The Oroville Planning Commission certified the final environmental impact report (EIR) for a proposed industrial development on roughly 170 acres south of Ofer Road and adopted resolution P2025-17, which includes findings, a mitigation monitoring and reporting program (MMRP), and a statement of overriding considerations for impacts that staff identified as unavoidable.

Staff explained the EIR process and the scope of the evaluated "maximum project," which modeled a 3,200,000-square-foot regional warehouse scenario consisting of four large, five-story buildings (each roughly 774,000 to 869,000 square feet). Staff said the EIR evaluates the worst-case configuration so that smaller or different projects would have equal or fewer impacts. The project site includes wetlands and two existing residences about 650 feet from the site edge; staff said the project design sets aside about 38 acres to avoid concentrated wetland features.

Staff reported that the city fronted slightly more than $3,300,000 to prepare the EIR. The final document finds that most impacts can be mitigated to less-than-significant levels, but identifies three categories of "significant and unavoidable" impacts: greenhouse gases, vehicle miles traveled (VMT), and air emissions related to diesel truck traffic.

On VMT, staff said the EIR analysis shows a VMT of 25.4 per employee compared with Oroville’s interim threshold of 6.7 per employee (an interim threshold the City Council adopted in July 2024). Staff said the project’s VMT would remain above the threshold under modeled conditions and therefore is significant.

On air emissions, staff and the consultant explained that a health-risk assessment found diesel particulate exposures could be significant for two residential receptors located about 650 feet from proposed truck traffic routes when truck-plus-employee trips exceed about 1,100 per day; the maximum modeled scenario showed about 2,200 truck and employee trips per day. The mitigation package in the MMRP includes measures such as an all-electric truck and equipment fleet above certain trip thresholds and a transportation-demand-management plan for employees; at full build-out the Butte County Air Quality Management District requires an emissions-offset fee staff estimated at about $771,000.

Staff also summarized public comment letters and technical criticism received during the EIR process. Advocates for the Environment and the Golden State Environmental Justice Alliance raised concerns about the health-risk assessment and environmental-justice analysis. Staff responded that environmental-justice analysis under Senate Bill 1000 is not yet required for this project because SB 1000 is triggered when a jurisdiction adopts or revises two or more general plan elements simultaneously; the city has not done that in this cycle and is not required to include an environmental-justice element until its next general-plan update.

Laborers International Local 185 (LiUNA) submitted written comments and its representative, attorney Kyla Staley, spoke at the meeting. Staley urged the commission not to certify the EIR, saying LiUNA’s air-quality experts concluded the EIR underestimates fine particulate matter and toxic air contaminants from truck traffic and warehouse operations and that the EIR insufficiently addresses greenhouse-gas and cumulative impacts. Staley also said LiUNA’s biologist disputed staff findings on the presence of some special-status species.

Steve Beau Shaw of Panattoni Development addressed the commission on behalf of a potential user and summarized typical benefits of large logistics facilities, including construction value and jobs. Shaw said a million-square-foot facility can equate to roughly $250 million–$500 million in construction value depending on type and suggested a single building could employ several hundred workers per shift; he characterized Oroville as competitive for some industrial users because of available sites and labor.

After deliberation, a commissioner moved to adopt resolution P2025-17 to certify the EIR, make the required findings and adopt the statement of overriding considerations; another commissioner seconded the motion. The resolution as presented included a clerical correction requested by staff to change references from "City Council" to "Planning Commission" in one whereas clause. The motion record on the transcript shows the motion and second; staff said the environmental consultant was available to answer technical questions if needed.

What the approval means: certification of the final EIR allows the city to make later project-specific decisions and to accept applications for discrete development projects on the site; it does not authorize any specific building permit or use permit. Staff emphasized that if a smaller project is proposed later, city review would scale traffic circulation, architectural review, landscaping and mitigation to the smaller project's impacts and that warehouse projects under about 1,560,000 square feet would avoid the specific air-risk threshold staff flagged.

Ending
Commissioners directed staff and the environmental consultant to remain available for technical follow-up and to incorporate the MMRP and statement of overriding considerations into the project record; staff said subsequent project applications will be subject to the conditions and monitoring measures in the adopted MMRP.