Planning commission recommends rezoning to allow second cannabis greenhouse on Outback Way

The Calaveras County Planning Commission on March 27 recommended the Board of Supervisors approve a zoning amendment that would reclassify 626 Outback Way (APN 140-100-41) from Residential Agriculture (RA) to General Agriculture (A1), allowing the property owner to apply for an additional cannabis cultivation permit on a parcel that already hosts a commercial greenhouse.

Planner Ben Diamond told commissioners the 40-acre parcel, just east of Jeff Davis Reservoir and west of Railroad Flat, currently hosts a roughly 34,000-square-foot polycarbonate greenhouse and supporting buildings. The applicant seeks the rezoning so it can colocate an additional cultivation operation, including a proposed roughly 30,000-square-foot greenhouse and, when funding allows, an additional vegetation building. Diamond said the parcel already has two wells and two septic systems and that the project is tiered from the county’s cannabis program EIR; staff prepared an initial study and a mitigated negative declaration to address site-specific impacts. “The requested zoning is consistent with the county general plan, the zoning code, and is consistent with neighboring and adjacent land uses and…