Who should protect Palm Springs from monster warehouse proliferation? Elected officials
Most of us came to Palm Springs and neighboring communities for the charm, beauty and tranquility of the surrounding desert and picturesque mountains. Unfortunately, there have been periodic developments which threaten these qualities, but fortunately there also have been individuals around to protect them.
Elected officials have not always been of help. Once more we need people to stand up to the latest threat: the mega warehouses, which have already disfigured much of the Inland Empire as far as the eye can see standing cheek-to-jowl as their heavy trucks spew air and noise pollution, not to speak of visual pollution.
Believe it or not, 1 billion square feet of warehouses have already been built in San Bernardino and Riverside counties. It has gotten so bad that several critics have appealed to Gov. Newsom to declare a regional emergency and a moratorium on all new warehouse construction there. They have also called on the legislature and produced a report titled, "Region in Crisis."
I blame our last Palm Springs City Council for hastily changing our zoning ordinance to allow the monsters here. Their priorities were all wrong. They seemed more interested in moving Frank Bogert's statue rather than protecting our lovely town. Though the mega warehouses are not desirable anywhere, they definitely have no place in a resort community where people go to get away from it all! Our Coachella Valley tourist economy surely will be severely damaged.
It is high time that our board of supervisors declares the Coachella Valley as a tourist zone where heavy industry, including warehouses, are simply banned. This was promised by the supervisors in 1969 after the refinery proposal was stopped, but more about that later.
Meanwhile, the current city council needs to scrap that unholy, permissive zoning ordinance and cancel what the last city council adopted. At least they need to issue a moratorium. If they are not sure how the residents feel, put it on the ballot. That is a democratic way to handle a crucial issue. I am confident I know the outcome.
Allow me to give a little historic account of how fragile our unique brand really is so that external forces can so easily wreak havoc. At the same time, I want to show the importance of citizen involvement by those who love this town and jump into action when needed. We certainly need you now!
To start off, in 1948 when a major cement plant said to employ 500 was proposed for Palm Springs, pioneer women Nellie Coffman, owner of the Desert Inn and Pearl McManus, Judge McCallum's daughter, were leaders of the group that stopped it. It would have impacted more than Palm Springs.
When the State Division of Highways wanted to build the I-10 Freeway right through Palm Springs and adjacent towns, it was Francis Crocker, the father of the tramway, who stopped it, persistently fighting it three separate times. Had he not prevailed it would have been the end of Palm Springs and all the cove communities. As he put it, “One of our major resources is tranquility.”
In 1969, two oil refineries were proposed for the San Gorgonio Pass. Their pollutants would have blown into Palm Springs and the rest of the Coachella Valley, given the prevailing western winds. Yours truly played a major role in making them go away, although I was not even a resident then. I accomplished this as a gubernatorial appointee of Governor Reagan to the State Environmental Quality Study Council. I was able to hold a public hearing about this and issue a moratorium.
In 2009, another impactful proposal raised its ugly head. An 8,000-inmate monster jail was to be built on the I-10 near the entrance of Palm Springs. Not a great image for leisure visitors. This was a hard one to fight as the county had already drawn up the plans and had acquired the land. Most people thought it was a done deal. Together with Paul Lewin, we managed to help raise the public opinion in the valley against the jail and beat it.
In 2019 another major threat to the charm and tranquility in Palm Springs, specifically, was the 11,000-person capacity ice hockey and entertainment venue which was to be crammed in only 15 acres in the heart of town served only by a network of narrow streets with an immense shortage of needed parking. Our last city council again seemed inadequate to deal with this and foolishly suggested blanketing the city with parking meters as a solution.
My group, ABCD (Advocates for Better Community Development) joined up with "Palm Springs Together," run by civic activist Cary Brazeman. His group even put full-page ads in The Desert Sun and Los Angeles Times against the project. Since it was Native American land, we petitioned the U.S. Department of the Interior for a full environmental impact analysis. Common sense prevailed and the project was moved to a better location along the freeway where 125 acres were available.
If these battles had not been won, Palm Springs and its surrounding towns would hardly be anywhere near the desirable as they are today, if not vanished altogether. I urge everyone concerned to call or write Supervisor V. Manuel Perez at 760-863-8211 and request at least a moratorium on any mega warehouses in the Coachella Valley until we have found a better way to control them. If not, as we can see in the Inland Empire, there soon won't be any real desert left in the Coachella Valley since the mega warehouses proliferate like rats.
Concerned Palm Springs and Desert Hot Springs residents should definitely call on their city councils to scrap their permissive mega warehouse ordinances now on the books. With the latter town’s wind, water and dust problems closing their access roads regularly, warehouses don’t even make sense there at all. Instead, we should be on the forefront of banning them across the entire Coachella Valley.
If you are concerned, email me your contact information to keep you informed and involved.
Frank Tysen is a Fulbright Scholar, a Guggenheim Fellow and former professor of urban and regional planning USC. Email him at frankjtysen@gmail.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Elected officials must protect Palm Springs area from monster warehouses
