Restrictive Zoning Laws Worsened the Supply Chain Crisis

The major backlog at one of America’s busiest ports has been worsened by strict zoning laws that limit where empty shipping containers can be stacked after being unloaded.

Until officials in Long Beach, California, issued an emergency order this weekend to temporarily relax those rules, it was illegal for trucking companies to store more than two shipping containers on top of one another in their yards. That’s contributed to a massive bottleneck at the terminal yards of trucking companies serving both the Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach—a bottleneck that’s being felt in supply chain shortages across the whole country.”

“There doesn’t seem to be any safety-based reason for such a policy, as shipping containers are routinely stacked higher at other ports and while being carried across the open sea. Long Beach’s prohibition on stacking more than two-high is “an aesthetic measure intended to preserve visual sightlines in the neighborhood,” according to The Maritime Executive, a trade publication.

Those rules won’t be enforced for the next three months under an emergency order issued this weekend. Now, trucking companies and warehouses will be allowed to stack up to four containers vertically—effectively doubling their capacity. “The city will work during the next 90-day period to assess the situation and effectiveness of this solution and any impacts on the surrounding areas,” Long Beach officials said in a statement.”

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