In an effort to adjust rules for commercial marijuana growers to align better with their land, officials approved a shift to a discretionary process for approving commercial marijuana cultivation licenses in unincorporated parts of the county.
The change from using a ministerial process — which involves ensuring those hoping to grow for-sale pot in existing greenhouses meet a predetermined set of requirements — to considering conditions specific to potential cultivation sites is aimed at simplifying the rules after officials found few existing greenhouses met the standards the Board of Supervisors set in December, said Assistant County Manager Mike Callagy.
“We originally thought there would be more staff time [involved] to really kind of look at every application and put individual conditions on it,” he said.
The shift is part of a process to continually monitor the number and types of applications submitted to the county in the coming months as officials learn more about the effects of legalized marijuana, said county Community Development Director Steve Monowitz at the board’s Tuesday meeting.
Adopted in December just before legalized recreational cannabis took effect, the ordinance allowing pot cultivation in existing greenhouses in areas of the coastside functioned like a checklist aimed at identifying whether a site could qualify without further site-specific or environmental review, said Monowitz.
The Board of Supervisors, which has jurisdiction over land use policies for unincorporated areas of the county, also put in place a moratorium on retail sales when it approved the rules in December. Citing a dwindling cut flower industry on the coastside, it unanimously agreed to allow commercial marijuana cultivation in existing greenhouses so long as it doesn’t displace traditional crops being grown and set requirements related to odor control, energy and water consumption, waste management and surveillance systems.
The local ordinance also goes beyond state regulations by limiting grows to properties that are set back at least 1,000 feet from lots zoned for residences, schools, youth centers, day care centers or rehab centers.
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Though greenhouses meeting the same set of requirements can still be licensed for commercial cultivation, business owners looking to create new facilities now have a discretionary path for review that includes necessary environmental mitigation measures, said Monowitz.
“It gives my department and the other departments I’ll be working with the flexibility to create site specific conditions in order to avoid and reduce environmental impacts,” he said.
Callagy said the county has received one inquiry but had so far not received an application yet, adding that officials did not expect the change to increase the level of interest from potential business owners.
Callagy said the effort to monitor the ordinance’s effect would continue in the coming months and that officials are expected to revisit it before Dec. 31, when it will sunset.
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