Warehouses Instead of Homes

The central justification for the proposed Airport Gateway Project is that it will create “a thriving jobs center” with up to 5,097 jobs compared to the 487 jobs in what is now largely a residential neighborhood.

The Inland Valley Development Agency plans to convert a 678-acre residential and mixed-use area north of San Bernardino International Airport into 9.2 million-square feet of warehouse and industrial space.

However, this template for economic development has already been shown to create poverty-level jobs, economic hardship, and precariously housed workers.

Warehouse Jobs Near the Airport

Frontline warehouse workers employed near the airport earn an average of $21,522 a year. Over half of these workers are in poverty or near poverty. Twenty-seven percent live in overcrowded housing and 41 percent are rent-burdened.

These earnings fall far short of a living wage and raise questions about the credibility of claimed economic benefits from increasing the number of these poverty-wage jobs.

Half of frontline warehouse workers near the airport depend on public social safety net benefits for food stamps, government-funded health car, or cash welfare.

Environmental Impacts

Cargo Airplanes

The proposed Gateway Project would increase the amount of warehouse and industrial development around the airport by 24 percent, with a corresponding increase in adverse environmental impacts.

An estimated 2,604 cargo aircraft from five corporate fleets are projected to land at San Bernardino International Airport in 2023. They will be airborne for 9,981 hours and burn 12,007,624 gallons of jet fuel.

Every gallon of jet fuel that is burned combines with air to create over 27 pounds of emissions, most of it in the form of greenhouse gases. This already creates 328,178,088 of annual emissions along the flight path of these planes.

The additional flights that will be expedited by the proposed new logistics facilities are projected to result in 78,385,188 additional pounds of emissions a year along the flight paths of cargo planes landing at the airport.

Diesel Trucks

For every 1,887 square feet of space in a warehouse, one truck enters or leaves every day that it is open. This means that if the Gateway Project is approved, the new facilities can be expected to create an additional 1,566,232 truck trips a year, travelling 41,899,841 additional miles a year.

Based on the public health costs of these emissions calculated by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, criteria and hazardous emissions from additional diesel truck traffic created by the Gateway Project would cause $15,528,570 in uncompensated public health costs each year.

Based on the costs of climate change calculated by U.S. Interagency Working Group on the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases, greenhouse gas emissions from diesel truck traffic for the Gateway Project would cause $5,651,964 in uncompensated environmental costs each year.

In addition, vehicle accidents, pavement damage, traffic congestion, and noise resulting from the additional truck traffic would result in over $831 million in uncompensated public costs each year..

Gateway Neighborhood

The Gateway Area is a neighborhood of children and working-age adults, with roughly three-quarters of residents renting their homes.

The median annual earned income of employed residents is $23,211. The median income for all of the households in the Gateway neighborhood is $28,553 a year. Thirty-seven percent of Gateway residents have household incomes below the poverty threshold.

Most rent their homes and have meager incomes. Rent levels are very low – typically $1,064 a month. But a majority of renters struggle to pay their rent. Preservation of this affordable housing is crucial for Gateway residents.

If residents of the Gateway neighborhood are displaced from their housing, their prospects for finding comparably affordable housing are bleak. There is a strong likelihood that many would become more severely rent burdened and that some would become homeless.

This report has identified significant additional costs from the proposed Gateway Project to residents who would be displaced, the environment and the public. These costs appear to outweigh claimed benefits from the Airport Gateway Project.

Press Coverage

San Bernardino airport business park would create poverty-level jobs, report says
Jeff Horseman, The Press-Enterprise (October 8, 2023)

A Just Transition For Southern California
Paul Rosenberg, Random Lengths News, (September 28, 2023)

Reports claim trucks tied to warehousing are fueling inequality in SoCal
Anthony Victoria, KVCR News (September 28, 2023)