Los Angeles County Aims to Fast-track Bioscience in Unincorporated Areas

bioscience strand

Los Angeles County may fuel its $40 billion bioscience industry by clearing regulatory roadblocks to building labs and manufacturing plants in unincorporated areas.

County supervisors unanimously passed a motion Aug. 7 to look into how to streamline the entitling and permitting of new bioscience businesses within unincorporated regions spanning nearly 2,700 square miles.

The motion passed by five supervisors included sizing up current zones that allow for bioscience manufacturing, in addition to creating a new overlay zone where new businesses could potentially cut construction costs.

“We’ve been seeking to pay attention … to the bioscience industry,” said Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, author of the motion, whose district includes industrial unincorporated areas near Hawthorne, Compton and Torrance, before the vote. “Jobs, jobs and more jobs. That’s the mantra. And it is jobs up and down the economic ladder.”

Source: Los Angeles Business Journal