A nonprofit called Advocates for the Environment has filed suit to overturn Oceanside’s approval of the Eddie Jones warehouse project that neighborhood residents fought for years on industrial property near the city’s airport.
Last month, the Oceanside City Council unexpectedly reversed its earlier denial of an application to build the warehouse, offices and manufacturing facilities, after the developer offered new concessions, including a $2.5 million contribution to maintain city parks or make capital improvements.
Nearby residents said the project would bring too much additional traffic, noise, and late-night light to local streets that connect the site on Eddie Jones Way with state Route 76 in the San Luis Rey Valley.
“The project will have significant negative environmental impacts, including adverse impacts from greenhouse-gas emissions (GHGs),” states the petition filed Sept. 5 in San Diego Superior Court by the Sunland-based advocates group.
“The (environmental impact report) failed to adequately discuss the project’s significant GHG impact and failed in its role as a public-information document,” the petition states. “The city failed to demonstrate consistency with several applicable plans, policies, and regulations.”
The group’s executive director, Dean Wallraff, said Monday in an email that Advocates for the Environment works to see that the California Environmental Quality Act is enforced to reduce GHG emissions from large projects, primarily warehouses, in California.
‘”As outlined in our petition filed with the court, the environmental analysis for GHGs for this project is faulty, so the EIR doesn’t require full mitigation of the project’s GHG impacts, as it should,” Wallraff said.
The Oceanside Planning Commission unanimously approved the project in February. Residents appealed the decision to the City Council, and on May 21 a majority of the council sided with the residents and overturned the approval on a 3-2 vote with Councilmembers Rick Robinson and Peter Weiss opposed.
Finalization of the May 21 decision, usually a routine matter, was scheduled two weeks later as part of the City Council’s consent calendar, a list of items usually approved in a single vote. However, the council pulled the Eddie Jones item for a separate vote and Councilmember Jimmy Figueroa, who supported the appeal in May, voted this time to deny the appeal and approve the project, along with Robinson and Weiss.
The site has been zoned for industrial activities since the 1960s, long before the nearby homes were built. For about 50 years, it was home to the Deutsch Company that made electronic parts for the defense industry.
In 2012, Deutsch sold it to TE Connectivity, another electronics company, which closed and left the building vacant in 2018. In 2021, TE Connectivity sold the property to the current owner, RPG Development.
Officials at RPG did not answer emails requesting comments Monday.