Planning Commission recommends several zoning-text corrections and clarifications to the Board of Mayor and Aldermen
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Summary
The commission voted to send favorable recommendations on text amendments to the La Verne Zoning Ordinance covering definitions (restaurants vs. retail), planning-area use tables (auto-service vs. auto-repair), parking/driveway surface standards and site-plan submission thresholds.
The La Verne Planning Commission on March 31 voted to recommend a set of zoning-text changes to the Board of Mayor and Aldermen that staff said resolve inconsistencies in the new zoning ordinance.
Mr. Logan told the commission the Chapter 2 definitions change is intended to remove restaurants from the definition of retail where they were unintentionally grouped by alphabetical listing. "The main purpose of this entire amendment here in the definitions chapter is to make sure that restaurant is not included in part of retail," Mr. Logan said, noting the correction aligns definitions with intended use tables.
Separately, staff explained that tables in the planning-area chapter conflicted on where auto-service and auto-repair uses belong. Mr. Logan said a 2018 decision confined auto-repair (body, engine and transmission work) to industrial zones while auto-service uses (tire shops, oil changes, muffler shops) remain allowable in other corridors; the amendment restores the correct table entries.
The commission also recommended clarifying parking and driveway standards in Chapter 8 by more specifically enumerating acceptable off-street paving materials (asphalt, porous asphalt, concrete, porous concrete and paving blocks) and excluding gravel, grass or loose materials from accepted parking surfaces. Staff said the changes also align ordinance language with city specifications and give the commission more leeway on driveway widths.
Finally, an amendment to Chapter 14 would correct conflicting language so that site-plan submission thresholds reference 10% of building square footage rather than a 3% figure that remained in error. Mr. Logan said the change will make the two related paragraphs consistent.
All four items drew few substantive objections; the commission voted to forward favorable recommendations for each to the Board of Mayor and Aldermen.
Why it matters: the corrections remove inconsistencies in the recently expanded zoning code (staff said the new ordinance grew from about 100 pages to nearly 300), which affects how uses are regulated and when site-plan review is required.
