9:30am | Los Angeles County code will be revised to make it easier to establish a secondhand retail store in the unincorporated areas of the county due largely to a motion at yesterday’s Board of Supervisors meeting by Los Angeles County Supervisor Don Knabe.
Well over half of L.A. County’s 4,000 square miles are unincorporated, with some one million residents occupying these spaces. 1,350 of those residents reside in Rancho Dominguez, an unincorporated area in North Long Beach that runs along Carson Street and Conant Street in between Woodruff Avenue and Palo Verde Avenue.
Title 22 of the County Code currently limits sales of all secondhand consumer products as a permitted use and classifies secondhand retail stores in the same category as used car lots and pawn shops, which significantly impact the surrounding neighborhoods. The juxtaposition of placing secondhand retail stores next to pawn shops is problematic because many of these retail stores are run by non-profit charitable organizations such as the Salvation Army and Out of the Closet, which provide not only the essential consumer products needed for less affluent neighborhoods — clothes being one of the most important — but also job training and other social services.
Supervisor Knabe’s motion instructs the Department of Regional Planning to revise the County zoning code to allow secondhand retail stores in the neighborhood business zone subject to an administrative review or discretionary permit, depending if the facility is proposing drop-off collection or outdoor storage areas. Given this revision, there’s even an environmental impact: with more stores accepting secondhand products, L.A.’s already-filled landfills avoid becoming the dumping area.
The Regional Planning Commission will hold a public hearing prior to September 30 and recommend revisions to the Board to consider.