South Gate

The South Gate Planning Commission has voted to ask the City Council for a six-month extension of a moratorium on motel construction. The extension is needed, planners said, to give them time to complete a study of motels and the types of ordinances regulating them in surrounding cities.

Planners intend to meet with motel owners and operators as well as with industry officials, said Valdis V. Pavlovskis, principal planner. “We are primarily looking at developing standards that everyone can work with,” he said.

Pavlovskis said he also is concerned about people using motels in South Gate as long-term apartment units. For developers, he said, “There is a substantial advantage to getting around the existing apartment moratorium by building motels.”

In other action, the South Gate Planning Commission voted to ask the City Council for a 90-day extension of an existing moratorium on issuing licenses for fortune-telling businesses. There currently is no ordinance regarding fortune-telling in the city, Pavlovskis said. The planners need three months to work out the conditions of an ordinance, write it and pass it through the Planning Commission process for presentation to the City Council.