Amazon ‘last mile’ freight application denied again

The latest proposal to reinvent an Eighth Street East warehouse property as a potential Amazon “last mile” delivery station was rejected this week by county officials, who deemed the application incomplete, citing insufficient information involving environmental review and traffic volume.

This marks the third time the county’s permitting office, Permit Sonoma, has kicked back an application from Fairfield-based developer Jose McNeill to convert his 22810 Eighth St. E. property to a freight terminal for online retail package delivery.

“We’re working through the (permitting) process,” McNeill told the Index-Tribune this week. “It’s a use that will fit — and benefit — Sonoma County.”

McNeill purchased the land in 2014 for $4 million, with plans to build what he proposed as a shipping and storage facility on the site, potentially of use for wine-related businesses. Based on that fitting in with the property’s “rural light industrial” zoning designation, the county issued him a use permit in 2017 and he completed construction on the $32 million, 250,000 square foot facility – dubbed “Victory Station – in 2018.

When Amazon emerged in 2020 as a potential Victory Station tenant, county officials initially said its use as a “last mile” distribution center by the online retail giant was permitted under its current permit. But a pair of neighborhood watchdog groups, Mobilize Sonoma and Valley of the Moon Alliance, appealed the decision, arguing that such a large-scale operation should be considered a freight terminal, thereby triggering the need for a new use permit.

Originally, Amazon’s planned warehouse and distribution operation was envisioned to host 136 on-site employees, 151 van-delivery drivers, 40 flex-delivery drivers and 14 large-haul trucks.

Norman Gilroy, of Mobilize Sonoma, said at the time Amazon’s planned use was "a sufficiently large escalation from what was originally proposed“ under its “rural light industrial” use permit. And in February of 2021 the county Board of Zoning Adjustments agreed, sending McNeill back to reapply for a new permit.

A follow-up application was deemed incomplete by Permit Sonoma in May of 2021, with the permitting agency requesting more information in a litany of areas, including lighting, irrigation and landscaping; water and energy conservation plans; transportation, groundwater and greenhouse gas emission information; and clarification of hours of operation.

The latest application, submitted in July of 2021, revised the scale of the operation, downsizing to 87 onsite employees, 87 van delivery drivers, 24 flex delivery drivers and seven large-haul trucks, according to Permit Sonoma.

In a letter to McNeill addressed March 8, Permit Sonoma again dubbed the application “incomplete” and requested more detailed information regarding anticipated Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) for all delivery vans and employee vehicles, a more accurate analysis of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) and additional groundwater and infiltration analysis.

Additionally, permit officials requested an updated traffic-impact study.

“Permit Sonoma and TPW (Transportation and Public Works) remain concerned that traffic associated with the Amazon truck terminal distribution center could result in adverse traffic or traffic safety impacts specific to the concentrated disbursement of delivery vehicles throughout the area, not only on State Routes 121 and 12,” wrote Blake Hillegas, project planner with Permit Sonoma.

The agency also took issue with the applicant’s failure to include the miles traveled by the proposed 87 delivery trucks in its VMT numbers.

“The applicant contends that the delivery vehicles do not qualify as light duty trucks, but qualify as heavy trucks, which and therefore should not be included in the VMT analysis per the state’s technical guidance,” Hillegas said in an email to the Index-Tribune.

State code refers to VMT as “distance of automobile travel attributable to a project”; while its “technical advisory” section defines an automobile as “on-road passenger vehicles, specifically cars and light duty trucks.” The applicant, therefore, didn’t count the vehicle miles driven by its vans, which it considers heavy trucks.

In a joint letter to Permit Sonoma dated Feb. 27, Mobilize Sonoma and the Valley of the Moon Alliance blasted the applicant’s VMT analysis for excluding trips made by its delivery vans.

“It is exceedingly difficult to accept that ‘rationale’ with a straight face, or to have any sense that Amazon and the applicant are approaching this use permit process with any degree of integrity,” wrote Gilroy and Kathy Pons in the letter.

The two also called for thorough CEQA environmental review of the proposal. “It would be hard to conceive of a situation in which Permit Sonoma could rationally conclude that the (Vehicle Miles Traveled) of the fully loaded 60-plus heavy duty vans this project will send out through the streets of Sonoma Valley, seven days a week, 365 days a year, will not have an impact on the environment worthy of analysis under CEQA,” wrote Gilroy and Pons.

According to Hillegas, the applicant must next submit an updated and comprehensive response addressing the identified issues. “Once we have deemed the application complete, we will need to update the environmental review for the project and complete the project analysis,” said Hillegas.

When the environmental review is complete, the project will be scheduled to come back before the Board of Zoning Adjustments.

Email Jason Walsh at Jason.walsh@sonomanews.com.