Memorandum
Date: August 4, 2020
To: The Honorable Moke Simon, Chair, Lake County Board of Supervisors
From: Scott De Leon, Public Works Director
Subject: Consideration of an Ordinance Amending Articles 27 and 68 of Chapter Twenty-One of the Lake County Code to Clarify the Definition of Public Lands in Regard to Commercial Cannabis Cultivation
Executive Summary: (include fiscal and staffing impact narrative):
In May, 2019 Article 27 of Chapter Twenty-one of the Lake County Code (also known as the Cannabis Ordinance) was modified to include revised cannabis cultivation exclusion areas - which prohibited cultivation within one-thousand (1000') feet of the specified use. Included in that modification was the term "Public Lands". Review of both the Planning Commission and Board of Supervisor video recordings revealed there was little to no discussion about this particular prohibition, however now that it is in place, it is proving to have significant impacts on a number of proposed cannabis projects.
Staff researched the inclusion of Public Lands by talking with former staff members who were involved at the time of the ordinance change and discovered that the spirit of excluding cannabis cultivation within one-thousand feet of Public Land was to protect the public's enjoyment of those public lands while they were recreating on it. The issue we are now discovering is there are many plots of publically-owned land - specifically Bureau of Land Management (BLM) - all over Lake County where there are no designated or designed facilities for public use. Examples of designated or designed features include: hiking trails, campgrounds, off-road vehicle trails, etc. These unimproved parcels, with no existing or foreseen public recreation use, have impacted potential commercial cannabis projects by restricting cultivation within one-thousand feet.
As a remedy, staff is proposing that the ordinance be amended to include a definition of "Public Land" that will b...
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