The Yolo County Board of Supervisors approved amendments to Yolo County’s Cannabis Land Use Ordinance after staff proposed extending timelines due to the lawsuit the county is currently facing.
On Sept. 14, supervisors unanimously approved and adopted the Cannabis Land Use Ordinance (CLUO) and certified the Final Environmental Impact Report for the ordinance. One month later, on Oct. 14, the CLUO went into effect.
On the same day the CLUO went into effect, the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation distributed a press release announcing they had partnered with the Yolo County Farm Bureau, Sierra Club and the citizen’s group Voices for Responsible Leadership in a lawsuit against Yolo County, the Board of Supervisors and Yolo County Community Services.
According to the lawsuit and the press release, the tribe does not object to the legal cultivation of cannabis, nor does it seek to block county residents from profiting from the cannabis industry, but rather takes issue with the final ordinance as written. The lawsuit is seeking to block implementation until its challenges are corrected.
During the Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday, Heidi Tschudin, Yolo County contract land use planner, reported that staff was proposing to push back the timeline for accepting cannabis use permits from existing licensees from Jan. 3 to March 1, 2022. The period of acceptance for cannabis use permits would last until Dec. 16, 2022.
There will also be a mandatory pre-application process in the month of January for existing licensees that are outside of the Capay Valley area and are seeking a non-cultivation type license.
“The purpose of these two changes is to better align this with the timing of the lawsuit that is underway regarding the CLUO and the second is related to the pre-application in order to determine the demand for non-cultivation licenses,” Tschudin explained.
Tschudin said the pre-application would also allow for early assessment of tribal cultural resources and early identification for other constraints, particularly for relocating operations such as buffers, overconcentration and permanent electrical supply.
Read more at https://www.dailydemocrat.com/2021/12/08/yolo-county-supervisors-approve-amendments-to-cannabis-ordinance/
