Whittier approves four temporary land use moratoria as council weighs neighborhood concerns and limits of local authority
WHITTIER — The Whittier City Council approved temporary moratoria on data centers, detention facilities, massage parlors and car washes on October 27, giving officials an initial 45-day period to study land-use restrictions while leaving questions about future costs and the reach of city authority.
The council voted 5–0 to approve the data-center, detention-facility and massage-parlor measures together. A separate car-wash moratorium passed 4–1, with Councilmember Kathy Warner opposed.
The measures pause city permitting for the four uses while staff develops possible longer-term regulations. They do not establish permanent prohibitions, and staff said already approved car-wash projects could proceed.
Community Development Director Ben Pongetti said there were no pending applications for data centers or detention facilities and no new car-wash applications. The action therefore anticipates potential development rather than responding to a pending proposal for a data center or detention facility.
What the moratoria do
Pongetti told the council the measures would temporarily prohibit city departments from accepting, processing or approving permits, entitlements and other approvals for the four land uses.
Staff expects to return December 8 for consideration of extensions. Pongetti described an extension of 10 months and 15 days, potentially followed by another year, or a single extension of 22 months and 15 days. Neither longer period was automatically approved by the October 27 votes.
During that period, officials could consider permanent restrictions or additional conditions. Pongetti said that work would likely require an outside consultant, planning commission review and further public hearings.
City Manager Connell McNamara added that staff must examine specific plans governing areas such as Uptown, the Groves and Whittwood Town Center, along with the municipal zoning code. A consultant cost was not provided during the discussion.
Why council members supported action
Councilmember Vicky Santana described concerns about data centers’ electricity and water demands, backup generation, infrastructure capacity and noise. She also questioned whether large commercial parcels should be devoted to additional car washes and raised concerns about massage-business regulation and detention facilities’ compatibility with neighborhoods.
Santana argued that acting now would put the city in a more proactive position before potential changes in state or federal policy. She contrasted that approach with housing requirements that, she said, have limited the city’s discretion over development. Prior to the 2020 Pandemic, the State of California's nearly all Democrat legislature stripped local communities including Whittier of local sovereignty over housing development decisions, requiring them to automatically approve most high density housing. The legislation that did this was extremely partisan and received no support from Republicans or Independents according to public records.
Councilmember Aida Macedo called for future language explaining the council’s intentions, including environmental concerns and concerns about trafficking and treatment of immigrants. Data centers had been linked, on social media, to noise and air pollution while recent ICE Operations were left to untrained agents to carry out.
These statements describe council members’ policy objectives; they do not establish that every business in the affected categories presents those problems. There is no scientific data that proves the alleged impacts that have been claimed regarding data centers yet. The use of untrained officers in ICE Operations has led to misunderstandings on the part of both the agents and the people who oppose them as opponents are often ignorant of US immigration laws. The misunderstanding has led to the abuse of both officers and civilians Constitutional Rights.
Warner supports study but questions car wash restrictions
Warner supported the data-center moratorium while cautioning against reaching a final conclusion before examining the issue more fully. She said the council had not received a briefing on data centers’ advantages and disadvantages and that she had not completed extensive personal research. Her position is supported by the fact there are actually different kinds of data centers and not all result in higher electric bills nor do all use a lot of water. New data centers are built without any need for water. The new facilities are built self contained with special walls that prevent sound from leaving the facility. These are similar to walls placed between residential neighborhoods and adjacent freeways that protect residents from freeway noise.
Warner's opposition to the car-wash measure centered on market decisions and whether additional restrictions were justified.
Warner questioned whether the city had data supporting claims that existing car washes were underused. Pongetti said the city did not have their revenue information and discussed subscriptions and automation as factors that could encourage investment.
Warner argued that owners and investors generally evaluate whether a business can succeed and urged caution about government restrictions on commercial activity. She requested the separate car-wash vote.
Her dissent illustrated a distinction within the discussion: concerns about the appearance or concentration of businesses do not necessarily produce agreement about whether a temporary prohibition is the appropriate response.
Residents ask about definitions and permanent restrictions
Two residents spoke during the formal hearing, and no telephone testimony followed.
One speaker, identifying herself as Michelle, urged staff to account for changing terminology in the data-center industry so that future regulations would address actual infrastructure and neighborhood impacts rather than depend on a narrow business label. She also asked what restrictions on detention facilities the city could enforce and how enforcement would work.
A second speaker, identifying herself as Magdalena Moe of District 1, asked why officials were considering temporary measures rather than permanent prohibitions. She opposed additional facilities in the four categories and called for other community resources.
Pongetti explained that the temporary pause provides time to study the uses and complete the process for more permanent code changes.
Federal authority limits what a local moratorium can accomplish
The detention-facility discussion raises a constitutional distinction between regulating ordinary private land uses and controlling federal operations.
This is a question of federalism—the division of authority between national, state and local government. Under the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, valid federal law takes precedence over conflicting state or local requirements.
Intergovernmental immunity generally prevents state and local governments from directly regulating the federal government or discriminating against it and those with whom it deals, absent congressional authorization. A temporary municipal ordinance does not create an exception to that protection.
Consequently, a city generally cannot make lawful federal operations depend on obtaining its permission. Whether a restriction lasts 45 days or is adopted before a federal proposal does not, by itself, resolve that constitutional problem.
Federal contractors require a more specific analysis. In its 2022 en banc decision in The GEO Group v. Newsom, the Ninth Circuit concluded that California’s private-detention ban impermissibly controlled federally authorized immigration-detention operations. The court found the challengers likely to succeed and returned the case for consideration of the remaining preliminary-injunction requirements.
That decision is relevant to evaluating a detention restriction affecting a federal contractor. It does not itself decide the validity of Whittier’s ordinances or every possible application of them.
Federal involvement blocks bans on private detention centers with federal contracts but also does not erase all state and local protections such as mandatory health inspections. In The GEO Group v. Inslee in 2025, the Ninth Circuit rejected federal-preemption challenges to certain Washington detention-condition requirements while returning other constitutional questions for further proceedings. The distinction between protecting health and safety and effectively prohibiting federal operations matters.
The constitutional balance also protects local government from certain federal demands. The Supreme Court’s anti-commandeering decisions generally prohibit requiring state and local officials to administer or enforce a federal regulatory program. Declining to provide local personnel for federal enforcement and attempting to prohibit federal operations are different legal questions.
A privately developed commercial data center likewise should not be treated as a federal facility merely because national officials support artificial-intelligence infrastructure. The project’s ownership, function and governing law would matter.
Questions for the next stage
The October 27 discussion established the council’s desire to pause the four uses, but did not provide a substantive explanation of how the detention restrictions would apply to a federal agency or contractor.
The next stage will require clearer definitions, consideration of existing approvals, examination of applicable state and federal limits, and decisions about the cost and scope of the city’s study.
For residents, the immediate result is a temporary pause in city approvals with limited impact. Whether that becomes a permanent prohibition, a more detailed regulatory system or a narrower set of restrictions remains to be decided.
Sources
October 27, 2026 Whittier City Council meeting AI generated transcripts, land-use hearing and deliberations, supplied for review; first vote confirmed against Rebecca Canales’s review of the meeting.
The GEO Group v. Newsom, Ninth Circuit, September 26, 2022:https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2022/09/26/20-56172.pdf
The GEO Group v. Inslee, Ninth Circuit, August 19, 2025:https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2025/08/19/24-2815.pdf
United States v. Washington, Supreme Court, 2022:https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/21-404
Murphy v. National Collegiate Athletic Association, Supreme Court, May 14, 2018:https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-476_dbfi.pdf
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