The City Council will hold off on final approval of a four-story self-storage facility after members Tuesday raised public safety concerns about a 7-foot gap between the development’s proposed wall and a neighboring homeowner association’s wall.
The council introduced the ordinance that would add the Self-Storage Specific Plan to the city’s zoning code on first reading, but declined to adopt the resolution that would have finalized the project, scheduling a second reading for Dec. 1 to give the developer and Linden Walk HOA time to resolve the gap.
The project at 4301 Temple City Blvd, spans Temple City and the city of El Monte and would bring a roughly 133,000-square-foot self-storage building to a site bounded by the Eaton Wash and railroad tracks.
Temple City Manager Bryan Cook called it “a very unique project because it’s between and lies between two jurisdictions,” with the vast majority of the property in El Monte.
The dispute centers on a strip of land between the developer’s proposed eight-foot wall and an existing wall that Linden Walk built seven feet short of its property line. Council members warned the gap could become a hiding place near the railroad tracks, an area with a history of encampments.
Mayor Pro Tem Ed Chen, who said he served as a volunteer sheriff’s reserve deputy, recalled “a quite large operation that Temple City had to use its contract law enforcement forces to have conducted that particular cleanup” on the El Monte side.
City Attorney Gregory Murphy cautioned against conditioning the project on a third party resolving the gap, saying the HOA “could stall a project on this parcel forever by simply not agreeing to take care of what, in essence, is their problem.”
A representative of Magellan Value Partners told the council the HOA had been responsive, but acknowledged the wall issue was “a mistake somebody made down the road.” He said a lot line adjustment could resolve it for roughly $5,000 to $7,000.
Cook offered the council two paths: approve the first reading and hold the second until the issue was resolved, or continue the hearing. Councilman Edward Chavez made the motion to introduce the ordinance and schedule the second reading for Dec. 1.
Also the council introduced an ordinance raising its own compensation from $1,275 to $1,466 per month, the maximum allowed under state law, effective after the March 2028 election.
Councilman Vincent Yu noted the last increase was in 2023, creating a five-year gap.
The AI platform Civilio assisted this report.