Trinity County board directs staff to treat cannabis as agriculture, shift zoning work to community plans

Trinity County supervisors on Wednesday directed staff to treat commercial cannabis as an agricultural use in the county—s draft Trinity 2050 general plan and to move detailed permitting and performance standards into the countywide zoning code and community-level overlays. The board—s decision follows a day-long study session in which staff and consultants summarized public comments, described three alternate approaches for scheduling cannabis in the plan and zoning, and urged a community-led overlay approach.

The direction is a shift from the version of the public-review draft that drew strong comment: that draft would have required redesignating many rural-residential parcels to an agriculture category if they already supported licensed cannabis operations. Public commenters warned that automatic redesignation and the ensuing rezoning process could create time and cost burdens for property owners and new applicants. Staff reported 224 land-use comments submitted during the public review; 205 were about cannabis. Separately the county received roughly 193 requests for parcel redesignations, most asking to move parcels to agriculture to preserve or enable cultivation.

Why it matters: the general plan lays out broad land-use designations for the next 20'-30 years and starts the environmental review (the plan will trigger an EIR). Zoning implements the plan and defines permit types, parcel-size rules, setbacks, performance standards and other technical controls. Supervisors said they wanted the general plan to set the broad policy (cannabis = agriculture) but not to embed detailed, EIR-derived cannabis standards in the plan text; those specifics should be shaped in the zoning code and by community plans so rules respond to local conditions.

What staff presented and what the board decided

- Staff and the consultant team walked the board through three options: (1) redesignate RR (rural-residential) parcels with cannabis activity to an agricultural designation, then rezone countywide to align; (2) leave cannabis allowed in RR countywide but add uniform countywide development and performance standards in zoning; (3) keep cannabis allowable in RR, avoid countywide redesignations, and create community-specific standards (overlays) that would let towns set development standards that reflect local preferences. Staff favored option 3 as the most responsive to public comment.

- At the study session the county—s chief administrative officer (Trent Tuthill) proposed a related hybrid: treat cannabis as an agricultural product in the general-plan text (consistent with state classifications), remove repetitive EIR-specific policy language from the general-plan chapter, and direct staff to develop community-plan-based overlay zones and a countywide set of baseline standards in the zoning code. The board accepted that direction and asked staff to return with timeline and scope for the zoning work.

Public comments and concerns

- Local growers, business owners and residents spoke in person and on Zoom. Many growers opposed automatic mass redesignations to agriculture, arguing that it could raise costs and complicate future licensing if rezonings were not handled carefully. "It just I don't know how that makes any kind of sense at all in the planning world," said Adrian Keyes, a Hayfork resident who testified during public comment about the practical burdens of a redesignation-rezone path.

- Other commenters urged the county to treat cannabis as an agricultural business and to craft performance standards that would allow local operators to continue or to enter the market. Several speakers asked for community-specific standards rather than a single countywide rule.

Staff and legal context

- The county has a cannabis EIR and an existing regulatory/licensing program; staff noted many of the draft plan—s cannabis policies were restatements of EIR mitigation or program measures. The board directed staff to avoid duplicating EIR language in the plan that reads like technical mitigation measures, and instead to keep high-level policy in the general plan and put operational standards in the zoning code.

- Staff also noted the county will reclassify previously —unclassified— zoning districts as part of the zoning update; some rezonings will be required even under options that avoid countywide redesignation because the unclassified zone is being removed.

Board direction and next steps

- The board conveyed consensus support for the CAO—s recommendation: (a) treat cannabis as an agricultural use in the general-plan land-use map and text, (b) remove or simplify EIR-derived technical cannabis policies from the general-plan chapter, and (c) pursue a zoning-code rewrite that creates baseline countywide performance standards while enabling community-plan-based overlay zones for locally tailored standards.

- Supervisors also asked staff to run a targeted outreach step to communities to design the overlay approach and to return with a scope and cost estimate. The CAO told the board that an additional round of community engagement would cost about $50,000; the board agreed to fund a targeted engagement phase while staff prepares the revised public-review draft and the EIR scoping materials.

Discussion vs. decision

- Discussion: The meeting included extended debate of the tradeoffs between countywide uniformity, economic access for prospective growers, and the administrative cost of mass rezonings. Multiple residents warned that failing to handle redesignations carefully could shift rezone expense to property owners later.

- Direction (not a formal ordinance vote): The board gave staff direction to implement the CAO—s hybrid approach (cannabis = agriculture in the general plan; zoning and community overlays to set standards) and to return with a work plan and schedule for the zoning-code update and the revised public-review draft and EIR. No formal ordinance or code adoption took place at the study session.

What to watch next

- Staff will prepare a revised public-review draft of the general plan (incorporating the board—s direction and public comments), publish the EIR scoping documents, and begin the zoning-code rewrite. The zoning work will be the forum for the technical performance standards, parcel-size thresholds, and permit types that determine where and how cannabis operations can operate.

- Property owners who asked for redesignations will be contacted by staff with clarification and options. Staff repeatedly said that if property owners want a specific redesignation handled as part of the current update, they should flag that now rather than leaving it for a future individual general-plan amendment and rezoning, which would be the property owner—s cost.

Speakers quoted or referenced in this report are listed in the article—s speaker roster (below).