SHASTA LAKE – Outdoor medical marijuana gardens would not be allowed within city limits under a draft ordinance to be reviewed tonight by the Shasta Lake Planning Commission.
This will be the first time that commissioners have reviewed the draft ordinance, which is not up for approval at the meeting, the Redding Record-Searchlight’s Jim Schultz reports.
Instead, commissioners will get a chance to discuss the draft ordinance and possibly order alternatives or modifications.
A public hearing will be held on the ordinance at a later date.
It would be at that time that commissioners would consider recommending its possible adoption to the City Council.
On Tuesday, the Anderson City Council postponed for 60 days any action on a proposed ordinance to restrict cultivation of medical marijuana within that city’s limits to secure out buildings no larger than 120 square feet within a fenced back or side yards large enough to accommodate such structures.
It also agreed to extend for one year a moratorium for any additional medical marijuana dispensaries, collectives or cooperatives within Anderson.
If adopted as now written, the Shasta Lake draft ordinance would prohibit growing pot outdoors within city limits.
The proposed restriction grew from concerns over the plants’ odor.
In comparison, the city of Redding allows the outdoor gardens.
But there’s a maximum of 100 square feet of canopy area for each qualified medical marijuana patient, not to exceed cultivation for three at any one address or on any individual parcel.
It also allows an exception based on a specific recommendation of a physician.
Shasta County limits outdoor gardens to 60 square feet for parcels with a gross area of less than an acre and 240 square feet for parcels with a gross area over one acre.
But in the city of Shasta Lake, there are clusters of smaller parcels with the potential for “significant impacts” if all of these parcels established outdoor medical marijuana cultivation areas, Development Services Director Carla Thompson wrote in an administrative report.
“It is impossible to control odors for outdoor gardens, especially if these uses are clustered within the same neighborhood,” she wrote.
At their last meeting, Thompson said commissioners complained that strong odors from marijuana gardens can be a public nuisance.
“It was noted that based on the public’s comments (at the commission’s prior meeting), gardens on smaller parcels seem to be more of an issue for neighboring residents,” Thompson wrote in her report.
Under the draft ordinance, cultivation would be allowed within a home or in an accessory building, but a number of conditions and regulations would still apply.
For example, the cultivation area could not exceed 120 square feet and could not exceed 10 feet in height.
In addition, cultivation lighting could not be more than a total of 1,200 watts, and gas products, such as carbon dioxide and butane, could not be used in the marijuana’s cultivation or processing.
Also, those qualified medical marijuana patients would have to live where the pot is being grown and could not participate in medical marijuana cultivation in any other residence.
Furthermore, a home’s kitchen, bathrooms and its primary bedrooms could not be used primarily for medical marijuana cultivation, and the cultivation areas also would have to comply with California Building Code requirements.
Should commissioners, as well as the council, allow outdoor marijuana cultivation within city limits, Thompson is recommending that gardens be prohibited on any parcel within 1,000 feet of a school, day care center, day care home, recreation center, youth center, library or a public park.
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