Plans for a new Amazon warehouse in San Francisco are have been put on hold after city officials passed new regulations on Tuesday.
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San Francisco Supervisor Shamann Walton, whose district would have included the new warehouse, introduced legislation for new zoning controls, which put an 18-month moratorium on these sorts of projects.
"Over the last decade, there has been a rapid evolution of the parcel service delivery industry with companies like Amazon in San Francisco without adequate community input," said a statement released by Walton's office. "This has caused an increase of pollution and traffic, jobs that pay below industry-standard wages, and in some cases, facilities with serious health and safety concerns in San Francisco."
The legislation was introduced after union leaders in San Francisco vocalized concerns about the retail giant's new warehouse facility on 7th Street.
"We want to make sure that they create good union jobs that pay well – that you can put food on the table, a retirement, medical, send the kids to school – not Amazon-style poverty jobs," said Jason Rabinowitz, President of Teamsters Joint Council 7.
The 18-month halt will allow for time for community input on the new facility, and others like it, according to Walton's statement, and the city will use the opportunity to study the impacts that parcel delivery services have on the city and consider new permanent land-use controls.
"We've seen companies skirt around providing benefits for their employees, we’ve seen companies actually increase traffic, increase emissions in our neighborhood, we've seen companies come through and just be really irresponsible," said Walton.
"We will continue to evaluate our long-term use of the site, and in the short-term we will work with our neighbors to look at ways to use the location to serve the community," said an Amazon spokesperson in a statement to KCBS Radio.
For the moment, work has stopped at the new facility at 900 7th Street.
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