Bellflower Council Votes to Enforce Ban on Cargo Containers

Metal cargo containers--ideal storage space to some Bellflower residents and businesses but eyesores to others--apparently are about to hit the road out of town.

A divided Bellflower City Council voted recently to order businesses and residents to get rid of the containers. Containers have never been permitted in the city, but the ban has been ignored.

“They’re ugly,” Councilman Ray T. Smith said in explaining why he wanted shipping containers banished from the city.

He joined Mayor Ken Cleveland and Councilman Randy Bomgaars in ordering officials to enforce the ban. Council members Ruth A. Gilson and Art Olivier dissented, saying they did not want the city to appear unfriendly toward businesses.

“We all want to clean up Bellflower, but we can’t come down with an iron fist,” Gilson said.

The council majority initially decided businesses should have three years and residents one year to ship containers out of town, but then sent the proposal back to the Planning Commission for further study to determine if other deadlines should be set.

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“I don’t know what they’re trying to pull,” said Lloyd Basham, who keeps two storage containers behind his Alondra Boulevard engine-rebuilding shop. “I’d just like to see them make up their minds.”

The council decision to enforce the ban came after more than a year of study and debate on shipping containers, which are commonly used to carry goods on ships, trains and trucks. It was in keeping with the city’s effort to shed an anything-goes image.

The city recently beefed up its code enforcement staff from one officer to three to tackle widespread building code violations. City leaders said they hope the cleanup ultimately will make Bellflower more attractive to new businesses.

Despite the city’s ban on shipping containers, they have sprouted behind, next to, and even in front of local businesses and homes in recent years.

Chief Auto Parts, for example, stores motor oil in a shipping container on its front parking lot on Alondra Boulevard. The Sizzler restaurant on Artesia Boulevard has a container behind the building.

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Containers typically are 8 feet wide, 8 feet 6 inches high and up to 40 feet in length. They are popular because they are sturdy, dustproof, fireproof and difficult for thieves to crack. Although not cheap--one businessman said he paid $2,200 apiece for two containers--they are not as costly as adding onto an existing building.

Bing H. Hyun, the city’s interim planning director, said the exact number of illegal shipping containers in Bellflower is unknown.

“We’ve identified about 30 locations where they’re visible from the street, but we know there are many more out there,” he said. “There could be two, three, maybe four hundred.”

Last year the city ordered the removal of containers spotted by city inspectors. Several of the property owners protested, prompting the council to set up an ad-hoc committee to study the issue.

The committee, led by Gilson and former Councilman Bill Pendleton, met six times and concluded that businesses should be allowed to keep the containers. The matter then went to the Planning Commission. After four public hearings between March and October, the panel recommended that the council keep the ban and give violators up to three years to comply.

Basham, owner of Lloyd’s Crankshaft Grinding on Alondra Avenue, is fuming over the possibility of being told to get rid of the containers he has had for seven years. He stores auto parts in them.

“I disagree with it totally,” he said. “I’m going to have to close up. I have no choice.”

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But Cleveland said he is not convinced that enforcing the ban on shipping containers will trigger a business exodus, as Gilson and Olivier have warned.

“I don’t think this one particular item is going to make them move, because very few other cities permit them,” Cleveland said.

Only five of 15 area cities permit shipping containers, according to a survey by the Bellflower Planning Department.

Containers are banned in Artesia, Cerritos, Compton, Huntington Park, Lakewood, Long Beach, Lynwood, Norwalk, Pico Rivera and Santa Fe Springs.

Containers are allowed under some restrictions in Whittier, Commerce, Paramount, Hawaiian Gardens and Downey.