The city of Oceanside is being sued after reversing itself last month and approving the controversial Eddie Jones Warehouse project.
The project was denied back in May, but the City Council reversed its decision in August. Now the city is being sued by the nonprofit Advocates for the Environment.
“Our aim in filing the lawsuit is to improve the project analysis,” said Aria Soeprono, an attorney with Advocates for the Environment.
The suit, filed on Sept. 5, alleges that the city failed to sufficiently address greenhouse gas emissions in its review to meet California's climate standards, a violation of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).
“Because CEQA is not just procedural, it also has substantive requirements. It does impose mitigation for any significant impacts that are found after a careful analysis is done," Soeprono said. "So, our lawsuit is solely focused on this greenhouse gas impact.”
The proposed project is a 497,882 square foot facility made up of four separate buildings with a total of 28 semitruck bays. It’s smaller than the original plan, which called for 114 bays.
Mikhael Madello lives on the hills overlooking where the Eddie Jones Warehouse project is going to be built. She and some of her neighbors are part of a grassroots group called Oceanside Speaks Out, and they are concerned about pollution and the added traffic congestion, especially during wildfire evacuations.
“The problem for me is traffic, and really traffic as it impacts safety," Madello said. "Not just pollution. But fire evacuations, egress and ingress in case of an emergency.”
Her neighborhood was evacuated during a wildfire in June 2022. So she’s concerned how the added traffic from the warehouse would impact evacuation, but Soeprono says that’s not what the suit is about.
“Our program is focused on cumulative greenhouse gas impact, which contributes to climate change," she said. "So, that's the main focus of what Advocates for the Environment wants to reduce. But there's also many ways of reducing greenhouse gases that also have co-benefits for traffic and air pollution, and that's because they share the same source of impact, which is vehicle trips, vehicle miles traveled.”
Soeprono said the goal of the lawsuit was not to stop the project, but to make sure it conforms with CEQA.
Oceanside Speaks Out is not a party to the lawsuit, but Madello said she was pleasantly surprised by it.
“It was like a gift,” she said. Madello isn’t entirely opposed to the idea of an industrial warehouse in the area. She wants it scaled down to what the area was zoned for.
“The entire parcel of land can have only six heavy trucks on the premises at one time,” she said.
A Conditional Use Permit would be needed for more trucks.
The city declined to comment because of the pending litigation.
