FRESNO, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) – Two industrial corporations are warning the City of Fresno they will take legal action if the city continues with a plan that would further develop south Fresno.

On Friday, Fresno City Councilmember Miguel Arias said the Elm Avenue Rezone applicant, which seeks to support industrial development, requested a 90 to 120-day delay of both the Elm Rezone and the Southeast Central Specific Plan (SCSP) on March 13.

The SCSP, initiated in 2017, would support the development of public facilities, strip shopping centers and potentially 3,500 housing units. Having already faced nearly a decade of delays, Arias says, if the city council accepts the applicant’s request, the SCSP would be pushed after the June 2026 primary election.

“It would also set a troubling precedent, allowing billion-dollar corporations to delay unrelated neighborhood plans affecting thousands of residents,” Arias wrote Monday.

The applicants say the city expresses that, to comply with SB 330, the only way for approval is if the Elm Rezone is heard and approved at the same hearing as an item, like the SCSP, that would add more housing units than the rezone would purportedly take over.

“If the city proceeds as currently planned, the information the city will place in its agenda is incorrect and incomplete… Once the data is correct and the review is completed, the city and public can consider all of the proposed lane use actions together,” the letter to the city stated.

The rezone applicants, Pac West Industrial Equities and Span Development LLC, claim the city’s SCSP is flawed, and the area would be better suited for more industrial use, as there are neighboring industrial facilities.

“The landowners, who inject a significant amount of property tax, income tax, and sales tax revenue into the city—a city in the midst of a budget crisis—do want to stay there. And their operations are significantly cleaner than comparable and nearby land uses,” the letter read.

Fresno County residents who live in the affected community have heavily contested further industrialization of the area.

“While the city ordinance allows applicants to delay their own project by withdrawing it from consideration, it does not allow an applicant to delay an unrelated city planning effort,” Arias wrote.

The applicants say they are prepared to take legal action if the city moves forward with their current SCSP.

Councilmember Miguel Arias will host a press conference alongside the communities affected “to address the misinformation” regarding the Elm Avenue Rezone on Wednesday at 9 a.m. at Fresno City Hall.