Humboldt group launches measure to block large Coastal Zone warehouses

A Humboldt County community group has moved to turn the Amazon warehouse fight into a countywide vote over who gets to shape the coast. Indivisible Trinidad has filed a ballot initiative that would block new warehouse and distribution facilities larger than 20,000 square feet in the Coastal Zone, with an exemption for marine-dependent uses.

The proposal is aimed squarely at the kind of development Amazon has proposed in McKinleyville, but organizers say the issue is bigger than one company. The measure would apply to pending applications that have not yet received a Coastal Development Permit, a detail that could affect future warehouse proposals before they clear the county’s coastal review process.

Supporters say existing land-use rules do not go far enough to protect Humboldt’s small-town economy and shoreline. They argue that industrial-scale logistics facilities are out of step with the county’s coastal communities, where independent bookstores, galleries, art studios, nature outfitters, farm stands, handcraft shops and small inns are tied to a tourism economy built around the redwoods and the Pacific coast. Dr. Tina Freeland, identified as an Indivisible Trinidad organizer, said the county still has something special worth preserving and warned that industrial warehousing would unravel that character.

The campaign is unfolding in a county where the coastal planning system already carries a long history. The California Coastal Commission defines the Coastal Zone as the legislatively defined area regulated under the Coastal Act, and local governments carry out that law through Local Coastal Programs. Humboldt County says its Humboldt Bay Area Plan was originally certified in 1982 and governs about 21,500 acres in the unincorporated area around Humboldt Bay and more than 20 miles of Pacific coastline.

The Amazon project that sparked the backlash was first received by the Humboldt County Planning & Building Department on October 21, 2025. County officials say the application calls for a 40,290-square-foot commercial warehouse and several parking lots on six parcels in the Airport Business Park in McKinleyville. Amazon has described the site as a last-mile distribution warehouse near the Humboldt County Airport.

Public opposition has already been visible. At an informational community meeting on April 29 at Azalea Hall in McKinleyville, county officials said no final decision would be made and that more public comment would follow. Roughly 200 people packed the four-hour meeting, and the crowd was overwhelmingly opposed to the project.

If county election officials approve the petition language, the group says it will need 4,874 valid signatures from registered Humboldt County voters to qualify the measure for the November ballot. That would shift the fight from a permit battle over one project to a broader test of whether voters want to set a lasting ceiling on warehouse development in the Humboldt County Coastal Zone.