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Humboldt Planning Commission Supports Easing of Cannabis Microbusiness Regs · KMUD News

• 0:00
  Speaker A: As the times and market conditions change for cannabis farmers, so do Humboldt County's permitting rules, with the Planning Commission recommending new allowances for small scale operations. Changes to the county's cannabis ordinance designed to allow micro businesses to broaden their activities were recommended for approval by the Board of Supervisors at the commission's Sept. 18 meeting. The changes redefine a micro business as a composite use, including non volatile manufacturing, distribution and retail sales. Those would have to be related to cannabis cultivation of less than 10,000 square feet. County planner Augustus Groucho said the changes respond to lots of feedback.
• 0:48
  Speaker B: So why are we doing this? We had an outpouring of public comments lamenting economic difficulties among cannabis cultivators, notably a lot. Some of those comments referred to overcharging for services and or not fulfilling contracts. Those third parties include distribution, retail sales and processing, and manufacturing. So the board directed the planning department to assess options and the planning department determined that we believe that vertical integration potential available in micro businesses may assuage this issue if cultivators are able to take advantage of them.
• 1:25
  Speaker A: The changes were directed by the Board of Supervisors and they'll help cultivators add manufacturing and retail deliveries to their cultivation permits without requiring a more complex and costly special permit. The new way of doing things responds to market conditions that favor high quantity farming over the craft scale farming prevalent in Humboldt. As commented on here by Ross Gordon of the Humboldt County Growers alliance, this.
• 1:53
  Speaker C: Is a really significant issue for farmers here. I don't think it's a secret that wholesale prices have totally collapsed for farmers. Trying to compete with an undifferentiated product is not working. What is working for people is selling a craft high quality product that they're putting something extra into and being able to bring these types of value added activities on farm vertical integration, as staff put it, is really central to that. And so I think taking this seriously is really important. And if we can get to a place where those uses become significantly more accessible, I think it's going to be good not just for individual farmers able to do that. I think it's really going to support the county and being able to support a craft cannabis industry that can succeed despite the problems in the market.
• 2:35
  Speaker A: The changes also carve out a new exception for parcels in timber production zones and floodplains, lands that would otherwise prohibit micro businesses. Manufacturing can be done within existing buildings, but both Gordon and Commissioner Thomas Mulder highlighted a key remaining commercial building code standards. Mulder raised the practical difficulty for many rural farmers of bringing old existing structures up to current commercial code. And in this exchange with Ford, the potential for working residences into the existing building standard was discussed.
• 3:14
  Speaker D: Part of the struggle for many people, if not most, is that you can't make requirements that are so expensive to comply with that it doesn't make economic sense to do it. And that's why, particularly for the small farmer, we've traditionally tried to balance the fact that a lot of these folks are homesteaders that have a house on the property and there is an integration of their farm with the house. And that's probably the most effective way of complying with this.
• 3:50
  Speaker A: Okay, so I hear staff is willing to work within individuals, case by case, to try to find a pathway forward.
• 3:57
  Speaker D: Absolutely. Okay.
• 3:59
  Speaker A: The commission unanimously voted to recommend approval of the changes to the Board of Supervisors. The vote included a clarification that that manufacturing on timber production zone and floodplain land must occur within existing structures or within their footprints. Also during the meeting, commissioners recommended approval of the McKinleyville Town Center Plan to the Board of Supervisors. The mixed use plan maps a downtown like community focal point in the heart of McKinleyville. But reducing Central Avenue from four auto lanes to two is contentious, and the commission recommends holding off on it until a comprehensive traffic study is done in Eureka. For KMUD News, this is Daniel Mintz.