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tended the commission hearing to oppose the proposed elimination of the units. They supported a continuation of the existing moratorium on projects, set to expire in January.

“I have no problem with extending the moratorium,” said Linda Dietrich, who serves with Anne Johnson on the commission subcommittee. “I am willing to give it another go.”

However, Dietrich said the artists who have in the past provided little input will have to work with the subcommittee to create a workable ordinance. Several volunteered to participate.

“There is a lot of land out there, and we ought to look at the whole area to see what we can do for our artists,” Johnson said. “There are a lot of competing uses vying for space, and we have to find a way to make sure the ones we want are there and the ones we might not want are not.”

Outer Laguna Canyon was annexed in the early 1990s. Zoning was approved to preserve existing uses as much as possible, Planning Commissioner Norm Grossman said. Those uses included the sale of sheepskins, home businesses, kennels, a religious compound that was later converted to a school, car repair shops and residential projects.

“It’s a mess,” Grossman said. The M-1A zone is located roughly from Arroyo Drive along Laguna Canyon Road to Big Bend about where the Third Street cottages were stored and picks up again at Castle Rock and runs to Stan’s Lane.