The meeting video can be seen at online at https://countyoflake.legistar.com/Calendar.aspx.
County Counsel Anita Grant released the final copy of the urgency ordinance to Lake County News on Thursday. The document can be seen below.
The urgency ordinance went into effect immediately on Tuesday with the four-fifths vote of the board, according to the document language. Supervisor Rob Brown was the lone no vote.
“It’s effective for 45 days. Before that time period expires, the board must hold a noticed public hearing to extend it any further,” Grant said.
Community Development Department Director Robert Massarelli originally had gone to the board last week to ask for a temporary moratorium while staff completed the process of crafting permanent regulations.
However, at last week’s meeting, following an outcry from local growers who said they would be shut down for the coming year and unable to get the needed state permits, the majority of the board instead chose to consider an urgency ordinance.
Grant said the board is allowing people to move forward by applying for state licensure. However, the county doesn’t yet have the wherewithal under existing zoning to allow those who receive the licenses to cultivate.
She told the board that they’re allowing people to continue the process, “and essentially you’re hoping you’ll catch up.”
County officials have estimated that the full and permanent regulations should be in effect sometime in the first half of 2018.
The document states that for a 45-day period there is a moratorium against cultivation, distribution, transport, storage, manufacturing, processing, testing and sale of commercial cannabis in any unincorporated area of Lake County “pending further review and consideration of the impacts of recent State-issued cannabis regulations upon the development and implementation of a permanent County ordinance addressing commercial cannabis.
Those prohibitions are in effect except for individuals who have submitted a complete self-certification application under Article 72 of Lake County’s Zoning Ordinance and have submitted a signed affidavit of compliance with state and local law as of the ordinance’s effective date.
Those individuals will be issued an authorization letter to proceed with the application for state license Type 1, specialty outdoor, up to 5,000 square feet or a maximum of 50 mature plants; Type 1C, specialty cottage, up to 25 mature plants for outdoor, maximum of 500 square feet indoor or for mixed light up to 2,500 square feet; Type 2 licenses for small operations ranging between 5,001 and 10,000 square feet; and Type 3 licenses for medium operations ranging between 10,001 square feet and 22,000 square feet.
However, they get that go-ahead to proceed “with the caveat that said authorization shall only serve to acknowledge the applicant’s prior compliance with state and local law and present eligibility to pursue a local commercial cultivation license when the County’s permanent commercial cannabis ordinance is final. Said authorization is not an adjudication and is not a permit or approval of commercial cultivation at any particular location,” the ordinance reads.
The document also makes clear that the urgency ordinance doesn’t create or imply any right to claim any vested right for marijuana cultivators.
The ordinance also states that all registrations issued pursuant to the ordinance shall automatically expire when the ordinance does and/or is terminated or when a permanent ordinance is adopted, or whichever occurs sooner.
The limited registration is conditioned on the execution of a written acknowledgement by the registrant that they have no vested rights as a result of the registration. “All cultivators will be required to apply for and be granted a land use permit under the County’s permanent ordinance in order to cultivate.”
At Tuesday’s meeting, Massarelli reported that the State Water Board has issued 65 permits for growers in Lake County, with many applications before the board that are not being processed.
He said 12 grower self-certifications have been received by the county. Of those, 11 growers have pursued both the state permit process and county self-certification.
Massarelli said his staff hasn’t yet assessed the 65 permits issued by the state to know if they comply with county zoning law and would even be allowed.
Speakers at Tuesday’s meeting urged the board to take action, as otherwise their hands were being tied on moving forward with their operations. They said inaction would hamper or altogether end their efforts to secure investment, and the board was reminded that additional steps needed to be taken before cultivation could even begin under the new state rules.
Growers also argued that the people who were in the room advocating for the urgency ordinance were the “good actors” – people who wanted to work within state regulations, not the growers who for years have done damage to the environment and caused problems in neighborhoods.
Grant told the board Tuesday that if after the urgency ordinance’s initial 45-day period the document doesn’t do what was intended, the supervisors can extend and alter it but will have to have another public hearing.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
121917 Lake County marijuana cultivation urgency ordinance by LakeCoNews on Scribd