Board votes to approve ordinance, with 10% expansion

June 4, 2021 — The Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 to approve chapter 22.18, the phase III cannabis cultivation ordinance that will allow cultivation on up to 10% of ag or rangeland parcels that are ten acres or larger. They also directed staff to come back with another ordinance this summer that will allow growers in those zones to phase in to larger operations. 
The board was struggling to pass the ordinance before June 30. After that, the state requires  local jurisdictions to conduct what supervisors fear would be a costly and time consuming environmental impact review. But the last time the ordinance came before the Planning Commission, that body recommended a ten percent expansion with a 2-acre cap. If the board changed the commission’s recommendations too much, the ordinance would have needed another round of review by both bodies, which would probably take longer than a month. Most of the board believes an EIR would take years, during which time no one in the county would get a state license and progress toward legal cultivation would come to a halt.
The possibility of expansion has spurred preparations for a referendum to repeal the ordinance…