Sonoma County Provides Q3 Commercial Cannabis Permitting Update
By Lauren Mendelsohn
November 18, 2020
On Tuesday, November 10, 2020, the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors received a quarterly update from its Cannabis Ad Hoc Committee regarding the status of the county’s cannabis permitting program. You can access the report here.
Sonoma County is looking at amending the ordinance to put the Agriculture Department in charge of permitting cultivation operations, as well as to align with state regulations, and to address other cleanups and opportunities. A General Plan amendment would be needed in order to classify cannabis as “agriculture.” It appears that environmental review pursuant to CEQA (the California Environmental Quality Act) is currently under review.
According to a presentation made to the Planning Agency earlier this year, some other possible changes include expanding the allowable cultivation area on large parcels and per person, revising certain setbacks, and allowing cannabis-related tours and events. The county’s goal is to have a draft ready for public review by the end of 2020, with the possibility of bringing the amended ordinance to the Board of Supervisors in January or February of 2021.
For some background, Sonoma County adopted a set of comprehensive cannabis ordinances in December 2016 to regulate and issue permits for various kinds of cannabis activity. Since then, there has been discussion about amending the ordinance, and the county indicated they would seek to do so in “phases.” The “Phase One” amendments took place in October 2018, when a 10-acre minimum parcel size was adopted for all commercial cultivation (with the exception of industrial zones), parks were added to the list of sensitive uses requiring a 600-foot setback, adult-use activity became allowable with a use permit, and new license types were added (including centralized processing facility, microbusiness, and transport-only distributor), among other changes. In 2019 the Board of Supervisors voted to move forward with “Phase Two” of the ordinance amendments, which is what is taking place right now.
The recent departure of Niki Berrocal, the former cannabis program manager, means that the “point person” for the cannabis program will be Assistant County Administrator Christina Rivera. Rivera said she will be overseeing coordination between PRMD, the Agriculture Department, and other departments involved in the cannabis program. However, the county indicated during the November 10 Supervisors meeting that they are not planning to hire or appoint anyone to manage the cannabis program going forward. The Supervisors also stated that they were not planning to continue the Cannabis Ad Hoc Committee once the Phase Two amendments are complete.
The Q3 report materials indicate that the following number of permits have been applied for and issued:
These numbers are not very large considering that there were an estimated 5,000 cannabis cultivators in Sonoma County prior to adoption of the current policy, according to the Sonoma County Growers Alliance. Many of these legacy operators were not able to apply for a permit on the property they’d been cultivating on for years since it wasn’t correctly zoned or didn’t meet other requirements that previously had not been in place. Real estate in Sonoma County isn’t cheap, so simply finding a new location that meets the necessary criteria isn’t always as simple as it sounds, especially for a small farmer. Some of the legacy operators who were able to apply and who qualified for the county’s “Penalty Relief” program are still waiting for a hearing on their project, despite how priority processing was promised for Penalty Relief applicants.
Additionally, the report shows how much Sonoma County has made in cannabis taxes over the past few years:
As you can see, Sonoma County has (essentially) made less in cannabis tax revenue each year since the tax was enacted, contrary to the typical pattern seen when local jurisdictions enact a cannabis tax in conjunction with a licensing program. This is due to the challenges involved in obtaining a cannabis permit in Sonoma County, from stringent requirements related to parcel size, zoning, water availability, biological resources, etc.; to a lengthy review process that has taken some applicants years to navigate; to an outspoken cohort of anti-cannabis neighborhood groups, among other factors.
Sonoma County is still accepting applications for cannabis cultivation and other types of commercial cannabis activity under the current ordinance, and as mentioned, county staff is in the process of proposing updates to the cannabis ordinance that are designed to speed up permitting. (Sonoma County is accepting hemp production applications as well.) That being said, the county has not addressed what is being or could be done to help applicants who are in the process, many of whom have been in limbo for years as they jump through numerous hoops and wait for county-hired planners to do their review. Hopefully the highly-anticipated ordinance update will provide more clarity on the path forward once that is released.
This is a developing story. Please stay tuned for further updates.
This information is provided as a public educational service and is not intended as legal advice. For specific questions regarding cannabis and hemp laws in Sonoma County and California more broadly, please contact the Law Offices of Omar Figueroa at 707-829-0215 or info@omarfigueroa.com to schedule a confidential legal consultation.