Apartment Ban Extended

The Hawthorne City Council voted 5 to 0 on Thursday to extend for another year a citywide ban on the construction of apartment buildings with four or more units.

The moratorium was imposed in January in response to complaints about the city’s population density and rising crime rates. It prevents developers from tearing down existing structures to build apartments.

Several lots that were being developed into apartment buildings when the moratorium was imposed are exempt from the ban. Condominiums are also exempt.

City planners said they needed the construction ban in order to study development standards in the city’s residential areas. The report was due next month but has been delayed because of staffing shortages, Planning Director Michael Goodson said.

The report will probably be finished in the next four months, he said, but the ban will last until January, 1992.