Diamond Bar : Housing Controls Enacted
City Council members this week finally exercised their long-awaited authority to control multifamily housing, but it may have come too late to do any good.
The council enacted a 45-day urgency ordinance requiring council review of all apartment or condominium projects. During the recent incorporation drive, cityhood proponents cited the proliferation of multifamily housing in once-rural Diamond Bar as proof of the need for local control. Voters approved cityhood March 7, and the city was incorporated April 18.
But now that Diamond Bar officials have the power, county planners have informed them that only one parcel zoned for multifamily housing hasn’t already been built upon.
“The horse is already out of the barn,” said Mayor Pro Tem Paul Horcher. However, he added, the ordinance may be useful when the city annexes vacant land to the south and west. “Really, it will just give the council a little look-see at a project. It is not so Draconian as a moratorium.”
The council will continue extending the ordinance until it enacts a permanent measure for regulating multifamily housing.
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