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Trinity County leaders direct staff to treat commercial cannabis as agriculture, ask for community-based zoning standards
Summary
After hours of public comment and planning-commission discussion, Trinity County supervisors and planning commissioners agreed to treat commercial cannabis as an agricultural use in the draft Trinity 2050 general plan and to develop community-plan-specific zoning overlays and performance standards rather than the countywide automatic redesignation
Trinity County leaders moved on Tuesday to fold the county’s commercial cannabis policy into the agricultural section of the draft Trinity 2050 general plan and asked staff to use community plans and the zoning-code update to craft localized performance and development standards. The Board of Supervisors and Planning Commission gave staff direction after extended briefings from the county planning team and consultant Mentor Harnish, and after more than an hour of public testimony.
The decision narrows the options the county had been considering for cannabis in the land-use element. County staff had presented three options: (1) redesignate rural-residential parcels with cannabis operations to agriculture and prohibit future cannabis in rural-residential (RR) designations; (2) keep cannabis allowed countywide in RR with a use permit and adopt countywide development standards in the zoning code; and (3) keep cannabis allowed in RR but allow community plans to shape bespoke development and performance standards (a hybrid, community-driven approach). County staff recommended option 3. After public comment and discussion, the board adopted an approach consistent with the staff recommendation plus the county administrative officer’s proposed clarification: treat cannabis as an agricultural product in the general plan and develop standards and overlays through the zoning code and community-plan work.
Why it matters: the choice affects dozens of property owners and existing operators and determines whether the county will need to undertake an immediate, countywide redesignation and rezoning effort (which staff said would be costly and time-consuming) or rely on targeted zoning changes tied to community plan boundaries and parcel-size/performance standards. The county’s existing cannabis environmental work (the cannabis EIR) and the upcoming zoning-code update are both dependent on clear direction in the general plan.
What the…
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