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East LA truck yard approved; new county rules for battery storage take shape · LA County

• 0:07
  Maya: On this week's episode: the Regional Planning Commission approves a truck storage yard in East Los Angeles after opposition from a community group and a nearby resident, and county planners update the commission on new rules for battery storage and green hydrogen.
• 0:26
  Maya: Five supervisors, nearly ten million people. Here's your weekly debrief.
• 0:32
  Maya: Only one county meeting made our list this week: the Regional Planning Commission, on Wednesday. Its five members are appointed by the Board of Supervisors, and it hears land-use cases in the parts of the county outside any city.
• 0:45
  Theo: Wednesday's truck yard case was in East Los Angeles. And Maya, a lot of people assume East LA is a city.
• 0:52
  Maya: It isn't. East Los Angeles is unincorporated. It's the most populous of the county's more than one hundred twenty unincorporated communities, with nearly a hundred and nineteen thousand residents. There's no mayor and no city council. The county is the local government.
• 1:07
  Theo: And a bit of history: the commission was created in late nineteen twenty-two, and it's the oldest county planning commission in the United States.
• 1:14
  Maya: This episode was produced with AI from the public recording of the meeting. Links to the source are in the show notes.
• 1:24
  Maya: Our top story: on Wednesday the planning commission voted five to zero to allow a truck storage yard on Medford Street in East Los Angeles.
• 1:33
  Theo: What exactly is going there?
• 1:35
  Maya: The site is thirty-eight thirty-three Medford Street, about two point four acres that used to be a plastics manufacturer. The permit allows outdoor storage of up to seventy-seven trucks: thirty-one semis with trailers, and forty-six box trucks. The site is zoned heavy manufacturing and sits in a Green Zone, and there are homes within five hundred feet, to the southwest.
• 1:57
  Theo: A Green Zone sounds like it would come with stricter rules.
• 2:01
  Maya: That question came up. A commissioner asked, and county staff said the project is still subject to the Green Zone ordinance, which the county adopted in June twenty twenty-two. The application was deemed complete in January of twenty twenty-four. That was before the county adopted its Metro Area Plan and the later Green Zone technical update, which mainly added the Green Zone label to the zoning.
• 2:23
  Theo: What did neighbors say?
• 2:25
  Maya: Staff reported two public comments against it. One was a letter from a local community group, and both said the area is already overburdened with industry, pollution, and traffic. The group asked for a three-year permit instead of fifteen, fewer trucks, box trucks only, and all business kept on the property. A nearby resident, who said she belongs to that group, also spoke remotely. She said mornings are already congested and blocked by trucks, and she asked the commission at least to shorten the term. Here she is, a member of the public, on how the process looks from her neighborhood.
• 3:01
  A member of the public (from the meeting): And so it's really hard to sort of, you know, play whack a mole and, you know, have to weigh in on individual projects, and then be told, well, it's it's a heavy manufacturing area, so, you know, you have to just sort of wait until a bigger cohesive plan happens, and then the circle continues.
• 3:19
  Theo: So what does the permit require?
• 3:21
  Maya: Conditions include an eleven-foot masonry wall, a five-foot landscaped buffer with new trees, hours from eight in the morning to six at night, and a limit of forty truck trips and thirty car trips a day. Trucks have to turn right in and left out. Staff said that keeps them off Herbert Avenue, a truck route with homes along it. A device at each driveway will log the trips.
• 3:45
  Theo: And what did the applicant say?
• 3:47
  Maya: The applicant's representative described it as passive truck storage on an existing paved lot, with no buildings and no goods shipped in or out. The representative said no traffic impact analysis was required, because daily trips are estimated at under one hundred ten. The representative added that an independent traffic consultant studied trip generation and circulation. Staff said a fifteen-year term is typical for industrial uses, and that the zoning code doesn't distinguish between types of trucks.
• 4:18
  Theo: Did anyone push for a shorter term?
• 4:20
  Maya: Yes. A commissioner asked whether ten years would be more appropriate, and an amendment to cut the term to ten was proposed. The property owner asked to keep fifteen, citing his investment and more than fifty employees from the neighborhood. The amendment was withdrawn, and the permit passed five to zero with the conditions staff recommended, including the fifteen-year term.
• 4:41
  Theo: What happens next?
• 4:43
  Maya: The clerk said the last day to file an appeal is October twenty-eighth. Planning commission decisions can be appealed to the Board of Supervisors.
• 4:54
  Maya: Our other top story is about energy. County planners gave the commission a progress report on rewriting the county's Renewable Energy Ordinance. There was no vote.
• 5:04
  Theo: What does that ordinance do?
• 5:05
  Maya: It sets where renewable energy projects can go in unincorporated areas. The current version dates from twenty sixteen. It bans utility-scale wind, and it doesn't cover battery storage at all. Two Board of Supervisors motions guide this work: one in December twenty twenty-three asked for battery storage rules, and one in April twenty twenty-four asked for an update of the whole ordinance, battery storage included.
• 5:30
  Theo: So what would change?
• 5:32
  Maya: The draft adds rules for battery storage facilities and for green hydrogen production. Those, along with utility-scale solar, would be limited to certain agricultural, manufacturing, commercial-manufacturing, and institutional zones. Battery and hydrogen sites would be barred from significant ecological areas, very high fire hazard severity zones, environmentally sensitive sites, and agricultural resource areas. They also couldn't be within three hundred feet of a sensitive use. Utility-scale generation and storage would become allowed in the Antelope Valley's economic opportunity areas. The ban on utility-scale wind stays.
• 6:10
  Theo: Did anyone ask whether three hundred feet from a battery site is enough if there's a fire?
• 6:16
  Maya: A commissioner asked about that, and about how those fires are fought. Staff said burning batteries are typically allowed to burn. Firefighters cool the batteries around them and keep the fire inside one enclosure. The three hundred feet came from a technical study. Staff said that after many comments, they're studying alternatives in both directions: a larger buffer, and a smaller one closer to fire code. Some commenters had called three hundred feet too restrictive.
• 6:45
  Theo: Has the public been weighing in?
• 6:47
  Maya: A project survey drew five hundred fifteen responses. More than two hundred comment letters came in during the environmental scoping period, which closed September seventeenth. Vice Chair Yolanda Duarte-White asked which communities the outreach reached and how they were chosen. Staff named community groups they'd presented to, in places like East Gardena, Castaic, and Hacienda Heights, and said the virtual meetings were broadcast in multiple languages.
• 7:14
  Theo: When does it come back?
• 7:16
  Maya: Staff expect to release a draft environmental impact report and a second draft of the ordinance for public comment next spring. Then comes a commission hearing in fall twenty twenty-seven, and the Board of Supervisors in late fall or winter of that year.
• 7:34
  Maya: One shorter item from Wednesday's meeting. A proposed townhouse project in South Whittier-Sunshine Acres is on hold. The plan is twenty-one townhouse-style condos in four buildings on Shoemaker Avenue, and the agenda listed three of the units as lower-income, with a density bonus.
• 7:53
  Theo: At staff's recommendation, the commission took it off calendar without opening the hearing. No new date was set.
• 8:02
  Maya: Before we go, a look at what's scheduled. Next Tuesday, October twentieth, the Board of Supervisors has a motion from Supervisors Kathryn Barger and Lindsey Horvath on keeping disaster case management going for Eaton and Palisades Fire survivors if the current program's services are interrupted. They introduced it at the Board's October sixth meeting.
• 8:22
  Theo: Also on that agenda: the Governance Reform Task Force's recommendations for setting up the elected County Executive's office, continued from October sixth. And a proposal from Supervisor Hilda Solis for what the agenda calls the county's first-ever tribal consultation policy.
• 8:38
  Maya: Then next Wednesday, October twenty-first, the planning commission is scheduled to take up a proposed ordinance to allow commercial cannabis businesses in certain zones of the unincorporated areas, along with its environmental impact report.
• 8:55
  Theo: One last thing. If you hear something we got wrong, there's a link on the episode's page to report it, and we read corrections on air.
• 9:03
  Maya: That's the news from the county. See you next Thursday.