The Long Beach Planning Commission on Thursday approved the environmental review of a new self-storage warehouse wedged between the Los Cerritos neighborhood and the Los Angeles River, despite objections from residents and activists over potential consequences to the surrounding environment.
Commissioners voted to recommend the project, a 44-foot-tall, 206,756-square-foot self-storage facility with office space, private car wash and RV parking lot. The project will next come before the Long Beach City Council at a later date.
It would replace a 14-acre blighted industrial site, formerly used as a golf range and, before that, as an oil field with a treatment sump and more than a dozen derricks — the last of which were abandoned in 2014.
Nearby construction crews came to Thursday’s meeting to grumble about the site: a fenced off collection of dirt, host to abandoned cars, homeless encampments and vandals they claim set fire to trailers and siphon electricity from a nearby billboard.
Several workers contended that the local homeless had broken into a nearby Caltrans work site, stealing equipment from work trailers.
Ray Lawson, steward with the Western States Regional Council Carpenters Union Local 562, said a member picnic was cut short after the homeless broke into a trailer, stealing TVs, power tools and other giveaway prizes.
Lawson said he and others tracked the goods to an encampment at the site.
“There were hundreds of syringes there, we showed them to the police, right at that encampment,” Lawson said. “ … It is blighted, it is stagnant. There’s nothing going on there… and it’s been there for years.”
While the vote was a victory for Lawson and others, it came as a defeat to activists and residents who have argued the project will remove the opportunity for much-needed greenery and a natural water basin from the nearby LA River, while inviting smog, traffic and water contamination.
Environmentalists in the audience said it would endanger nearby species, from the burrowing owl to the southern tarplant.
This part of the region is distinguished by its dearth of open space. According to the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Long Beach and South Bay Chapter, western Long Beach has about a single acre of parkland per thousand residents; in comparison, East Long Beach residents enjoy 16.7 acres per 1,000 people.
This is the latest skirmish in a battle that began in 2020, when the planning commission first approved site plans at the same location. Following council approval in April 2021, a federal judge ruled in June 2022 in favor of environmentalists to block the development, requiring a new round of approvals and environmental review.
Attorneys representing the Riverpark Coalition and LA Waterkeeper, both of which sued to stop the development, said Thursday that the current proposal was still inadequate, stealing the opportunity for more open space
“This is not going to be park space in a park-rich community,” said Benjamin Harris, senior staff attorney at Los Angeles Waterkeeper. “It would be park space in a park-poor community.”
Third-party consultants, who came at the request of the Riverpark Coalition, said the project would remove a natural stormwater basin and contaminate the nearby Los Angeles River. Another claimed the project, given its proximity to the river, needed a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
“Proceeding without this permit exposes not only the city but also the developer to potential injunctions, penalties, and restoration orders,” Pearl Hanks, a certified geologist with PEnterprise Consulting.
“If we allow this project to go through knowing it violates these standards, why do we bother having standards?” said Ray Kapahi, an air consultant from Sacramento.
But the city refuted these claims, bringing forward its own air and water consultants who said the project would not bring about any significant disruption to air quality or the LA River.
In the plan, developers agreed to maintain a half-acre native plant preserve in the north section of the site. They also agreed to pave a trailhead through its southern half that connects the Los Cerritos neighborhood to the LA River bike path.
The commission ruled in favor of the project, saying that it is not within its purview to refuse an environmental review on a private project simply because they would rather have a park there.
The city also lacks the cash, the commission determined.
Citing a 2021 city study, officials said a similar 11-acre site would cost $27.5 million to develop, on top of the $2 million needed to purchase the land and $250,000 per year to maintain it.
By comparison, the city’s Parks, Recreation, and Marine Department budget in fiscal year 2025 was $85.33 million. Projecting a $57.3 million shortfall through 2031, the city says it simply cannot afford to buy the land and convert it into a park.
“It would be great to have more parks everywhere, including this parcel,” Long Beach Community Development Director Christopher Koontz said. “But what we’re telling you is that the zoning and those plans do not require the city to make this a park. The city does not own this parcel, and zoning does not prohibit this project.”