75C - MASSAGE ESTABLISHMENTS - Laserfiche WebLink

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Zoning Ordinance Amendment No. 2008-O1 Ordinance Amendment 2008-02 January 12, 2009 Page 2 revision in order to respond to recent concerns relating to the impacts of massage parlors and the potential establishment of new locations in the City. Additionally, Chapter 22 of the Code, which is enforced by the Police Department and currently regulates massage establishments and technicians, has remained unchanged since 1976. In contrast, the cities of Anaheim, Orange and Costa Mesa have all updated their massage regulations within the last four years. Following the adoption of the moratorium staff began holding interagency meetings and has commenced a study of the current provisions of the General Plan and Municipal Code to define massage parlors and determine where and under what conditions such uses should be permitted. Analysis of the Issues Following a thorough analysis of the current code requirements for massage parlors and massage technicians in both the City of Santa Ana and surrounding jurisdictions, there are a number of code amendments and additions necessary to protect the health, safety and welfare of the City. The first of these changes is to include massage establishments, its associated definitions and development standards within Chapter 41(zoning) of the Municipal Code. The inclusion in Chapter 41 will allow the Planning Division to more closely regulate these uses, as well as incorporate Community Preservation in the regulation of operational and development standards in the field. As part of its inclusion in Chapter 41, massage establishments have been separated into two types, as a primary and ancillary use. This distinction was necessary due to the broad definition of a massage and/or a massage establishment. Ancillary Massage Use As an ancillary use, massage services will be secondary to an existing health or beauty related business. Ancillary massage uses will be limited to no more than two licensed massage technicians and will be allowed to occupy a limited square footage within the existing business. In these ancillary cases, a ministerial land use certificate would be required in order to create a reliable inventory of massage technicians citywide as well as verify that ancillary massage establishments meet the proposed standards to prevent any negative impacts resulting from its incidental use. Land use certificates have traditionally been utilized in cases where a limited number of departments require review of a project in 75C-3