- Elizabeth Larson
- Posted On
Supervisors vote to temporarily stop issuing early activation permits for land use projects
The urgency ordinance, which went into effect immediately upon the board’s unanimous Tuesday vote, will be in effect for 45 days unless the board takes further action to continue it, said County Counsel Anita Grant.
Supervisors Jessica Pyska and Moke Simon, members of the Community Development Department Ad-Hoc Committee, presented the item to the board.
Pyska said they’d been working closely with County Administrative Officer Carol Huchingson — who the board has named interim Community Development director while the county searches for a permanent director — and other staff to become familiar with what is going on in the department. She said Grant drafted the ordinance.
Pyska said they have opportunities to improve, including streamlining and modernizing Community Development processes to make it easier for people to work with the department and to make the most efficient use of staff time.
“It will enable the public we serve to know what they can expect and how long things will take,” said Pyska.
“Improving our use permit process is the priority, especially during a severe drought emergency,” she said, adding, “Quality environmental review is a must for our board to make good land use different decisions.”
Pyska said they also want to ensure that the public has appropriate opportunities to weigh in on these projects.
“We want to be proactive in developing opportunities in our county but sometimes you have to take a beat and reset,” she said.
“Ultimately streamlining the use permit process is our best opportunity right now and pausing new early activations is going to help with that,” Pyska added.
Simon said the temporary prohibition on issuing early activation permits also will address a significant backlog of applications and ensure permits are not issued without thorough consideration and meeting the criteria allowing early activation.
He emphasized that early activation applications submitted before the effective date of the ordinance and deemed acceptable will be allowed to proceed.
Board Chair Bruno Sabatier questioned the urgency ordinance’s language regarding those permits that have already been submitted and “deemed acceptable.”
Grant explained that it meant that an application has been submitted and on its face it meets the requirements to be submitted.
She explained that early activation is a temporary six-month permit intended to stand alone while other parts of an application are jelling and coming together. “And now it's become kind of an entitlement or treated as an entitlement which is a temporary permit it wasn't intended to be.”
Grant said the whole process now seems bogged down because people are trying to do more than one thing at once — pursue early activation while also going after use permits.
The committee’s direction, she said, was that the early activation permit process needs to be put on pause in order for the process to become more streamlined and clear.
Sabatier said he felt the matter fell in line with asking for more water analysis on projects, which the board did through another urgency ordinance earlier that day. “And it should be a rare case at this moment in time due to the drought that early activations are as easily provided and granted.”
He said last year there were 100 early activations sought versus not yet 20 this year. Later in the meeting, he asked how many early activation permits were in the pipeline. Staff said they didn’t have that number immediately but would provide it as soon as possible.
Sabatier said if the number is zero, they should just do a regular moratorium, not a temporary one.
During public comment, the board heard from community members including Mike Mitzel, a cannabis grower who said early activation allows for projects to be properly tested out before getting long-term permits.
That was contrasted with comments from Clearlake Oaks resident Don Van Pelt, who said he has experience living next door to a cannabis project that received early activation. He said the board needed to look at long-term impacts of projects. “We can say today that everything's going to be fine but nobody really knows.”
Several speakers raised concerns that the pause on early activation was focused primarily on cannabis projects.
Sean Connell, who formerly served as Mendocino County’s cannabis program manager, said Lake County needs to establish a cannabis department to focus on the industry, with professionals who understand the unique planning and permitting aspects of cannabis.
Grant noted that the point of the 45-day pause is to allow the Community Development Department and the ad hoc committee the opportunity to review and determine whether they want to have a separate division, department or bureau.
Mary Jane Montana, a former Community Development director, said early activation has been a part of the county’s zoning ordinance for many years and isn’t just related to cannabis. She said it has been used for applications which didn’t require grading or building permits.
“There was quite a backlog from the very beginning,” Montana said.
She asked the board to consider allowing early activation to continue for small acreage, between one and five acres, to let people recoup some of their considerable financial outlay.
Daniel Tyrrell asked the board to take small farmers into consideration, noting the county could start to see more of a move to unpermitted grows. That creates a different problem for a different agency, he said.
“Early activation is a process that’s not specific to cannabis but it has become the standard on nearly all of the new cannabis projects,” said Lake County Farm Bureau Executive Director Brenna Sullivan.
“We agree that the process does deserve a thorough review,” Sullivan said, noting the process has created a number of other unintentional issues that deserve thorough review.
“We’re doing this to improve the processes, to improve efficiencies, to improve expectations and delivery. This is to make the process better and stronger,” Pyska said after hearing the comments, adding it’s the right time because it’s already the middle of the growing season.
Supervisor EJ Crandell pointed out that in the 2019 county budget it looked at creating a cannabis department in Community Development. Since then they have hired one technician and a planner, but haven’t been able to get a program manager.
Finding that staff, said Pyska, is part of the ad hoc committee’s work.
Simon offered the urgency ordinance, which the board approved 5-0.
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