GILROY
– The city will ban certain types of new businesses downtown
until more long-term decisions about their desirability can be
made.
GILROY – The city will ban certain types of new businesses downtown until more long-term decisions about their desirability can be made.
The City Council tentatively endorsed a draft emergency ordinance Monday that prohibits used car sales lots, junkyards, “head” shops, tattoo parlors and bars and dance halls that do not offer meals from setting up shop in the downtown area.
The move, based on a request from a special downtown task force, is meant to keep more such businesses out of the area until a set of updated regulations for the area called the Downtown Specific Plan is complete. The request was prompted earlier this year after task force members got word that a downtown lot was being targeted for auto sales.
To pass the ordinance, the Council had to make a finding that new businesses it concerns would present a “current and immediate threat to the public health, safety or welfare.”
City Attorney Linda Callon said such businesses are thought to be in conflict with provisions of the city’s new land-use blueprint, the General Plan, as well as the direction that the downtown task force is going with specific regulations there.
Councilmembers also asked that liquor stores, new auto sales lots, auto repair shops and body piercing establishments be added as well.
Councilman Craig Gartman worried there could be loopholes based on interpretation, wondering for example whether egg salad sandwiches at a bar would be considered a “meal.”
But Callon said the city is also somewhat protected by existing zoning provisions, which require businesses not listed on a certain table to go before city staff for review.
“You have control overuses that are not listed” on that table, she said.
The ordinance is effective for 45 days and can be renewed for up to 22 additional months.
