ares is not offering buyouts, saying it’s too big a risk to assemble 24 residences into a real estate deal at this time. And the way residents look at it, there’s nothing positive for them in the upcoming construction project, no matter how Ares spins it.

“All of those trucks will be going by my house 24/7,” one resident told Ares representative Peter Schafer. “How can you not buy us out? You’re creating a war zone for us.”

This was an informative meeting only, with no decision scheduled on the pending approval of the project. The Planning Commission denied the project in October after listening to residents’ concerns. Ares appealed the decision to the City Council, which on Dec. 5 delayed a decision, urging Ares to have more outreach to the homeowners.

City Council members were not required to attend, although Mayor Ricky Estrada and Mayor Pro Tem Bob Karwin did observe part of the meeting. City staff members also faced the anger of residents, especially when told that three other developments have already been approved for that portion of the city’s northern economic development corridor.

“How can the city think about development here over the next 20 or 30 years and not take into consideration the 24 residences there?” said another resident. “After we fell out of escrow, nobody rushed to consider us. Before you allowed one company to destroy our lives, why didn’t you figure out the entire plan? We didn’t move here thinking we’d be living next to this.”

Even if it is approved, the project would not be completed for about two years, Schafer said. Tenants would likely not commit to the building until it is near completion. Schafer said they could range anywhere from a Home Depot distribution center to smaller businesses.

One thing is certain: There would be lots of semi-trucks rumbling south on Murrieta Road from Ethanac Road, into the facility south of Floyd Avenue, and out onto Geary Street to exit north onto Ethanac after making their deliveries. Schafer said a traffic study indicated there could be up to 200 truck trips to the site each day.

City officials assured residents that truck traffic would not be allowed on Floyd Avenue, but neither that or two other mitigating improvements suggested by Ares placated the homeowners.

The only improvements agreed to by Ares since the last public meeting was to plant more trees to create more of a landscape screen between the properties; and to pave Floyd Avenue. Improvements announced by the City’s Public Works Department were to add a right turn lane on northbound Murrieta Road to ease congestion at Ethanac Road; and create a wider left turn lane from westbound Ethanac Road to southbound Murrieta Road for easier truck entrance into the neighborhood.

Pressed for details on the future of that economic development corridor, Public Works Director Nick Fidler said that ultimately, Ethanac Road will become a 6-lane expressway that will connect the 215 and 15 Freeways. He admitted that several other industrial projects would likely come to the area, but that many of these changes would take several years.

The residents’ concerns are now, however – including the noise, pollution and congestion that will come from the truck traffic. A consultant who spoke regarding the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) did not appease them when she discussed environmental impacts that were measured for the project.

Konstanza Dobreva of EPD Solutions, Inc. said that noise levels would remain below the threshold regulated by the state at no more than 2.5 decibels. Even so, she admitted that “It doesn’t exceed city standards, but that doesn’t mean you won’t hear it." She also said that the level of pollutants would not be over the state threshold, but “as with many projects, you will have an increased cancer risk. It’s just not beyond the threshold.”

Schafer said Ares would cover lights with a shield to direct the light downward, hopefully minimizing the effects on residents trying to sleep at night.

As residents continued to complain, Schafer said Ares would “continue to talk about things we can do for you.”

“There’s nothing you can do,” one resident shouted. "Our homes will be worth nothing."

Ares’ appeal of the Planning Commission’s denial will be taken up again by the City Council, but no date for that meeting has been set. It is unclear what discussions between the two sides might take place in the near future.

One resident left early in the meeting, urging his neighbors not to listen to the developers and to band together in protest.

“What I don’t like is that they suggested a couple changes only after you complained,” he said, rising out of his seat and looking at Ares representatives. “Enough is enough. Because I’m not as affluent as you are, I have to have a 500,000-square-foot structure by my house. There’s a saying developers use: ‘There’s cash and there’s trash.’ I feel like that’s what we are to these people. All these slides they are showing you aren’t going to make a difference.”

He then walked out. Stay tuned.

The proposed site of the distribution center, looking south from Floyd Avenue.

 As it exists now, Floyd Avenue is an unpaved private road and Murrieta Road is just two lanes.