LAKEPORT >> With time quickly ticking down, Lakeport city staff members are creating a draft Marijuana Ordinance to bring to the Planning Commission and City Council before January 1 hits.
City Manager Margaret Silveira said not much will change with the ordinance that is currently in place covering cultivation because it already follows most of the state regulations. One change that will be made involves indoor grow limits, capping cultivation at six plants.
This change is necessary to bring Lakeport in line with the state’s regulation. The city’s current ordinance addresses the nuisance aspect of indoor grows.
“Our biggest thing was smell. All the complaints we got were smell,” Silveira said. “So once we regulated that about three or four years ago, we went from 50 complaints a month to about one or two a year.”
Silveira said the city will be trying to work with the new state rules to regulate rather than ban cannabis. Most of the testing and manufacturing of the product, if approved by the city council, will be kept within the city’s industrial zoned areas.
“We are looking at manufacturing and commercial grow indoors. Everything is going to be indoors,” Silveira said.
Whether or not there will be dispensaries in the city is still yet to be determined.
Community Development Director Kevin Ingram said as the ordinance has been developing, city staff has been looking at cities in neighboring counties to get an idea of what direction Lakeport is going in for the draft.
“We don’t have a real draft ordinance together. We are looking at all the different neighboring cities, looking at what the county is putting together and don’t want to stray too far from what is expected,” Ingram said.
Staff members refining the draft are guided by a goal of consistency between the Lakeport ordinance, other ordinances in surrounding areas and state laws. Ingram said they will have a framework decided upon by the end of September.
“We’ve been pushing through and my hope is we have an introductory meeting on the 20th of this month and then a joint meeting between both the Planning Commission on October 3,” Ingram said. “The recommendations that we will move forward with will be the start.”
This meeting held will be an introduction to the ordinance and allow the public to make comments and give their input that the city will take into consideration when creating the final draft to be approved by the council later this year.
