08/15/2021
We are a group of neighbors living near the Pacific Coast in Santa Cruz County. Over the years, our primarily agricultural neighborhood has evolved to include over 50 family homes, a state park and beach, and even a pre-school. In the middle of this neighborhood sits a 30 acre parcel of farmland. This farm has historically grown flowers and, along with other neighborhood crops of strawberries and pumpkins, has contributed to a beautiful and bucolic environment.
Recently, by accident, we found out that a corporation from Tracy has applied for a permit to cultivate 220,000 square feet of cannabis in 22 greenhouses on this property which is as close as 500 feet from some of the homes in our community. The applicant is not the property owner and not even a resident of this County.
As we investigated this situation further, we found some disturbing surprises in the Santa Cruz County ordinance that controls the permitting of cannabis cultivation. We learned that:
1. There was no requirement to notify any of the local residents and neighbors of this license application;
2. There was no process for neighborhood input into the licensing process; and
3. There was no process for us to appeal a license once granted.
We also learned that the applicant was planning to run this operation day and night, creating 220,000 square feet of glowing greenhouses and potentially ruining the habitat for the local owls and other nocturnal creatures. We still don’t know any details about the use of pesticides, the increase in water usage from our local aquifer, or the increase in traffic and potential security concerns surrounding this commercial operation.
We support local agriculture, and we are not opposed to cannabis or cannabis cultivation in appropriate commercial and industrial areas. We would like to see changes in the commercial cannabis licensing ordinance that protect residential communities like ours and keep commercial cannabis crops in non-residential areas where they were originally intended.
Please help us create awareness of these issues and facilitate the appropriate changes in our laws.
