Fresno Council Weighs Industrial Rezoning Near Schools in Polluted Neighborhood

The Fresno City Council faced a politically charged decision on whether to rezone 55.31 acres in Southwest Fresno from neighborhood mixed-use back to light industrial, a proposal that drew fierce opposition from residents, environmental advocates, and the city's own Planning Commission before a developer-requested delay pushed the vote to May 22.

The parcel, near the intersection of Elm and Annadale Avenues, sits roughly 1,000 feet from the entrance to West Fresno Elementary and Middle schools and belongs to one of the most pollution-burdened census tracts in California. The Planning Commission recommended denial on April 16, 2025, after more than a dozen residents raised concerns about quality of life, health, and pollution. The Council had already postponed an earlier vote following a heated Feb. 19 meeting.

Councilmember Miguel Arias, who represents the area, said the city received multiple legal opinions concluding that approving the rezone would violate state law and expose Fresno to litigation. The legal risk centers on SB 330, a California housing statute that requires the city to offset any loss of residential capacity with an identical number of housing units elsewhere. The proposed rezone would eliminate an estimated 3,500 potential housing units from West Fresno, a consequence Arias said would link this fight to a separate, previously unrelated planning process in Southeast Fresno.

"In their world, we should only be listening to political contributors and corporate interests and not to residents who elected us to serve them," Arias said.

The property owners, identified in broadcast coverage as Buzz Oats and Span Development, claim the 2017 rezoning to mixed-use as part of the Southwest Specific Plan has cost them more than $100 million in damages, including lost property values, difficulties with leases and sales, and the expense of environmental analyses the city required to consider the rezone. Their lawyer, John Kinsey, argued the Southwest Specific Plan itself poses a threat to public health, and Councilmember Annalisa Perea echoed claims that the mixed-use designation prevents businesses from securing financing for clean technologies such as electric vehicles. Finance experts, according to Fresnoland's reporting, have repeatedly disputed that claim.

Nick Audino, the leasing agent for industrial tenants on the site, confirmed that the rezone would open the door to new businesses, including a fertilizer warehouse. Developers did not answer a single question from the public at a community meeting held at West Fresno Elementary School, leaving key details, such as which specific industrial expansions would be permitted, unresolved.

Resident June Safford put the community's position plainly: "The only way we will improve is if we get industrial out of our community. I want it to be businesses, new residential, or maybe a school. But I want industrial gone."

West Fresno native Debbie Darden told Planning Commissioners the stakes could not be higher. "Currently we lose 20 years of life expectancy," she said.

Nayamia Martinez of the Central California Environmental Network framed the broader pattern at a Council hearing. "I'm here to oppose environmental racism that has caused the south side of Fresno to be breathing in more polluted air than the rest of the city," she said.

Arias noted that existing businesses on the parcel are already approved to operate in perpetuity under current zoning; the dispute is whether they should be permitted to expand. The industrial corridor along Elm Avenue was originally rezoned to mixed-use in 2017 precisely because a community planning process found an over-concentration of polluting uses in residential areas. Approving the rezone would reverse nearly a decade of that community-driven planning work, with the Council's next scheduled opportunity to act set for May 22.