LAKEPORT >> Acknowledging the juggling act they must sustain; the Lake County Cannabis Task Force devised a compromise to have its trees and harvest them too at the Task Force’s monthly meeting July 15.
Overseen by the Community Development Department Director Mireya Turner, she noted the county does not currently have an Oak or any tree preservation plan. But there are a number of aspects in the county General and Local Area Plans that encourage preservation of trees Turner explained.
“One, dealing with subdivisions and parcel maps are not allowing more than a 10% removal of trees and a clustering of buildings away from the trees,” she said. “In Middletown, planners go up to 40% of existing trees to be removed, but then there was a 3 to 1 replacement ratio,” she said. “We got the Riviera’s plan, they’re back down to 10 %.” But overall, there is a pattern of consistency she asserted.
“Removal of the true Oak species for the purpose of developing a cannabis cultivation site could be minimized, but that is difficult for a planner to assess,” Turner said. “But we’ve had projects come through in the last few years where we’ve seen some avoid taking out trees and some plans remove acres of trees. What’s before the Task Force is figure out where do we want to go, specific to cannabis development.” One local area plan, residents did not want tree removal, but they didn’t want to prohibit development. Principal Planner Michelle Irace noted a lot of fire reports abide by the 3 to 1 replacement mitigation. Turner agreed acknowledging that in the last few years that practice has increased specifically in timber preservation zones.
Yet one of the frustrations among administration staff was some people agreed to a timberland preservation zone because they basically wanted to get rid of the trees before they applied for a cannabis permit. So, staff would have a conversation with the Department of Forestry regarding that being used as a tool. “Staff will grant a permit, if an applicant says, ‘I’m going to put a house here,’ so what it ends up being is, people will take out three acres of trees for a cannabis grow,” recalled Turner. “It’s frustrating when we see obviously people playing with the system so, we want to tighten up that up in the future.”
Staff can take counter measures through using more stringent language than just saying more than, removal of Oaks should be minimized. “In the future to evaluate a project, we could say, ‘This looks good here, or can we change it a little bit over there,’ so we’re still preserving those resources we have. We don’t have to come to a decision today but let’s hear what people are thinking.” Richmond Kelly, Task Force member from South Lake noted he believed tree removal or alteration ought to be absolutely prohibited. “They’re irreplaceable, especially at this point in time,” he said. “We have tons on our property and every time one tree goes down, everything around it slowly fades back, and it is a big deal.”
Will Weiss, Task Force member asked, in regard to private property, about concerns over fire protection and defensible space. He raised the questions about exceptions to the rule of Oaks removal that apply to circumstances. “I’m not sure I see that here,” he said. But Turner responded that they have not dealt with tree removal in relation to fire danger. Wiess queried with a hypothetical about a house that cannot get insurance if trees are not removed, even a residence on a cannabis property.
But such an instance would apply to the cannabis activity itself noted Turner. “There’s a number of permits that do have dwellings, which they specify the house is not part of the project,” she said. “So, we have no mitigations or conditions regarding or anything excluded from the project.”
Jenifer Smith asked if there were there any county developments where there was a hard stop no removal of trees? Turner replied that the county does not have a “no removal” policy yet. “But I anticipate it is something that could happen,” she said. “We don’t want to prohibit development, but we need to maintain these systems that took so long to produce within our Oak woodlands and affect our environment well past the limits of that Oak woodlands. That’s why we end up with some projects where you see the canopy (cannabis) go around the trees or vineyards, but it falls on the will of the applicant because it is not grounds for (application) refusal.”
Sara Bodnar, an experienced cannabis farmer cautioned about when drafting rules to look at not only cannabis impacts, but how all kinds of development impact the land and urged people to keep an eye on the fact cannabis cultivation contributes toward open space protection, which she said is one of the most rigorously assessed forms of development and should fit into the larger development of the county. “Cannabis and other farmers are looking at how to preserve trees at every extent possible,” she said. “When you look at developing a parcel, you are looking at minimizing the overall process.”
