Trinity County leaders direct staff to treat commercial cannabis as agriculture, ask for community-based zoning standards

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 board asked staff to do - Treat commercial cannabis as an agricultural product in the general plan (i.e., include cannabis in the agriculture-related goals and policies rather than creating a separate, prohibitive RR carve-out). CAO Jason Tuthill summarized his recommendation to the board as a countywide approach to recognize cannabis as agriculture and then use zoning overlays to allow communities to tailor standards. - Direct planning staff and the consultant team to implement a community-plan-driven approach to zoning: develop countywide baseline standards for areas outside community-plan overlays, and allow community-plan overlays to identify modified performance and development standards suited to local conditions (parcel sizes, setbacks, odor mitigation, lighting, parking, water and wastewater capacity). - Proceed with a modified zoning approach and avoid the immediate automatic reclassification/residential-to-agriculture conversion (the staff presentation noted the heavy administrative and fiscal cost associated with automatically redesignating and rezoning hundreds of parcels under option 1). - Provide an additional round of community engagement focused on community plans and zoning, at an estimated cost of about $50,000 to fund public workshops and outreach (staff said funds exist in the general-plan budget to cover that expense).

Public comment and the record Public testimony came from operators, residents and other stakeholders. Several existing and prospective cannabis operators urged the county not to create additional barriers; they asked for clear, accessible pathways to licensure and for locally tailored performance standards rather than blanket prohibitions. Opposing speakers emphasized concerns about odors, lighting, and infrastructure, and some asked the county to allow community-level opt-outs or overlays. As one Hayfork resident noted during public comment, “We should be looking to the future — having the possibility for more opportunity rather than less,” (Dana Hauser, Hayfork).

Numbers and practical limits mentioned on the record - County staff reported 224 public comments about land use; 205 (about 92%) focused on cannabis issues. (Brett, planning staff) - During the general-plan update process the county received 193 individual parcel redesignation requests; 181 of those were driven by requests to move parcels to an agriculture designation to preserve cannabis licensure eligibility. - The county’s cannabis environmental review and program established a built-in framework for licensure and mitigation. Staff emphasized that many of the specific mitigation recommendations are already analyzed in the cannabis EIR and will be incorporated into zoning/permitting, not duplicated in a restrictive general-plan carve-out.

Implementation and timing Staff said the next steps are: (1) incorporate the board’s direction in a revised public-review draft of the general plan; (2) use the zoning-code update to draft baseline countywide standards and community-specific overlays; (3) trigger the EIR process for the revised plan; and (4) continue public outreach including a focused round of community-plan workshops in selected locations. The EIR and zoning work will take many months; staff noted the zoning-code effort is a separate track that will define permit types, parcel-size thresholds, setbacks, performance standards, and enforcement measures.

Concerns flagged in discussion - Cost and time. Option 1 would have required a large, county-paid rezone effort; staff said that could be expensive and time-consuming for the county. Several supervisors and the planning commission expressed concern about the fiscal impact of any automatic countywide rezoning. - Equity and access. Several commenters warned that automatic rezoning could impose costs on future prospective operators who would otherwise have been able to apply; staff stressed that property owners who want to change their designation can still apply through the public-review window to avoid later cost burdens. - Enforcement and predictability. Commissioners stressed the need for clear, enforceable performance standards (odor, light, setbacks, water/wastewater) and asked staff to bring specific draft standards to the zoning-code process rather than leave them undefined.

What staff will return with Staff will prepare a revised public-review draft of Trinity 2050 that treats commercial cannabis as an agricultural product, and will: refine land-use designation maps as needed; develop a zoning-code workplan that includes community overlays and countywide baseline standards; and schedule a targeted round of community-plan outreach (estimated additional cost: $50,000). The board directed staff to return with those materials for further input from the Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors.

Quotes (from the record) “This is a milestone meeting for those of you who have been following the general plan update,” Mentor Harnish said during the staff presentation. “My recommendation at this point… is to consider cannabis as part of agriculture and to use community plans to inform the zoning standards,” said County Administrative Officer Jason Tuthill as he summarized staff’s preferred direction to the board. “We should be looking to the future, having the possibility for more opportunity rather than less,” said Dana Hauser (Hayfork) during public comment.

Ending note The board and planning commission settled on a middle path: recognize cannabis as agriculture in the general plan but defer the detailed, enforceable rules to the zoning-code update and to community-plan overlays. That approach keeps the county from launching a costly immediate countywide rezoning while directing staff to produce concrete performance standards and pursue targeted community outreach before the EIR and final adoption.