so

if

I'm going to move to the

meeting.

A March 13th, 2025, 5.30 p.m.

Planning and design commission meeting.

The meeting is now called to order.

Will the clerk please call the roll to establish a quorum.

Thank you, Chair.

Commissioner Lee.

Here.

Commissioner Lamas.

Here.

Commissioner Nibbo.

Here.

Commissioner Kaden.

Here.

Commissioner Hernandez.

Here.

Commissioner Moss'

This week.

Here.

Commissioner Blunt.

Here.

Vice Chair Chase.

Here.

Commissioner Wiske.

Is absent.

Commissioner Thompson.

Here.

And Chair Young.

Here.

Thank you, we have a quorum.

Thank you.

I would like to remind members of the public and chambers that if you would like to speak on an agenda item,

please turn in the speaker slip.

When the item begins, you will have three minutes to speak once you are called on.

After the first speaker, we will no longer accept speaker slips.

We will now proceed with today's agenda, starting with the land acknowledgement followed

by the Pledge of Allegiance.

Please rise for the opening of knowledgements in honor of Sacramento's Indigenous people and tribal lands.

To the original people of this land, the Nissan on people, the southern Maidu, Valley and

Plains Mewock, Pat Winn Winn, two peoples and the people of the Wilton Rancheria, Sacramento's

only federally recognized tribe.

May we acknowledge and honor the native people who came before us and still walk beside us today on these ancestral lands by choosing to gather today in the active practice of

acknowledgement and appreciation of the Sacramento's Indigenous people's history, contributions and lives.

Thank you.

Please remain standing for the Pledge.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God,

indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Right.

Thank you.

We want to give a welcome to our new commissioner, Deborah, or T's.

Welcome.

And we'll have some time later in the meeting for you to give some introductions.

So thank you.

We'll now proceed with the Director's report, which there is not correct.

Correct, Chair. No, Director's report this evening.

Okay. We'll now proceed with the consent calendar clerk.

Are there any members of the public who wish to speak on the consent calendar?

Thank you, Chair. I have no speaker slips on this item.

All right. Are there any commissioners who wish to speak on the consent calendar?

Where is there a motion or a second?

Commissioner Hernandez?

Move to approve.

Move to approve.

Okay. Got a motion there.

Commissioner, is that rescue or chase? Commissioner Chase?

Thank you.

Have a motion and a second.

So will the clerk please call a roll for the vote?

Thank you, Chair.

Commissioners, please unmute.

Commissioner Lee?

Aye.

Commissioner Lamas?

Aye.

Commissioner Nibbo?

Aye.

Commissioner Caden?

Aye.

Commissioner Hernandez?

Aye.

Commissioner Mastisrede?

Aye.

Commissioner Ortiz?

Aye.

Commissioner Blan?

Aye.

Vice Chair Chase?

Aye.

Commissioner Risky?

Is absent?

Commissioner Thompson?

Aye.

And Chair Young?

Aye.

Thank you, even the motion passes.

Great.

We'll now proceed with the public hearing calendar item two is the leisure lane gas station,

which is the

starting point for the

public hearing.

We'll move on to item three.

The title 17 cannabis code amendments project and

ordinance amending various provisions of the title 17 relating to the cannabis

lane uses M25-003.

That was a mouthful.

Mouthful.

Is there a staff presentation?

There is good evening, Chair.

Commissioners.

My name is Kevin Colin.

I am principal planner and zoning administrator for your fair city.

I will be providing today's presentation along with Kirk Skirsky.

Before I get into that, I wanted to thank Kirk.

I wanted to thank our partners and city agencies for helping with the preparation of this

staff report and recommendation today, including our GIS staff, our city attorney staff, our

office cannabis management, and other staff that have contributed to this effort.

And also, I want to acknowledge all of the

imp...

That of the community that's provided in our engagement phase for this particular project

and all of those preceding it.

Thank you for your participation and joining us today.

By way of overview of our presentation, we'll do it in five basic parts.

I'd first like to touch on the council direction and describe how we approached this work that

the council gave us charge to perform an analysis and come to you with a recommendation.

So I'd like to describe the approach and goals that we used in our work.

And after you hear from me, Kirk will come up and present our final recommendations, including the

feedback that we received and how the goals that we applied to our work were achieved in those

recommendations.

We'll talk about and add on to the last time this commission considered the topic of consumption

lounges.

So we'll explain that in detail and then talk about next steps.

Going back in time to the origin of this ordinance, I wanted to provide our audience and our

new commissioners some context.

Back in 2021, after many years of having medicinal and recreational cannabis being a legal industry in

town, the council had a series of meetings and prepared a comprehensive cannabis study that was

vetted in the numerous meetings that are on the slide before you.

That culminated, it was a comprehensive evaluation of the industry from an economic and a planning

perspective to learn what do we know about the industry today, what do we think about its future.

That culminated in May with the council providing the staff policy direction on multiple points.

Seven of those points relate to your subject manager's jurisdiction on planning and zoning.

Those are in summary on this slide, the study on the left.

In our presentation verbally today, I'm going to focus, Kirk and I are going to focus on the three most

discussed would appear to be the most important topics.

Those are what is the purpose of this regulatory system?

How is it helping the industry or not?

How is it helping the community or not?

Secondly, we're going to skip order and talk about sensitive uses.

It is the most discussed topic.

It appears to be the most important to our audiences.

Those co-together, they work hand in hand so we want to talk about those and give those a lot of time and attention.

And then finally we'll touch on dispensary zones.

The addition of new zones, giving some context for what zones are allowed and what one new ones are proposed.

All the remaining recommendations that relate to the seven points of direction, those four additional are in the

staff report.

We're going to focus on these tonight in our overall presentation.

In terms of this process, since May receiving the council's direction, we gave this commission a briefing of the study in a public meeting.

More recently, we were at here to give you preliminary recommendations.

We have conducted a robust research and analysis, preliminary recommendations.

Our recommendations were vetted through a commuting engagement process.

And then today we're presenting our final recommendations and the first of what would be three public hearings before this commission, the Long-Ledge Committee and the City Council.

Getting into our approach and goals.

It is not lost in us.

This is a polarizing topic.

There are a variety of viewpoints and there are some strong feelings about it.

We felt very strongly that it was important to have data be at the center of our analysis.

And so what I have is maps on the slide that represent geospatial analysis to help us understand where is the industry, what are the rules today, what are they, what are they driving in terms of outcomes, and how does that inform our analysis and preparation of recommendations.

To give you a little hint, what does that look like in our analysis?

If we applied our current rules today, 72% of the land in this city, zone for cannabis, is encumbered with a sensitive use buffer.

So these are schools, these are parks, these are daycare centers, these are all of the uses that exist today that Kirk will go over.

Looking at the history of permit activity, at this commission, at the director hearing by myself, the Zong Administrator, 82% have been approved to be within a buffer for dispensaries.

So to us, that's a strong piece of information is what do we care about and how are the regulations delivering in terms of outcomes.

So the additional lens that we applied to our work was thinking about equity, fairness, and how do we balance these competing values.

There are absolute geographic concentrations of cannabis industry in this town.

That's the result of a byproduct of the regulatory system.

There are differences between a core and a non-core applicant and the regulatory system imposes costs and process that have real but different effects on those communities.

So in terms of equity, those are two points.

In terms of fairness, in urban planning, we try to treat similar uses the same.

And what we had was a study looking at cannabis that was finding that it's very dispensary is very similar to a retail establishment.

So in thinking about how are we providing fairness between those two, knowing from factual information, that was influencing our analysis and our recommendations.

Those no-in-lan use effects, does cannabis cause more crime more than other comparable lanyuses that are not cannabis? No.

Do they reduce property value? No.

And then the balancing act here is there's just different values. No one's right, no one's wrong.

There are views that cannabis is is helpful and there are views that it is harmful.

We're squarely in the middle and going to debate this tonight.

And that gets to the core of what is a sensitive lanyuse.

It will talk more about how we have re-approached that particular aspect and hopefully achieved a balance of those competing values.

Finally, we're talking about regulations. They are written words. They are intended to manifest themselves and outcomes in the real world.

Our objective in approaching this work was that we wanted clarity and for standards to be verifiable consistently.

So when a written word was written in the code, we want this to match something that exists.

A sensitive use, what is a youth facility for example or what is a substance abuse rehabilitation center as a goal to be able to consistently and absolutely map those for the community and the applicant is a goal as an example.

So that we have consistent predictable outcomes for both community and business owners.

So with that, I am going to transition over and Kirk.

Thank you.

Thank you.

The first point of council direction, I'm going to discuss what's to review.

Cannabis, current cannabis business zoning to determine if they continue to serve the purpose for which they were adopted.

So what does that mean specifically?

The disdirection staff evaluated the permitting process for cannabis land use.

That is cultivation, manufacturing, distribution, testing, and dispensaries.

What do we know from the findings of the comprehensive cannabis study? What have we seen with the past cannabis permitting process?

On the screen, all land uses within the city are subject to one of three permitting options.

By right uses are uses that are beneficial to the nature and character of a zoning district and thus does not require a planning permit.

Administrative permits are for uses that are beneficial to a zoning district but require or that have additional requirements that require review through a permit process.

And at the very end, the highest level would be a conditional use permit.

Conditional use permits come with the longest processing time and the highest application costs.

The legislative intent for a conditional use permit is to review land uses that are known to have impacts or capable of causing problems and require special attention.

Currently, the major cannabis land uses require a conditional use permit with limited exceptions.

Currently, the Title 17 is precludes cannabis consumption lounges and thus those are not permitted at this time.

So, staff is recommending to require an administrative permit for all cannabis land uses except for cannabis consumption lounges.

On the screen is another way to visualize the recommended change from a conditional use permit for administrative permit for cannabis land uses except cannabis consumption lounges.

Now, let's get into what staff heard and how staff responded in regards to the permitting process recommendations.

During the community engagement phase, two themes emerged.

First, the desire to be informed of applications and the ability to participate.

Second, we heard questions about how enforcement and compliance, what that would look like through an administrative permit process.

This slide shows the permit steps for conditional use permits and the process cannabis land uses currently go through.

Conditional use permits include site posting and public hearing notices and are reviewed at a public hearing.

Now, let's take a look at the recommended cannabis administrative permit process.

In response to the feedback, we heard regarding being informed and ability to participate staff saw an opportunity to create a new administrative policy for cannabis permits.

As part of the recommendation, cannabis administrative permits would include adjacent property owner notice of application submittal and a separate notice of decision.

You will notice that the permit process steps remain the same with the exception of the public hearing.

In the past, cannabis conditional use permits, that process is not resulted in denials or special conditions, rather what we have seen are boilerplate conditions that are applied uniformly.

Public discourse has not focused on the specific business location or business practices as intended by the conditional use permit process.

Requiring an administrative permit removes the cannabis policy debate that we have seen at public hearings and focuses on an examination of the facts.

Do the cannabis uses comply with the standards? Yes or no?

And we have built in notification of that decision to further support participation. Did we get the facts right?

Inforcement related to cannabis falls into two buckets. Title 17 or zoning permits and Title 5 or business operating permits.

Zoning permits are static. One time approval. You can think of them as a snapshot in time.

Business operating permits are renewed annually.

The conditions that we have seen within the zoning permits are also duplicated in the business operating permit.

It is important to identify that administrative permits can include conditions of approval.

And with the change from a conditional use permit to an administrative permit, cannabis businesses would still be required to comply with business operating requirements such as security plans,

and order management plans. Because those plans are dynamic, the BOP, the business operating permit annual review process gives us the ability to update those on an annual basis.

So how are the goals achieved?

Staff believes that the recommendations achieve the project goals by one being grounded in data.

We have seen from the comprehensive cannabis study that cannabis land uses do not create impacts and do not cause problems.

This would align the administrative permit aligns with what we know and what we have seen with cannabis land uses.

We are reducing regulatory barriers for cannabis businesses while still incorporating public notice and the ability to participate in reviewing cannabis permits.

The next point of direction that I will be discussing is related to sensitive uses.

The direction was to consider limiting sensitive uses to schools, youth oriented facilities, drug and treatment centers, faith-based institutions, and neighborhood and community parks.

On the screen is a list of the current sensitive uses subject to dispensaries.

And to help frame the recommendations, let's go over our current regulations. So sensitive uses have buffer requirements.

There is a 300 foot buffer from residential zones and there is a 600 foot buffer for the remaining sensitive uses.

With the exception of K through 12 schools, the sensitive use buffer requirements in existence today are not mandatory.

So this means today that cannabis dispensaries can go through a process to locate next to a park, a youth oriented facility, a substance abuse rehabilitation center, and so on.

So as mentioned, this was the most polarized and discussed topic of the project.

We received a wide variety of feedback with different preferences and values.

And the main sensitive use themes that emerged, that staff noticed related to youth and areas of recreation, social, and cultural activities.

In preparing sensitive use recommendations, staff is tasked with finding a balance between the city's regulatory role and community values.

Proposing regulations that are fair and practical.

Our proposed sensitive use recommendations fall into four buckets.

We are recommending to maintain K through 12 schools as a sensitive use.

We are recommending to redefine parks to mean any neighborhood community or regional park.

Redefine youth oriented facility to mean any nonprofit entity that primarily caters to youth.

To update the substance abuse rehabilitation center definition to identify that it include that it applies to those facilities licensed by the state.

We are recommending to remove faith-based institutions, childcare, other dispensary, cinema, tobacco retailer, and residential zone.

We are recommending to add community centers, libraries, and museums.

As part of the recommendation, we are recommending to maintain the 600 foot buffer, but we are recommending to make the sensitive use buffers now mandatory.

We are recommending to remove the ability for dispensaries to locate within a sensitive use buffer like there is today.

This map was shown earlier in the presentation. It is all of the current sensitive use sites and buffers.

What would this map look like with the recommendations?

Here are the recommended sensitive use uses and buffers. And while we are seeing a reduction in sensitive use sites, there is actually a net decrease in land area of where dispensaries can locate because we are recommending mandatory buffers for all sensitive uses, not just K through 12 schools.

The recommended sensitive uses are clearly defined and easily verifiable. This provides certainty. Certain D for community members and business owners in the expectation of where dispensaries may be able to locate.

Staff believes that the sensitive use recommendations achieve the project goals by focusing on impressionable youth ages 4 through 18, areas of public investment that have community programs, amenities, and services, and include vulnerable populations.

The recommendations remove the incentive to locate in industrial areas and encourage distribution across the city.

Again, the recommendations are informed by what we know and what we have seen that cannabis uses do not create impacts or problems and integrate well into a variety of commercial and retail environments.

The next point of council policy direction to discuss was to consider additional zones for dispensaries and allowing dispensaries in the RMX and C3 zone.

With this direction, we looked at the current zones that allow storefront dispensaries, where are storefront dispensaries actually locating, and what available options can be considered to allow storefront dispensaries.

So currently dispensaries are allowed in industrial zones and a few commercial of our commercial zoning districts.

The industrial zones where dispensaries can locate make up more than double the amount of land than compared to commercial zones.

Council districts 2 and Council districts 6 have the most industrial zone in the city and they also have the most dispensaries in the city.

In addition to that staff also noticed a trend among existing storefront dispensaries in that the central city appeared to be highly desirable.

It makes up a very small percentage of where dispensaries can go, yet it accounts for approximately 30% of the city storefront dispensaries.

In considering additional zones for storefront dispensaries staff evaluated the available commercial and mixed use zones.

In addition to the six available zones, there were three zones that support a variety of retail and commercial uses.

So with that staff is recommending to add C3. C3 is located entirely within the central city.

It makes up downtown in Old Town Sacramento. It is the city's economic and entertainment core.

We are also recommending to add RMX. RMX is largely located in the central city to the north in the river districts and along estuary.

It can also be found in the north and south, typically near commercial corridors and adjacent to public transit.

The last recommendation is to add C1. I understand that it may be difficult to actually see where C1 is on this map.

The reason for that is because C1 is the smallest commercial zone we have.

It is evenly dispersed throughout the city across all council districts.

And C1 parcels are typically smaller in nature and then can be found integrated into residential neighborhoods and within commercial centers.

The recommendation to add RMX, C1 and C3 is a small but focused increase that would primarily be located in the central city within commercial corridors and in proximity to public transit.

All characteristics, all beneficial characteristics that support retail and uses.

Again, the comprehensive cannabis study found that dispensaries do not create problems and that they were typically good neighbors.

Adding the recommended zones along with the recommendations to sensitive uses will increase opportunities for existing and new storefront dispensaries to locate throughout the city and outside of areas of high concentration.

And the last topic I'm going to discuss is consumption lounges.

On November 19th of last year, the city council adopted a ordinance related to Title V and cannabis lounges business operating requirements.

Those business regulations so you can think of how to operate included a variety of standards.

The cannabis consumption lounges are required to be within a storefront dispensary that is required by state law.

Two different types of lounge licenses, one for edible only, the other for all, along with other HVAC ventilation requirements, separation, signage, things of that nature.

Part of that November council meeting council also directed staff to return with equitable distribution for consumption lounges across the city and council member call up.

The ordinance that establishes business regulations for cannabis consumption lounges is one of the one of two steps needed.

The next step is zoning amendments or where cannabis consumption lounges can go.

So, the next step is to provide a proper of this project.

We have incorporated recommendations for cannabis consumption lounges.

Those recommendations are to allow consumption lounges in the same zones as storefront dispensaries.

The next step is to provide a proper of this project.

The next step is to provide a proper of this project.

The next step is to provide a proper of this project.

The next step is to provide a proper of this project.

The next step is to provide a proper of this project.

The next step is to provide a proper of this project.

The next step is to provide a proper of this project.

The next step is to provide a proper of this project.

I update legislation law and legislation committee and with that, that concludes my presentation.

Thank you.

I know there's a lot of complication and a lot of history

and you did a really good job.

You, Kevin as well, just kind of presenting

just kind of the main issues for the public

to just kind of see all the years of work, right?

That has been going on, so thank you.

Before we move on to public discussion,

I just wanted to ask the commission

if there are any disclosures or recusals.

Commissioner Hernandez.

I received several emails from community members

and also had a phone conversation with District 6.

Thank you.

Commissioner Nibbo.

Yeah, I had a meeting with a dispensary owner

where they discussed kind of the benefits

of what they thought would happen with the lounge.

Commissioner Lamas.

I received several emails from community members

expressing their comments regarding the ordinance.

Commissioner Chase.

Please chair Chase.

Commissioner Lee.

Yeah, same.

I also received emails commenting on this item.

Commissioner Thompson.

Same.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

Okay.

And I also received an email consistent

with the staff report.

Thank you, Clerk.

Are there any members of the public who

we should speak on this item?

Thank you, Chair.

I have 17 speaker slips on this item.

Our first speaker is Ronnie.

I have 17 speaker.

I have 17 speaker.

I have 17 speaker.

I have 17 speaker.

You need to order your name as pastor Ronnie Walton.

I live in District 2.

I'm definitely opposed to this part of the recommendation

I would not like any dispensary to be Grindr Faith Base

or the institution.

That's composed of serious problems for us.

I've been in Del Paso Heights all my life.

I'm 72 years old.

I would ask that this commission would consider that part of it.

I know I think if I understood it right,

they won't be around schools.

I don't know if I've got that right or not.

But I'm very concerned.

If I wish I hadn't known about this earlier,

I just met with a number of pastors in District 2

just earlier today.

I'm not going to meet today because we're able to round up a couple.

But if we hadn't known about it, believe me,

they would have been in the house.

That's our concern.

Please don't have these dispensaries.

Nothing we can do about dispensaries.

But, please don't have them there houses of faith.

I mean our faith.

Please consider that.

That's something that's dear to us.

I deal with these issues on a daily basis,

whether it's in the church or out of the church wall.

So I work a lot in the community, some of the young people

back there work with some of them, some of the leadership

of that.

But I'm asking this commission, please, to consider not

having these especially very close to faith-based institutions.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comment.

Our next speaker is Christine.

Good evening, everyone.

My name is Christine Jefferson.

I am a school board trustee for Twin Rivers School District.

And I'm glad to see you took K-12 off of there,

because I really came to talk about K-12

and having that around our schools.

I also don't want it around our parks.

I don't want it around our churches.

And I'm definitely in opposition to this.

You know, I'm also a part of the Del Paso Highs Community

Association.

We had a man come to our meeting and tell us

that Del Paso Heights has the highest toxic emission

in Sacramento, Del Paso Heights in Area 5, which

is in the South Area.

And so they're dumping everything in our community.

I don't want any more pot shops in our community.

I don't want that toxic air.

You're trying to get around the air quality control.

We have the highest cases of asthma with our children

in Del Paso Heights.

Do I want that?

No.

No, it's toxic for our families.

And a lot of things that go on in our community,

as far as our families incarceration

and different things, it has to do with marijuana.

So please, please, please reconsider changing that zone

600 feet away, it first started.

I was, when cannabis first started, I was for it being 1,000

feet away.

Then you guys changed it to 600 feet away.

Now you want to take that away completely.

That's not fair to the community that I live in.

And then you talk about, I'm a homeowner.

It does lower our taxes.

It makes our taxes go down to have all those cannabis.

We're the most highly concentrated cannabis shops

in our community.

And it lowers our taxes.

So please, I'm in opposition to this.

So thank you very much for listening to me.

Thank you for your comment.

Our next speaker is Jeffrey Flanagan.

Hi.

Yes, I just found out about this today.

So I just wanted to come down and talk.

I too live in D2.

And I know they have a lot of data.

But I have lived experience.

I live right next to a big gro shop.

And you know, certain times of the year, probably like 3, 4 times

of the year, you can smell it.

And I'm sure most of you guys have been down to the South

area and driven down that road, where there's all those pot

shops.

So the smell is not like they say, you can smell this in the neighbors.

And I live right by one.

And I do smell smell it.

But just like listening to the report,

I'd like to keep the conditional use permit requirement,

as well as keeping the sensitive land

used areas, specifically parks, faith-based institution,

and child care centers.

I'd also like to make a mandatory buffer

for those sensitive land use areas.

And I'm just wondering what's going to happen

like the child care centers if we have these pot shots next

to like, are they going to be able to keep their license?

I just love for you guys just to kind of ex that part out.

I'm sure you know the pot, I'm sure they have a great business

and the city needs a money.

But I'd like to actually put mandatory buffers

for the sensitive use land use areas,

specifically the faith-based institutions

of the child care centers and the parks.

Thank you.

So I've posed the way it is, but I want

to mind you amending it.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comment.

Our next speaker is Mary.

Hello.

Pause my mask.

It's from my allergies.

So you can hear me better.

I also am opposed to in any marijuana use facilities

being located anywhere near our faith-based institutions,

as well as not near our parks, not near our schools,

not near day care centers, and not near any youth oriented

facilities.

We have had enormous problems even at Hagenwood Park

in the last year, two year and a half.

We had a security guard who was associated

with the community center there in Hagenwood Park,

the Hagenwood community center.

It was completely illegal drug use and cells,

we believe, at the edges of the park.

And he went out there to ask them to stay away from the park

so that the youth and the landscape and learning group,

which are youth who are only 14 to 17 years old,

so that they could continue their work in the park

to increase the value for the community,

as well as their own work experience.

And they were doing litter pickup.

They were helping maintain the vegetation and stuff.

But when this security guard is associated with the community

center, there was physically attacked.

And I believe he was injured enough he needed to be hospitalized.

By these aggressive drug cells of promotion and use people

who are there completely illegally.

So this is why we can't have these facilities anywhere

near, like say, face.

Faith-based institutions, whether they use,

when the facilities are legal, they tend to have people

hanging out who want to either vandalize, steal, beg, borrow,

whatever, try to get more of that, the drug use right on the spot

and they tend to get violent towards each other.

And so we need those buffers for everybody's sake

in the community.

So please have these buffers as broad as they can be.

And also please protect our faith-based institutions

and continue to protect all the youth-oriented facilities.

Because we need this for our community.

We can't have this violence that grows out of it.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for your comment.

Our next speaker is Vince.

Good evening, commissioners.

My name is Vince Marquesi.

I'm here on behalf of Midtown Association.

We're a property business improvement district representing

over 1,200 properties in Sacramento Central City.

Our mission is to make Midtown the Center for Culture,

Creativity and Vibrancy in Sacramento's Urban Corps.

We want to be here tonight to express that Midtown is

supportive of cannabis businesses in the urban core.

In fact, we have had several choose to move their licenses

from other areas of the city to Midtown.

And we've been supportive of those projects.

The core concern our organization has

is with ministerial approvals of all cannabis uses.

The conditional use permit process

has afforded more comprehensive community outreach, engagement

and partnership.

Through the CUP process, we've seen business neighbors come

together for the common good of improving

the vibrancy of Midtown.

We've been able to address security concerns,

cleanliness concerns, parking concerns, and design concerns

through this process.

Completely removing that requirement

will result in lower quality, less community driven solutions

as we welcome more cannabis seuses into the urban core.

Midtown thrives when businesses, regardless of industry,

actively participate in the community

and contribute to the district's long term economic success.

The CUP process has been a key mechanism

for ensuring cannabis operators understand

and embrace that responsibility.

The urban core is unique in that businesses operate

in close proximity to residents, entertainment venues,

and high-foot traffic areas.

The CUP process allows for thoughtful site selection

and operational plans that help cannabis businesses fit well

into this mixed use environment.

As an organization focused on economic development,

we recognize the predictability and efficiency

in permitting are important for these businesses.

However, eliminating the CUP process for cannabis use

does not create a more business-friendly environment.

It simply removes a vital checkpoint

that ensures that cannabis businesses

can integrate successfully into their surroundings.

Really here to reiterate once again that we are supportive

of the local cannabis industry

and many of the proposed amendments,

including expanding zoning types

to allow for more cannabis uses.

Our primary and only real concern

is the removal of the CUP process.

It's played a vital role in fostering community collaboration

and addressing some of the concerns I mentioned

such as security, cleanliness, and design.

We encourage the city to consider more balance or approach

and maintaining a CUP process for cannabis uses

in the central city or exploring an alternative

that preserves meaningful community input

while streamlining other areas

of the approval process we're possible.

Thank you for your timing consideration.

Thank you for your comment.

Our next speaker is Nancy.

Hi, my name is Nancy Asabito.

I am from District 2 also.

And like my colleagues before me,

who said that we have enough going on in District 2 already,

I truly oppose the incoming or changing of the 17

to allow it to be near parks.

Our kids have enough problems just getting through daily life.

They don't need marijuana or weed places right next door to them.

They need to be there.

Right next door to them.

They need to be kept away as far as way as possible.

So by changing the zoning, you're going to be hurting our children

more than some of the others in other districts.

That's a proven fact because we know we have a lot of problems

in District 2.

So I'm asking you, please keep it out of away from parks

and youth as much as possible.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comment.

Our next speaker is Gordon.

Hi, my name is Gordon Lou.

I'm also the former park commissioner for District 2

and president of the Norealto neighbors United.

So we have the ministerial review is wrong.

CUP processes need to stay in place sensitive.

Use areas need to remain sensitive.

And CUP is part of the public safety for the neighbors

and the community as a whole.

Park areas are part of our public amenities

and they should remain sensitive.

We've had a lot of issues in District 2 with cannabis.

We actually had a CUP when they reviewed a one warehouse

space that they actually found out that during this process,

they found out that staff had missed a actual daycare center

that was located within the buffer zone.

So staff sometimes, I mean, everybody makes mistakes,

but that CUP is important and keeping that in there

is really important for the neighborhood

and the whole community as a whole.

We've actually, with all the issues that we have in that area,

with all types of, you know, the business,

the business, you're allowed, I know that they want to spread it all out,

but in our area, when you do a one city wide ordinance like this,

in our area, we're affected more than any other area.

In downtown, it might be different than obviously in our area.

And when it might be good for the downtown,

it's actually going to hurt us.

So when it becomes a city wide ordinance,

and it just, we're just a different area,

we have zoning issues, and you always,

you have houses next to warehouses.

It's a whole different animal out there.

So when it says city wide, it is not working for district two.

Thank you.

You've heard a comment.

Our next speaker is Erin.

Good day.

My name is Erin Cardozo.

I'm a youth mentor in the Del Paso Heights area,

also with drug and alcohol prevention.

I brought the kids out today, so that you guys can see their faces.

And see, these are the ones that you're going to destroy when you put cannabis

around the schools in Del Paso Heights,

or around the parks, or around liquor stores,

or anything in our area that's going to affect us.

We already have an opioid crisis with drugs,

and I keep trying to keep these kids daily off of drugs,

not trying to do drugs, and just imagine a cannabis in the Del Paso Heights area

right there by a school or a park.

Guess what?

Crime rate goes up.

People are going to get robbed.

People are going to get, took for their weed,

tried to grab somebody, buy me a sack.

Do this for me.

Do this for me.

They're going to leave the schools.

It's just not a good thought.

It's not a good vision.

We work very hard, very hard trying to keep our kids away from drugs,

and not a trouble, and away from gangs,

and we work hard doing this.

And so I oppose, and we hope that you guys don't put it in our area

in the Del Paso Heights area because it's not a good look for the kids that's behind me.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you for your comment.

Our next speaker is Natalie.

Hello Chair, Vice Chair, and commissioners.

Thank you for hearing me today, and thank you for working on this.

My name is Natalie.

I'm a local business owner, a mother, and a responsible medicinal cannabis user.

I'm not opposed to cannabis, but I am opposed to changing this ordinance.

Right now, youth-orientated facility means any establishment that caters to or provides services

primarily intended for miners.

Not just your nonprofits.

We're talking your jumbled gyms and your tea party facilities,

and all of the things you find in a mixed residential youth facility.

I am opposed because getting rid of the conditional use just because 82%

or within the buffer doesn't make sense.

At what level?

580 feet assessed and approved is different from 20 feet next to a daycare center,

ministerially.

Last time we saw your presentation, those checkmarks were next to things that said volatile and non-volatile,

and now they're lumped together as manufacturing.

You said that children were dropped off and picked up at daycare centers that were home-based,

and that it didn't matter because they couldn't see the marijuana.

They won't see the volatile substance before it blows up either.

But the impact it will create will be great.

A dispensary is very similar to a retail store I heard,

except it has mandated 24 hour high quality, easily duplicated video surveillance

that is being proposed next to our daycare facilities in hot summertime sacrament.

That's babies and diapers and bikinis.

It deals exclusively in cash at alarming high amounts.

It has arm-gogged, not only in front and inside,

but according to our city code, in charge of 100 foot parameter.

It has to mitigate our odor and entry and exit processes,

and it has to provide pamphlets that our products affect our mental health.

That's different than your loss.

I think that the changes in order jeopardize our youth.

I believe that it jeopardizes the businesses that are legally allowed to already operate

in the areas that you are proposing.

I think I'm excited about a lounge coming.

I'll take my Uber to an industrial area, and I'll enjoy it, and I'll Uber back.

But people don't always follow the law.

And you're going to have people getting high in lounges and driving through our neighborhoods.

I go to a dispensary, I go home, and I consume my product,

but I've seen people 20 feet out the door smoking.

And now it's in our neighborhoods and our commercial zones when I just want to go shopping.

I urge you to reconsider amending the language.

Youth-orientated facilities.

Keep the conditional use.

If we can already annually review the BOP,

annually review those licenses.

Thank you for your comment. Our next speaker is Jane.

Thank you.

Good evening, commissioners. My name is James Allison.

I'm the executive director of the Power and Alliance for a property business improvement district.

Representing Sacramento's manufacturing and industrial core.

We represent the 1300 businesses and about 30,000 employees.

That you'll really notice is you refer to your maps that you've been provided.

We're not just a business business.

We are home to the highest concentration of cannabis businesses.

Be that dispensaries, cultivation, testing, you name it.

Ultimately, as is evident by the high concentration of businesses in our district,

we are not opposed to cannabis businesses operating and being here in the city of Sacramento.

In fact, we welcome them openly.

We recognize them as a very strong industry that is one of our stronger industries growing here in the city of Sacramento.

A source of valuable tax revenue and a source of valuable economic activity.

However, we are opposed to the current changes to the CUP process that are in front of you today.

We are not opposed to a stronger evaluation of the CUP process in general.

As has been kind of indicated during today's conversation, it is onerous.

It is incredibly costly to go through a CUP process.

And if we're looking at opportunities to provide relief to our cannabis businesses,

this simply isn't the way to do it.

We have bars, restaurants, other service establishments that have been floundering since the COVID-19 pandemic and still have not received relief.

We've got small, mom and pop retailers who happen to sell alcohol products or tobacco products that are going through retail theft on alarming rates.

None of them have received relief in the form of doing away with the CUP process.

The decision to single out a single industry for omission from this process, we simply believe it is misguided and not consistent with the city's current goals of equity and establishing a strong economic ecosystem.

We simply seek parity, ultimately, with any other age restricted product.

If you want to purchase a cigarette, you're going to have to go to a tobacco retail license establishment that likely has a CUP attached to that as well.

If you want to go purchase alcohol from someplace, even if that's a boutique bottle shop, they're going to have to go through a CUP process as well.

The CUP process is an invaluable process for local businesses and the local community to come together and prescribe truly tailor-made and custom approaches to what conditions must be put in place on a business.

We've seen that firsthand, where we've had folks that might have antiquated views towards the tobacco or the cannabis industry that is, come together with folks that they are initially skeptical of

and come together to find a fantastic middle ground and relationship where they become valuable neighbors and investors in that community.

Ultimately, the process has truly allowed a successful industry in the power industry.

We have seen regular reviews of these processes. We have seen ultimately folks coming together to create a better environment for those cannabis businesses.

Ultimately, doing away with the process wouldn't truly help the cannabis industry that we already have here in the City of Sacramento.

Thank you for your comment. Your time is now up.

Our next speaker is Mike.

Thank you very much. I really appreciate it. I wasn't quite prepared for this and I'm hoping that there's more discussions a little bit later because I literally just found out about this particular meeting.

I was just a little bit more considerate about this. I was just a little bit more considerate about this.

I'm not here to advocate, yes or no on it. All I can tell you is my own experiences in trying to lead people to a drug-free life.

That means when you have somebody with an alert mind who can actually have good judgment and see and feel those things around them and come up with the proper decisions to be able to do the right thing in any situation.

I think that's really the vision here can see and ask themselves what's the effect of that? What's the rollout effect of that? What is going to happen?

We already know that drug driving and an impaired driver can present a problem.

Before I need my facts and figures and would love another meeting to do that, that I heard of a police study not all that long ago.

I want to say four or five years ago about violent crimes and the number of those violent crimes percentage wise that were drug and or alcohol related.

There is a correlation and I think it's very distinct and very well known by those that do it.

I'm really hoping you consider that. I'm hoping there's more meetings or maybe we can articulate this and come up with it.

Again, this isn't opposition or what have you to what you're trying to do just trying to appeal to the common sense of those that are here to be able to consider what that effect will be in the future.

So anyway, thank you very much for allowing the discussion and hopefully there will be more discussion in the future. Thank you very much.

Thank you for your comment. Our next speaker is Zion.

Hi everyone, thank you for having me.

So for me, I'm part of the cannabis industry business owner. I'm trying to open up my cannabis micro and also my cannabis institution on a three acre of land.

So for me as a business owner for cannabis, we had to go through a lot of red lining. The way we're talking is I know we need to reduce the amount of cannabis we have in district two, but I'm in district five.

And we are way like we're saying the CUP is so hard even just to get up and doing this for five years. I still don't have the permit because how hard it is to really get a cannabis license is practically like arms and legs.

So for those of and plus cannabis is not worse than I mean we have alcohol legal licenses all over our kids in all over our church, which I mean if we check the statistics, cannabis is not really a drug or a harming plants.

Alcohol and other drugs are the highest use in our youth in our teenagers and also adults. So for me as a business owner in the cannabis and trying to get into the cannabis industry, we already have so much red lining.

So this is just right now not just the red lining you have to have so much money even though I'm an equity receiver from the state and from the city still so hard. I don't even know how they popular the district to with the cannabis shops and and and other things but when I see it in district five, I don't see any problem.

I don't see any near church or anywhere near school or deck here and like I said, you know just to get the CUP is taking me four years. I'm still working so hard to get that permit but I agree we shouldn't we shouldn't be around any school in each church and we are not.

It's just the rules and regulation the red lining is so hard so I can guarantee you that where I have my land to build my kind of a facility cultivation manufacturer and distribution in the school as well and it will be get it and also we need to have the lounge licenses with the rules and regulations that you put which is the hardest to just even get to get one business.

I mean for me there is no problem having the CUP because the city and the state is making us so much accountable we can't even start with suffocating so thank you so I'm for it. Thank you.

Thank you for your comment our next speaker is Jeff sunny.

I just heard about this matter myself and I'm part of the harmless committee around here and I first off let me say thank you for even appealing the idea of this maybe I feel we do need to have way around around us you know because this where I live and then the day I've heard a little speech up all just.

Again I just heard about it today when I got back to my tent excuse me.

Hello people planning commission I would just like to thank you for considering allowing cameras access to our parks.

I'm here representing the hummus community and we need we next to our parks because I mean this is our house and I mean this is why I live and it's a safe product and there's no reason it shouldn't be in our community.

Thank you guys and enjoy the.

Thank you for your comment.

Oh, boxes to get all hot sauce.

Thank you for your comment our next speaker is Maisha.

Okay.

Is there something symbolic about the message.

Hi, good evening planning commission. My name is Maisha Baha.

I am the co founder and CEO of Crystal Nags.

We're the first black woman owned storefront dispensary delivery here in Sacramento.

I was a huge advocate for consumption lounges as we do have the space in our dispensary so that is something that we're going to be pursuing.

I stood in front of some of you back in 2022 when we got our CUP.

We are 300 feet within two churches I believe and residential.

You believed in me and gave me an opportunity.

We've been open almost a year and a half and we've had no issues.

Aside from issues with some unhoused individuals that normal businesses go through.

We have not had any issues with youth.

During our CUP hearing there was about nine or ten letters of opposition.

A lot of the same concerns you're hearing now.

Youth was going to be affected, smell.

We were going to be in crime.

We were going to bring property values down.

None of that has happened.

There was actually a cannabis study that had been recently released at that time.

That dispelled a lot of those which is why a lot of you pushed for me to go through.

I'm just here in support particularly for consumption.

I'll just be going forward.

I'll probably be back in front of you again because we have to have a CUP for that.

I just want you to know as a cannabis business owner, as a dispensary owner that is in residential,

that is near-faith based institutions.

We have never had any issues whatsoever.

People go about their business.

We have a lot of foot traffic.

We have had the City of Minnesota for a long time.

We have retired.

The fresh home units, there's been a lot of funds.

There are a lot of funds used and from all backgrounds,

from vehicles, Safe?

For example, the public health sector.

It is one of the largest organizations in the world.

Weenta Social Research Center,

that our ability. I can tell you how many times we get called from people who have had an accident

who can we use your video camera. We have been an asset to our community, an asset. So I'm just

here to let you know that we are not causing issues for anyone. We are a benefit. We run a good

business. We spend a lot of money on these businesses and we have a lot of strict regulations. So we

don't mess around. You drive anywhere a dysmetry is you're not going to see any Lordy. You're not

going to see anyone hanging out because that's not allowed per our regulations. So just understand

that. We run very tight businesses. We are very professional people. We are going to uplift your

neighborhood. We're not going to take it down. And if so, someone proved to me. Someone showed me a

legal dysmetry where there is Lordy, where there is anything happening. It doesn't happen. Thank

you very much. Your comment. Our next speaker is Jacob.

Good evening commissioners. Thank you for your time and your thoughtful conversation

and your efforts to help evolve this industry. My name is Jacob Schmidt. I come before you.

Not just as a dispensary owner, but as a homeowner, as a son, whose mother and father live in this

city. And most importantly, as a father of two, this discussion has been interesting from both sides.

I appreciate the dialogue, the e-commerce, public comment through this process. And it's given me

pause. First and foremost, I want to address the issue between buffers between dispensaries.

We need the 600 foot buffer between dispensaries. I strongly urge the commission

to consider increasing that buffer to 2000 feet. We would place a liquor store right next to

each other. Why would we do the same with dispensaries? Along dispensaries to cluster together

would harm existing cannabis businesses, including both original license holders and core equity

license holders. We've invested millions of dollars. Imagine if chain style cannabis dispensary,

what I would call the subway sandwiches of cannabis, opening next to the locally owned Sacramento

dispensary. Without strong protection, small businesses especially new and unestablished equity

license holders won't have a fair chance to succeed. These entrepreneur have made significant

investments just to get started and they deserve the opportunity to establish themselves before

being undercut by large or aggressive operators. Increasing the dispensary buffer to 2000 feet will

provide necessary safeguards to foster a healthier and sustainable cannabis industry.

If new rigid buffer zones are implemented, especially around sensitive uses, our industry will

become more limited. I believe through the CEP permit, what if I've been through the CEP permit

process twice myself? If I want to relocate my dispensary again,

through the near various locations with conditional approval, which will allow the community,

sorry. If I want to move my store again right now, dispensaries can operate in your various

locations with planning commission approval, which allows for community input through public hearings.

If we hard set the sensitive use buffers, we risk that merely restricting where dispensaries can

operate despite having- Thank you for your comment. Your time is now up. Our next speaker is Carla.

I was here last September when you guys talked about this. I think I mentioned the community knew

where this was going, which was lounges, and I just brought lounges. I said wait a year from now,

I'm past where we'll go. It's been six months and here they are introducing lounges. That meeting

was all for that, in my opinion. Staff? No offense. They didn't change anything from last September.

When Wallace was outspoken and said she was against the wholesale elimination of public comment,

and here you guys are recommending administrative over conditional, which I agree with the other

guy who spoke who said they're like, why does this industry get an exception for administrative

and not other industries? Anyways, I wrote a couple things I'm going to see if I can put it in order.

Staff has redefined sensitive uses to their advantage in order for them to move forward on their

own agenda to have more pumerance issued and expand the square footage of their- of where

dispensaries can operate. California State law is 600 feet for take-hairs in new centers.

New centers. Why is staff trying to expand the definition to exclude our children from safety?

Changing the permitting process from conditional to administrative and redefining sensitive uses

when we expose our children to unnecessary danger who just want to go to the skating rink

or a youth group meeting. This falls under health and safety code 113531. We're not talking about

it. We are talking about intoxicating harmful drugs with a street value. That means you can

rob someone who's coming out of the dispensary with whatever they have and go sell it on the street.

Like you're not buying a snapple from a liquor store and you're going to be robbed for that. No.

Way different. We're talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars in product. Hundreds of

thousands of dollars in money. Cash money. It's like a bank robbing a bank. It's the same thing and

you want to put that in your parks in school that's wild. Again, we're not talking about a

checky cheese. We're talking about a drug store with security guard out front with a gun.

Sensitive uses are there for a reason. Staff seems to be targeting private rather than public spaces.

And then I'm just going to mention thank you almost for your leadership. Last time on this and

same for you chair. I appreciate that. Your guys are standing on it. At least the the perspective

that you are bringing and asking the right questions in my opinion. The community is not asking for this.

Staff is doing something we don't need and we feel like it's a top down effort. We don't feel like

there's some grassroots effort out here like promoting drugs for the community as well.

But thanks for your time and attention to this in one time to have left. Let me see.

Just saying it sure. Yeah, we're good. Thank you guys.

Thank you for your comment. Our next speaker is Joshua.

Good evening commissioners. My name is Josh Lewis and I'm the government

relations manager for Embark. We are a local retail cannabis company with a store here in

Sacramento down on Mac road. Thank you for the opportunity to share local operators' perspectives

on the proposed amendments to title 17 that will impact our industry. While these efforts to

streamline and improve the cannabis land use regulatory framework are commendable,

we have significant concerns about a few of the key components that could inadvertently

undermine important protections for both current and future cannabis businesses.

Firstly, there is no benefit to current or future operators for the city to remove existing

dispensaries from the list of buffered sensitive uses. The current buffer is only 600 feet,

which is a nominal distance given the size of our city. Eliminating this buffer would allow

for dispensaries to open immediately adjacent to one another which only serves to create massive

price compression that threatens the viability of each business while reducing total tax

income to the city. There is no benefit to allowing highly regulated, incredibly burdened

businesses to operate literally next door to one another and a 600 foot buffer is fair,

pragmatic and responsible to prevent oversaturation in any one specific area.

Secondly, the proposal to shift land use permits from conditional use permits to ministerial

permits is an admirable step towards streamlining process and promoting efficiency for both

operational retailers with an eye towards relocating and any future use types. That being said,

completely removing any mechanism to appeal decisions made under ministerial permitting

significantly diminishes transparency, accountability and is an issue of fundamental fairness.

The appeals process is an essential mechanism for ensuring that community voices are heard and

considered in development decisions. Further appeals offer a route by which cannabis businesses

can expound on materials that are overlooked or improperly considered during a ministerial

review, keeping the process fair and ensuring the city has every tool available to evaluate a

cannabis business, retaining some form of appeal mechanism is critical, to maintaining public

and industry confidence in Sacramento's cannabis regulatory framework and it's also an issue

of fundamental fairness for all of us. Lastly, removing the planning commission's authority to grant

exemptions from sensitive use buffers would limit the city's flexibility to respond effectively

to unique circumstances. Our city famously has a dispensary adjacent to a daycare with literally

zero issues. Such exemptions are occasionally necessary to encourage responsible growth and

redevelopment in areas that can clearly benefit from dispensary presence but might be constrained

by existing buffer requirements. By preserving this discretionary authority, the city retains an

important tool to support innovative solutions that balance economic development with neighborhood

compatibility and community standards. We respectfully request that you consider our feedback and

encourage you to make these needed improvements to the proposed title 17 amendments. Sacramento has

long been a leader in thoughtful cannabis regulation and the amendments before you tonight offer

an opportunity to uphold that legacy if our perspectives are taken into account. The vast majority

of the amendments you are considering will make a real positive difference for our industry

but adjustments to these three areas are necessary to ensure fairness, flexibility and continued

community trust. Thank you all. Thank you for your comment. Our next speaker is Diana.

Good evening. Thank you for holding this meeting tonight and thank you for the city staff for

all their hard work and dedication that they've been doing on this title 17 and bringing this forward.

So my name is Diana Garcia. I am a city of Sacramento dispensary owner. I have a core dispensary

in the pocket green haven area. We have done nothing but brought security to our area,

cleaned up the shopping center that we are leasing in. Good community feedback. There's reports

that have been done in the past to let us know that cannabis businesses are good neighbors. They

bring security, they bring safety. You guys know all of this. You guys have seen the reports and read

all the reports. Children do not come into our dispensaries. They do not purchase our products and

our products are not or what are getting to the children. You know, as the hemp products, it's the

illegal market that the children are accessing. Tonight we are asking for the buffer to stay in

to the regulations of you know 600 feet great, a thousand feet great, two thousand feet great.

When you put a concentration of businesses together all the tax dollars will have to be split

up between the different stores that are there. Right now the city is looking for more tax

dollars from cannabis dispensaries and if we add competition right there to the ones that are

already existing it just divides the tax dollars between the different stores adding more work and

more due diligence on the city's part with more inspections for stores that are sharing the

same tax dollar. Also I asked that the the appeal process not be taken away from us. That's

something that's very important to be able to have your your word brought up in in judged in

you know different opinions can come to different conclusions. So those are two things that I

find that are very important. Thank you for your time and thank you for your hard work.

Thank you for your comment. Our next speaker is Kimberly.

Hello. My name is Kimberly Cargill. I am the owner of a therapeutic alternative, a social

equity family owned cannabis storefront dispensary located in this prestigious neighborhood of East

Sacramento. I have operated this location for over 15 years surrounded by sensitive uses including

McKinley Montessori School directly across the street from me, Sutter Elementary located 100 feet

away, McKinley Park, Pohl, Library and Community Center about 50 feet away and the beautiful Greek

Orthodox church and preschool right behind us along with residential across from right directly

behind us and across the street from us. We have never had any crime at our location, something

you cannot say for the gas station a block away. We have excellent relationships with our neighbors,

many many letters of recommendation from them. We have not had one child in 15 years, not on our door

or do a hay mister in our parking lot. In fact we participate in the East Sacramento McKinley Park

neighborhood association yellow brick road program where we ensure that the children get to

school safely and home from school safely on our street. Furthermore the Montessori School

across the street from us has our security guard cell phone and has called it a number of times

to ask for help from our security guards. I understand that there is a stigma associated with a

cannabis plant. However this is a legitimate medicine that patients have a right to safely access.

I am currently attending the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy program for my master's

degree in cannabis science and therapeutics. I study every day randomized controlled double-blind

studies and meta-analysis of cannabis as medicine. It is proven to help over 200 illnesses and

disorders and patients should have access to the safe non-toxic medicine. The plant shows so

much promise. At you limit safe access to legal cannabis for patients that need it you push them

into the streets for criminals that do not check IDs, do not follow zoning laws regulations or pay taxes.

I have two requests. One that you keep the distance requirement from dispensary to dispensary

and even add to it. I do not want to have a dispensary move in next to me and be blamed for issues

that they might have. It also drives down the prices. There's only so much money that can be made

in one neighborhood. There's only so many consumers or patients that access that neighborhood

and it should be split up and spread out throughout the city. I think citizens would say the same thing.

I also ask that you do not take away our right to appeal and that you make sensitive uses

not no variances. As you have seen from my dispensary we have made our neighborhood a better place.

When I told my neighbors I was going to move they threatened to form a petition to keep me in the

neighborhood. Okay. We have done so much and we do so much every day to ensure that our neighborhood

is safer because we are there and our neighborhood is better off because we are there and we will

do that anywhere we move. I just want to say that cannabis has gotten such a stigma over the

last hundred years. We're working very hard to change that and to prove that we're legitimate

businesses that improve our communities and provide a necessity to pay for the

thank you for your comment. Our next speaker is Jeanette.

Our next speaker is Jeanette.

Good evening chair and commissioners. I am Jeanette Carpenter. I'm here on behalf of Child Action

Inc. We respectfully urge the commission to reject the proposal to remove child care facilities

from the sensitive use buffer requirement for cannabis dispensaries. We strongly recommend

that Sacramento maintain alignment with California's statewide policy which mandates a 600 foot

buffer between dispensaries and child care centers. To our knowledge Sacramento would be

the only city in California to eliminate this precaution. Since 1976 child action has empowered

Sacramento's counties families by connecting them to subsidize high quality child care. We are

proud to partner with 2,764 child care providers serving 16,229 children across our community.

For two reasons we strongly urge that you maintain the current buffer requirement. Child care

facilities serve impressionable youth. This proposal is rationale for retaining K-12 schools

categorization of sensitive use applies equally to child care. The current proposal asserts

that impressionable youth are those aged 6 to 17. It goes on to incorrectly state the child

care facilities only serve children aged 6 weeks to 6 years. This is incorrect. Child action alone

has 2,190 children aged 6 through 13 enrolled in child care programs within the city of Sacramento.

The categorization for our largest early education facility is licensed center. 40 of those within

the city accommodate 6 to 13 year olds who receive subsidies. This figure excludes non-substitized

families meeting the total number of 6 through 13 year olds in local child care is far greater.

Secondly alignment with state and local precedents. California known cities,

Alameda, West Sacramento, South San Francisco and Los Angeles simply duplicate the state level

policies which include child care and sensitive use buffers. We do not seek increased restrictions,

only adherence to the statewide 600 foot standard. Sacramento's departure from this norm would

create inconsistency and risk unintended consequences. For these reasons we urge you to preserve

the 600 foot buffer between cannabis dispensaries and child care facilities. Thank you for considering

our communities impressionable youth and the early educators who serve them. Thank you.

Thank you for your comment. Our next speaker is Sasha.

Our next speaker is Sasha.

Good evening commission. I'm Sasha vote. I come before you as the area 7 trustee for Twin

Rivers Unified School District which encompasses Old Door Sacramento and Del Paso Heights.

I also am a resident of D2 and I have two requests this evening. One is to maintain the 600 foot

barrier and these kind of dovetail into each other. So let me share with you as well in considering

whether or not to remove parks from the sensitive use. I'd ask you to consider that we have

children's programming at least in D2 in many of our parks including child care centers.

And many of those programs after school programs as well are funded through Department of Ed.

And so I'm asking you to take a look at how the policies to maintain schools on the sensitive

use list and yet allow to remove our community centers and our centers that are serving our students.

In many cases through the same funding pools and adhering to the same principles and standards

when you're making your decision. I don't know if that's something that has come forth and

reading through everything. I didn't see it but I do want you to be aware that Department of Ed

dollars are funding programs in many of our city parks including our state preschool funds which

impact our youngest learners as you all know. So thank you for your consideration and I appreciate

the opportunity to speak tonight. I know that my neighbors were here earlier and I thought they'd

take up some more time than they did. So thank you again. Have a good evening.

Thank you for your comment. And our last speaker is Diana.

Hello, Commission. Thank you so much for your time today. I am here to represent the

responsible youth cannabis community. I have been a consumer for over 10 years. I have two teenage

sisters at home. I don't want to smoke at home with the kids at home. Right now legally in

Sacramento you can only smoke at home next to our children where our families live. If we want

to think about our youth we need to create safe designated spaces away from our youth that are

out of their view, out of their sight, out of their mind so that responsible users can live their

lives. We have medicinal users, I use it medicinal. We have a lot of medicinal users in Sacramento

who also need to stay stays to go. And when you have these day spaces it can't only be indoors.

I know right now we're saying indoors only but there is nothing like natural airflow. There are

places in LA where it's enclosed and it's away from the youth and when it's like clearly marked

that you cannot access for youth they won't go in there. No defender here has to worry about youth

because it's clearly marked. So if we're thinking about responsible adults we need to give them

those options. I've worked in D2 for over 10 years right next to the community center. I watched

it become a church to a youth center. Right across the tree is liquor store. We don't have a problem

with the liquor store directly across the street. What's the problem with a dispensary that's hidden

and no one can even see what's happening inside. The liquor store is the glass window. I can see

everything happening. Like that's it doesn't make sense. But yeah but also also a great example

of having outdoor use that is okay with the news was California State Fair last year. We were

able to do it. It exists. There's no issues, no complaints and it can happen. So yeah this will

happen. Thank you. Thank you for your comment chair. I have no more speakers.

Thank you. I want to thank the public for all their comments and especially the youth who came

out to this meeting. I'm going to call for a 10 minute recess just so that everyone can get a

good stretch break and do whatever they need to do and we'll come back in 10 minutes.

Staff can I please get 30 seconds on the timer so we could resume the meeting?

I'm going to move the time to commissioners who wish to speak on this item and I'm sure there's going

to be plenty of thoughts and appreciate again on just the collective thoughts of the community

who came out here and so we would appreciate all your comments and also the planning staff. So

any commissioners who wish to speak on this item?

Commissioner Messias Reed. Good evening everyone can you hear me? Yeah okay. First of all thank

you all for coming. Always appreciate a robust dialogue and feedback that's why we have these

processes and it's really good to see District 2 out here for sure. I mean again I think you guys

can attest to we've been talking about this and even you know the issue around undue concentration

and is that happening? What it looks like in District 2 for six years since I've been on the

commission and so I appreciate that you guys have stayed engaged in this process because hearing

your feedback is really valuable and important. I have three pages of comments and questions so

I apologize in advance but I think this stuff is really really important as we can all attest to

and I will try to be as clear and concise as possible and speed through this for staff.

So

and really quickly and I'll address this again in my final comments but you know I

as someone who understands land use this is really complex right these topics what is the CUP

what is ministerial what is you know this at it's very complex and and there's a lot of comments

that I've heard not just in this meeting but in prior public meetings that are you know they're

concerns right that we hear from the public but they might not be accurate and so I hope that

during this conversation we can sort of clarify that for you because I don't expect you to

understand all this because to a degree it's almost too complex for me at points in time through

this process so so bear with me. So tonight we have a set of seven points of policy direction that

we're reviewing. This is all directed by our city council okay and I'm going I want to address

really three of those main points I will start that I feel are most important in that we've

been grappling with as a city as a community for again like I said myself six years and plus

the two the first one is policy direction number one which is essentially addressing the

permit process for cannabis applicants. We've heard a ton of feedback tonight again I really

appreciate the feedback on that on that process and then the second one would be policy direction

number four the sensitive uses that is critical to this discussion as well before I get into that

the sensitive uses I do want to just mention and then staff if I am incorrect at any point please

jump in here but from my staff report that I have on page 14 of gosh 300 and something I have the

final recommendation under sensitive uses and I'm not sure if you could even pull this up

on the screen here but I wanted to just touch on you know and show to the public sort of what

we're talking about because I know we had some speakers come in and say we want to keep K through 12

that's a state mandate and a minimum requirement we were never intending to pull that out and

that will stay in this discussion I mean I heard people mention parks and the trustee here thank you

for that comment my son also goes to land park to do his summer school classes so totally understand

that and that is also still included in in this discussion under sensitive uses youth oriented

oriented facility community center library museum substance abuse rehabilitation center so I just

I want to bring that up because I think it's really important for everyone to understand sort of

where we are now what the recommendation is to remove and what the staff is recommending that we

include moving forward um so for me the overall the overarching goal for sensitive uses for me as a

commissioner has been to really dive in on ensuring clarity and concise criteria for these sensitive

uses because over the past six years when we've had these applications you know for me I even look

at youth oriented facility and that is a very broad definition it sounds like staff has provided

some to some degree more concise definition and by saying that that is should be limited to

nonprofit to nonprofits who are providing youth services I disagree respectfully with staff on

that I think there's that there's much more than the nonprofit sector that provides these oriented

facilities and and again this is where we've sort of struggled back and forth with how do we define

this sort of broad concept I would like further definition and maybe some further discussion on the

dius tonight and then you know on a side note for youth oriented facility I think you know one

of the recommendations for staff is to remove the the in-home child care component and I'm wondering

if this could could or would be included in a youth oriented facility definition so just something

to add there so overall on the sensitive uses as they're being proposed here I think

I've noticed from some prior planning commission meetings and I'm going to bring up to tonight as

an example and that we've dealt with in the past that I think what would help provide even more

clarity on some of these tight these sensitive uses is just a verbiage right and so what I did

notice was that the city of Davis uses the term licensed right in their definitions licensed youth

center licensed public or private K through 12 school licensed treatment facility for drug or alcohol abuse

and those are that's verbiage directly from the city of Davis but I bring this up because in the past

and I can think of two issues in particular and one of them being in district two so one of them

was that we had a cannabis retail applicant come to us where they air was no perceivable sensitive

uses located near that proposed you know that proposed location that staff could identify and yet

there was from our knowledge there was some information that showed up that day at the meeting at

the public meeting that there was a substance abuse treatment facility located I don't know maybe

a couple hundred feet from the location and so they were vehemently opposed to it and really

fighting against it but at the time when staff does their due diligence around looking for

active business licenses they couldn't find one because the facility didn't have an active

business license and or was it licensed at the time and so I think the reason why that terminology

is really important is because we really need to be clear and concise and maybe ensure that we

are looking at a licensed facility that should be doing business like through a business license

legally and I think there was also a youth facility right that was teaching Sunday school within

600 feet of a cannabis CUP request in district two and they did not have any active licenses that

were identified at the time and so I think you know again to avoid any future confusion or issues

around this I think that might be a great direction to go.

On the sensitive uses okay you know I'll move on to permit process which is policy direction number

one I would say that this evening we have overwhelmingly received support to keep the CUP process.

I said this in the past and it's specifically around cultivation because as we've kind of

identified like there's smells there's odors you know we have regulations around how these are

operated but they're the you know dispensaries and cultivation I think have a different impact in

some of these other uses right they have a higher impact a potential higher impact and so you know

I I support and would support keeping the discretionary review for dispensary and cultivation

because they're typically more impactful to our neighborhoods and our communities and or even

more contentious right and we're keeping that community process that that feedback that you guys

are all here for tonight which again in the last meeting I was also very vocal about supporting right

it's really really helpful for us as commissioners especially when I feel like sometimes some of this

jargon is a little bit hard to define it helps to hear your feedback so you know my thing

is tonight we're also talking about cannabis lounges and I'll touch on that in just a second but

if we are recommending to have a discretionary review process or rather a CUP process meaning

it's a process that comes to us for consumption lounges why not continue to keep that for for

storefront and cultivation that being said I do want to recognize the core program and the core

participants some of which we have in the room this evening who are our core participant and cannabis

owners I know that the process is onerous and incredibly expensive to go through it is not an easy

is not an easy process and so I do want to recognize that the state has the state so so reminding

everyone that the equity and cannabis in the core program that the city a few years ago developed

was to provide for 10 applicants for storefront dispensaries in addition to the 30 that we allow

to address fair and equitable access to the cannabis industry and it's created to address

systemic inequities for people of color who are disproportionately impacted by the warrant drugs

and so the state of California has and addresses equity in fees through a structure under title

four and again I can share this with the city but I think it's called the equity relief equity fee

relief and I think that it's really something that we should consider both for for title 17

process but also for title five process because we're really still trying to promote and support

those core applicants especially if the city decides to move forward with additional CUP's for

consumption lounges. So on the permit process as per post which I understand staff is recommending

an administrative permit approval one of my questions but I do get clarification because on

attachment for to be honest it was very confusing for me to digest and understand but what I

understand just for clarity is that if we move forward with administrative permit process that the

the ability for redress or call it provisions which we really think is important for these processes

it'll be staff decision with the potential reconsideration with the planning director but neither

of those processes include a public a public hearing okay now with okay and again this is just

a if we moved forward with a potential administrative permit process we have staff decision and the

notification process is as it was shown right you're mailing out notices you're noticing the

property the location and you're going through that there's a staff decision if if the community

right they get notification and they want a reconsideration they can appeal it to a planning

director and then make comments is that correct how how does that has that work?

I guess in an ideal world we would hope that anyone consign up for our agency counter and get a

notification of every application that's in their neighborhood for interest right so it goes

straight in their inbox when it came to the city on day one subsequently we would send a formal

notice and that you would call us email us and we talk about it and that we would we would be

able to explain the rules the facts that are before us share them and with the with the interested

party and then if we felt you know they had a feeling that it wasn't meeting the standard

they might present contrary evidence they might help inform that decision

but it's a it's a it's the discretion or the judgment is subtracted to be a yes no answer.

Okay. Okay so I want to switch gears to policy direction number two the consideration of adding

additional zones for storefront dispensaries so I do agree with C1 and C3 being included in that

and again that really goes back to further if you looked at the maps like further distributing

concentration and avoid additional and due concentration because again what we've seen in

district two it's like how do we address this right and it was happening in district two

and district six specifically because you have that industrial use and we has since moved it to

shopping center with again no major concerns or impacts to the community and now you know moving

it to C1 and C3 I think again that could further avoid and distribute and equitably distribute

these businesses also because we have had an unfair distribution of these of cannabis dispensaries

just in districts within the city right again district two districts it's primarily and so again

if we're achieving equity in this process I think that would achieve it. I am a little I have

some apprehension around the residential mix use and for me residential and residential mix use

I don't think that we should have it as a sensitive use but I think we need to keep it as a CUP

public hearing process and I'm advocating for that this evening because of the robust discussions

that you know the community can provide and I consider residential mix use the RMEX that is

being requested tonight it's residential right and so if you're in a mix use if you're in a

mix use multi-family building right and you have retail on the first floor and you have housing

you know apartments or condos or what have you on the on the multiple floors above it

you know it could be that some people don't care about it and there's other people living that

building do and so again I just feel like having that CUP process that robust public hearing is really

important. Okay let's see okay so prior CUP and non-conforming uses so that what that means is

modifications to an existing cannabis use so like if an existing applicant or excuse me an

existing cannabis business owner already is operating whether it's cultivation or storefront

or delivery and they want to make a modification or an addition to their use that's kind of what

we're discussing here so this is to allow for their permits to be modified by the zoning administrator.

My question is will this allow for any call-up provisions to any call-up provisions and if not if you

know why or why not does that process modifications. If the CUP were maintained would the

call-up provisions be retained and they're yeah well so it's a mod so it's an active CUP and they

are requesting modification and it's approved by the zoning administrator will this allow for any

call-up provision if any or is the zoning administrator final say on the modification. Yes

zoning administrator be final say on the okay. No the call-up provision would the call-up provision is

is in code today so what would regardless of the decision-making level it can be made by a council

member to call-up. Okay so in modifications it can still or just cannabis as a whole is retaining

because I didn't to be honest with you it was a large report so if I missed it my apologies

but it's my understanding that currently we allow for any cannabis to be called up to council

is this changing. Then the non-conformity amendments that you're speaking to are specifically drafted

to address the administrative permit change and so that there aren't unintended consequences

a couple scenarios that we thought of were if you had a delivery only storefront current regulations

would allow you to do a minor modification to add a storefront dispensary we did not feel that

was the intent especially if there's a buffer which is the standard right you shouldn't benefit

from the old rules if we have adopted new rules and if additionally the second example was

the period of discontinuation of use you can essentially we affectionately call them a zombie

permit you can ask for a CUP to come back to life and so we didn't want if a dispensary went out

under the old rules it should conform to the new rules. Yeah and that makes sense and I think we've

we've certainly done that with other land use types in the city okay let's see and piggybacking off

this comment around non-conforming uses and I haven't gotten to consumption lounges yet but

this you know there is an issue there where where you know if there's an existing use like

because what you're requesting and the cannabis consumption lounges essentially is it can only

be an existing dispensary that can apply for a CUP for that use and so how is that going to work

with any proposed changes especially with the buffers right because if only the

the existing retail can apply to have that permit but they are now within and that's considered a

modification or is that a separate so I'm sorry can you

say one more time yeah so on the cannabis consumption lounges right so the proposal is to change

the the buffers and so I guess you know it's prior CUP right and non-conforming uses so let's say

an existing dispensary is now because the buffer changes within a sensitive use and they want

to apply for a CUP for consumption lounges that just mean they're in the

So the proposal the recommended would preclude a legal non-conforming dispensary from applying for

a consumption lounges conditional use permit so their option would be to relocate

outside of a sensitive use okay important information to know and then I want to jump on the

cannabis consumption lounges topic so I so this is the first time that we've talked about this

act commission and again open to the discussion with the other commissioners on the

dius but I sort of feel rushed because it was bundled into this you know ongoing conversation

that we've had you know a couple of public hearings on already and public discourse and discussion

yet we haven't had the benefit of having that with the topic of cannabis consumption lounges

I know that it's gone to long ledge I know that you've had robust discussions about it with other

entities community entities I know that you know I know that there's been discussion but it has

an included the commission and so I do have some questions around it but I would really like to

get some separate dis you know discussion on this item because and and pull this out completely

as a separate item because I think it's unfair to us to bundle it into sort of an ongoing

discussion that we've been having where we're trying to create clarity in these processes so

that's just my my opinion and I would definitely support pulling it out having another robust

discussion with commission so we can provide feedback before making a recommendation to the council

but I just want to make a clarification because I think this could him in I this might be the

reason why you brought it to us in this way is because on November 14th the city council adopted

the ordinance under title five to allow for the operation of for rather for businesses to be

able to apply for a business license to have a cannabis consumption lounge so because city council

said okay under title five which is business licenses we're saying you can have an operate

a cannabis consumption lounge so they did that on November 19th of 2024 so now it's coming back

to us and we are now obligated to create land use criteria to determine the entitlement and

permit process and so my question to you is is there a time frame now that we have that title five

ordinance in place is there a time frame for which we need to come up with that criteria

there is an account so mandated deadline for that I would say we did receive direction from council

on the sequence of events that having land use regulations for consumption lounges be changed

before all of the other uses were addressed did not make sense and don't do that so

and I think from a practical standpoint knowing the regulations it it makes sense

okay understood okay so

so

okay so conditions so my question

um

like I saw the verbiage that you you guys included in here and that there this would be a CUP

process um with a call up to council if needed if necessary um are there you know because we do

have in the city and we've had for gosh I don't know how long there's I don't think there's a

ton of them but I know that there's like cigar lounges where you can go and smoke so I'm assuming

there's some similarities and craft craft cross references there when it comes to like operations

around them and ventilation and all of that stuff but I guess my question is um are we going to

be providing conditions of approval that are sort of similar in context or how is this whole

process working and I think as um Kirk explained it is as simple as the location would be decided

by the zoning the operation of the business would be a title five matter and so um health and

safety for the public for consumers for employees was very robustly discussed and the regulations

address that public safety for access how do you get to and from how do you inform customers

to do so without driving um how do you be a good neighbor all there are the long list of things

we put on the slide where they're really they could in theory could be a zoning issue but the

council has determined that they would be a title five business license issue and they have

provided regulations okay so now within our purview right okay

um okay I think one last thing that I I didn't before my final comments um

um I heard a lot of tonight right from the dispensary operators is the issue around keeping a

sensitive use um around like a buffer around other dispensaries and you know I could understand right

like you have a niche market and there's competition right for for the legal market right um and

it's very hard and costly to manage and run a legal business in this industry um from what it

sounds like and so I would again I want some kind of discussion or discourse on like

that topic because I would to be honest like I wasn't really thinking about it as should we keep

it but again I think it's something to consider as we're sort of talking about this sensitive use

discussion um I think the last thing I want to say um is that I just want to address like

I think some of it's miss miss miss come I wouldn't say miscommunication or misinformation right

that's out there or false claims about sort of what the city's doing with this industry what we're

doing with this industry or what what we're doing we have the city and what we're trying to achieve

and accomplish here um I'm seeing a lot of just false information within the public discourse

around this issue of cannabis and so again I'm trying to be as transparent as possible because I

know it's complex issue I I want to continue to see us as a city be as transparent as possible um

um you know for the people who are really concerned in the community you know under current city law

where we include you know if you look at you really can't see but on page two of our report

there are already some by-right uses right for cannabis that we currently have in place

um and then we have discretionary review um and we have an existing CUP process that allows

currently that allows cannabis use to locate within a sensitive use bumper at the discretion

of the commission and so I would argue that I think you know we are um I think uh the process

will be improved with a lot of the inflammation of some of these recommendations and also help sort

of show to the the public that you know we actually are trying to address some of those concerns

now we're not going to be able to address it all um we we can't we can't out you know that's

not possible because this is an industry legal industry and we have to figure out ways to manage it

um I personally have spent the last six years of said that at nauseam volunteering and listening

to community members um outside of the commission countless public comments community feedback

I've had robust conversations with staff with our elected officials on this issue and I

do not take this issue lightly um but I just want to be mindful that comments like and that

that are that are out there of the city is trying to you know put these next to our parks and our

use centers and our schools are just they're not factual and they're untrue um and it's just

disregarding the sort of really hard work that we've been doing over years to try to balance the

needs of everybody and try to really figure out how we come up with a balanced approach

that can best serve everybody um and it's the work that we all do and we're trying to serve the

greater good and move our city forward and so I just wanted to end with those comments

thank you

commission or Hernandez thank you chair um for someone of thanks staff for um for your time as well

as the community members who are here tonight and who spoke up and are making the time to be here

just to to kick off my comments I want to say that the city of Sacramento is a tremendous job

and really has been a leader in cannabis regulation especially in the transition to making it a

legal uh business um and then also bringing in businesses into the new legal uh rules and

and regulations and over the years um we've also learned a lot of lessons um and most

significantly this comprehensive study I think really provided important insight based on data so

I know that staff is really thoughtful and well-intentioned and you guys did a really great job

in presenting today and walking us through the report I'm still trying to wrap my head around a

lot of concepts so I'll have a lot of clarifying questions as well I also want to remind

folks that for those of us who have been on the commission five or six years now uh there you

know a lot of the projects that came before us were very controversial we're very very heated um

I think we came across a lot of um questions and concerns mostly from from the community but also

we were kind of in this in between space we didn't really know and how the clarity of how to move

forward and do the right thing based on the rules as well as based on what truly the the community

wanted and needed so I just want to remind folks that um you know that this has been the history of

the commission for some of us especially in district two and district six which um I live in

district six these are industrial areas these are areas with the higher concentration of cannabis

businesses these are also areas where people have to manage a number of socioeconomic and health

challenges um so here I'm just I'm saying that to show you the lens of which I'm I'm framing my

comments today and my thinking um things I like about the report um and the recommendation is

number one is that the city is supporting cannabis businesses in in general and that we're

thinking about um lounges as well and how to do that in the right and constructive way I like

mandatory buffers um I also think it's important as I mentioned that most of the concentration has

been in district six and district two I like that we've talked about and are thinking about ways

and how we make sure that there is equitable distribution um throughout the city a couple

things I'm uncomfortable with um a lot of them were mentioned by um commissioner mcs read already um

and and maybe we can just talk about it a little bit more in in plain terms about the process

is only get administrator versus cup what what's happening why are we doing this um I also believe

that the cup process is important um it's important for the community to stay engaged for the

community come to plan commission meetings and and tell us if they support a particular cannabis

project or not um so what is the level of community engagement and appeals process and um what's

the difference and again just plain terms like can you walk us through that one more time can we

show the slide before and after again

yeah before please thank you all right this is a slide we provide to our planning academy

participants to explain the city's permit process so it's number from one to eight the beginning

on the left the end on the right um so this would be true for a site plan design review application

that requires a director of level hearing as well as a conditional use permit application

we have a set some middle date if you are a registered with our system you get an email in your

inbox it says we got an application we route those applications at number two to every registered

community group so folks who came today or if you're from district two and your register community

group many throughout the city you get an email in your inbox telling you that we got an

application contact information project information is provided a sign is posted on site so if you're

walking around you get to see um for a property like that in the picture it looks like a real state

sign all of that is a is a is a period where we would either through telephone or through email

except comments and engage in a dialogue with an applicant um applicants are in frequent contact

with staff they want to know where we're at where we're going how their project is shaping up we're

not um so we have you know number five a period for an applicant uh staff conversation a typical

process for a CUP is going to culminate it as a as a public hearing so there's a notice that's

sent for that in advance um as an invitation for all parties to come and be heard for a decision

to be rendered there is an appeal period for that process uh which would enable um under our

current regulatory scheme for a director or a zoning administrator level decision to be appealed

to this commission or if this commission makes a decision for that decision to go to council

the difference under the administrative permit uh recommendation is that uh currently you're

not per required to provide notice for an administrative permit however for cannabis we are

recommending an addition of a male notice process all those other steps are still in play

and would happen just like a conditional use permit where we get to a point where we have a complete

application we've come completed the posting the noticing we would make a decision and provide that

uh male notice of a decision to uh property owners um the difference here being a reconsideration

is uh you would receive uh information about how to do that and that is essentially a verification

of the facts if they are in support of the decision or not um if they're not correct then that

would be a basis for the director to say that decision was an error and that it should be uh overturned

and that could be for an appeal or approval or denial. So under number six staff decision

deny or approve is that a public hearing? Yeah and when you're mailing it to property owners does

that mean that there's also a male going to community organizations and neighborhood associations?

They would get that at step two but not under the recommended permit process

under the under both. Under both. Correct. Um and so how would property owners and community

organizations under number seven be able to exercise that right to um to appeal?

So from the first notice at the very beginning we hope they would contact us and know about the

application and track that progress along if they were interested that's typically how we

experience folks are really interested. If they weren't they missed the male that came um that day

they would get a second notice at the decision point and that would give them information that

from ten days onward they have a right to file an appeal with our office for the director to

consider. How much does an appeal cost? Reconsideration sorry I'm a spoke um oh shoot

I just saw CUP was four 54 for for $454 for a non-applicant and an applicant was more

I'm sorry I don't have the stations. Okay so what I think I have enough information so far but I

would love some more details and I'm uncomfortable with this because of the the changes that are being

made you know it's it's fine that they're getting a male notice I don't think it's fine that

there there's no posted sign that they only have ten days to appeal that there's a fee for appealing

that they have to get an attorney probably to make sure that they have the correct findings of facts

to then take it to the planning director. I'm just really uncomfortable with this for for for

this process especially for the lounges again because that is just so new um but those are my

comments for for for this part about what I'm uncomfortable with as it turns as it relates to

the CUP process being removed so thank you um oh I stopped some oh yeah okay yeah um so I have

a question about the call-up and then a comment and question about the sensitive uses and then

I'll make my final comments um so in terms of I know we were um commissioner ms. Sretestana as well

on the the call-up provisions um can you also show us about where that would be in this process

for a call-up provision and this is for when the city council then says hey bring that back to us

in an in an appeals process right yes for for the administrative permit processes at your question

about call-up or um well your recommendation is to change it to this

all this this uh staff decision then yes my question is like how does it work for the call-up

got it so excluding lounges so lounges would not be subject to administrative permit under

under the recommendation there is not a call-up provision for an administrative permit in city

code we're not recommending that be added exceptionally narrow and rare provision that's provided

in city code for land use that matters that are very controversial in nature lounges we're

recommending a conditional use permit where at the council's express direction the call-up provision

is included in the ordinance so a lounge conditional use permit would be subject to call-up by the

council okay so my reading of the of the staff report on that piece was a little unclear so

um perhaps we can I can follow with you in an email or something depending on how this body

decides to move forward um just to get a little more clarity on that um so thank you so my third

concern was around sensitive uses we've had a really robust discussion on that today thank you

for presenting um the the chart and if you wouldn't mind pulling that up as well the one that has the

the final recommendations for sensitive uses by cannabis business type um we've heard from a lot

of community members about questions about what is a sensitive use i think there's some some

concern about things that have been taken off of the list um so for for me i guess i learned or

was reminded and learned again tonight that k through 12 is being maintained because that's

required by state law and that's the only thing that is required by state law correct

in terms of sensitive use this the state has three categories that are in state statute

we're not obligated to follow those we can define our own or more or different ones um we're

we're staying with state law in this instance per k-12 um it would be consistent

from a policy perspective other than complying with the state's categories why keep k-12

i think we heard loud and clear in the committee engagement phase that's very important

we didn't hear from council to take it off the list so those are two very compelling reasons to

i also think that it's compelling because it's impact and effect on youth and children and so

my my questioning was around you know what's good for k-12 should also be good for day care centers

and child care centers and other uses that are are impacting young kids and so

depending on the motion made tonight my recommendation and my desire would be to make sure that

sensitive that sensitive uses also include state care um so thank you so much um I guess i'll

just say that um again there's been a lot of years and work getting to this point um so that we

can make really informed decisions um here tonight and i think it's important that the community

feels empowered um in saying what kind of uses go go into their community i understand that

the the cities position and bringing this really comprehensive proposal to us is to help streamline

and we want also want to be mindful of the impact on businesses but overall i just really

appreciate the robust discussion and look forward to hearing the comments from my fellow commissioners

thank you for your time appreciate the comments uh commission ortees

thank you mr chair um i am the new person here so hopefully the staff will indulge me

i have some questions and clarifications that i would welcome from staff um and

couple of the definitions of sensitive use um but i also want before we go into that i also want to

sort of reiterate i think what commissioner maceeus read and others have tried to convey to the

public is we currently have an over concentration in d2 and d6 primarily in industrial areas and

i know the goal is to try to create some uniformity and certainty um where legal um dispensaries

and otherwise have a right to be in our city and try to some of these proposals may indeed

reduce some of that over concentration by opening up other areas um but i do believe

we could often do it i will speak for myself i can do often do a better job trying to explain

the ranges of review in the city by right or permit is the easiest little to no review

there's the admin permit review process which is staff level which the staff is proposing

which is doesn't come to us and then there's a most burdensome which is a conditional use process

i used to be on the planning commission i want to say probably long before many of you were born

so the the proposal now that some have expressed the desire to have a more robust review and have

that come to us under the conditional use process is understandably of concern to the community

when the staff is proposing to go to a staff level admin permit and i think that's and i think the

most alarming part of that and again i'm new here so i welcome the staff clarifying is that there's

no appeal process from that admin review process so i think that stood out to me i also am concerned

about two definitions in the sensitive use categories and i want to build upon the child care center

being removed from sensitive use and a couple of reasons one it seems the regional practice

around us includes them in their local land use um citing i think i heard somebody say that

yellow davis woodland so they are it seems like the regional practice is in fact to keep them

as a sensitive use the other piece that i'm a little concerned about is i'm familiar with child

care child action they're one of the biggest um providers of low and subsidized child care in our

region do a fabulous job and of course they comply with state review and there's comprehensive

reviews of home-based uh um child care and i'm a little bit concerned that you may have

someone who comes out and says you know the state standard is that child care is a sensitive

use and proposes you know 600 feet or a buffer but the city of sacrameno is saying it's not considered

a sensitive use and it could harm those seeking to get licensed and get funded by child action so

perhaps there's a rationale for us deviating from the regional standard that i missed but i

would prefer to err on the side of being protective and not jeopardizing those um seeking

child care and particularly poorer communities i mean which is the greatest need for subsidized

child care so you know whatever we do is a commission and i i look to my colleagues who have far

more understanding in this you know we are going to see over concentration even to the best of

our abilities in the poorer and more challenging communities simply because it's more affordable

so i worry about that and then you also perhaps might jeopardize someone getting a child care

license in those communities and you know i'm just walking through this so the first question was

why are we deviating by removing the definition of child care as a sensitive use when

those around us in our region and even the state standards suggest recommend i get that we can

deviate from that but it would be my desire to have a compelling reason why we don't keep it as a

sensitive use the other question would be on sensitive use and i think rightly so i appreciate

that staff is recommending that we retain a substance abuse facilities as a sensitive use because

i think that's pretty compelling and they are indeed licensed under the health and safety code

but what i am concerned about that is not captured here are transitional group court ordered housing

situations and i just be transparent i have family members who had court ordered drug treatment

transition to be in those houses with group settings with you know therapy on site but they're

licensed under the well for an institution's code they're not licensed under the health and

safety code and i think there's some value if we have that discretion to go beyond the state

standards that we capture those as well i mean i mean i we can't save every person moving out of

challenges but i don't think we need an attractive nuisance right next door to somebody who's on

that journey so that's not captured under the definition of substance abuse facilities the other

question i had and it goes to existing dispensaries that if we adopt the sensitive use barrier 600

feet 300 feet and i believe the woman for eSAC I live a close walking distance to that one hi

so would this eSAC facility be grandfathered in because i think you're close to not only McKinley

Park but setters so would you be grandfathered in if we okay so you would be grandfathered in as

a dispensary and you would get to be a non-conforming use under the new criteria but you wouldn't be

unable to become a lounge okay unless you moved so non-conforming would be grandfathered in but

would be precluded from becoming a lounge which of course you're proposing to do a conditional

use permit which i think makes a lot of sense so i guess my question is on this the sensitive if

you could explain to me the rationale for removing child care centers from sensitive use sensitive

use and whether or not we could consider adding the welfare and institution code group treatment

housing situations many of them in midtown whether that would be an option to include those

as a sensitive use and create that barrier and then the final comment would be to the public

i had a lot of compassion for over concentration in challenging communities and i think you know

things community controls things around you sack i'm just going to say it it's more

challenging and i grew up in oak park live half 30 years in oak park and it's more challenging

you know in some community to have the community protect the things that they want to do

and it's more affordable to open up a facility there so i just i i don't think we can do it here i

don't proceed i don't think um procedural due process would allow us to say you know we can cap or

do a moratorium in some you know challenging areas but i have compassion and about the concern

about communities like the one i grew up in being the place that most of these go to but ironically

some of these provisions may indeed protect district two and district six a little bit

and not have them exclusively in industrial areas but i i i can't think that far ahead and

i welcome the clarification on those two sensitive use questions that i asked

thank you are you oh you're a response i'm sorry

be the chair yes staff is prepared to respond thank you i appreciate that

yes so um in regards to the recommendations related to child care

that comes in one of two forms in home child care facilities those facilities are not

public information so staff and applicants don't know those locations

we cannot verify those the only way we would know is if a notice went out and a property owner

responded identifying that they operating in home child care can i ask a question on that

are you unaware of them even if they're licensed so there is a city department that has access

to that information but that information is not shared it is considered sensitive information

because it is related to private residences that operate child care out of out of their home

the other form is daycare center so those are license publicly available can be found online

the reasoning that staff is recommending to remove child care home-based child care in home and center

from the sensitive uses relates to the operating characteristics of both uses so daycare centers

are a controlled environment children are dropped off and picked up by guardians under constant

supervision those facilities are secure and generally not open to members of to the outside public

cannabis dispensaries have business operating requirements and standards that preclude

being able to see cannabis products in the sale of cannabis so there are minimal interactions

that we have seen between these two uses of our 36 operating storefront dispensaries eight

are in proximity to child care facilities and as you've heard from some of the operators here

tonight we we have not seen any issues related to those uses being in close proximity to one

another may i ask another question thank you i appreciate that clarification or explanation

of why in home as well as child care centers either being challenging to identify based on

some privacy issues and or the control definition like children are dropped off

person there's a closed environment but that latter argument in some respects is the same as

schools you know children are dropped off you know it's a controlled environment

I'm I'm still kind of sensitive to child care and I and mostly because I fear that people seeking

licenses may be denied because of a proximity and and somehow the other regions around us are

capturing those child care centers in in home somehow they're doing and it might be helpful if we

reached out and figured out how they identify them and perhaps aligned our our implementation

of capturing them I just don't see it as an insurmountable challenge and again I'm the new

be here so I need to watch my place so that would be my argument for the child care and I hope you'll

clarify whether there's a way to consider capturing the transitional substance use housing group

housing situations yes so you are correct that those in-home facilities are licensed and they

are licensed by a different state model services yes it was our intent to include those

and there is a public platform of licensed substance rehabilitation centers that include in-home

and and facilities that are so they're implied or intended to be captured under your current because you

refer to health and safety code and I know they're under the welfare and institutions code

so yes I I would say that I would need to look into that a little bit further I am under the

impression that there is still some tide the health and safety code but the requirements the

standards for those in-home those residential care facilities are through the health and safety

okay that makes me feel good thank you I think that was all what did what did I am I letting

you off the hook on anything else no thank you thank you thank you any other comments

is it commissioner chase thank you thank you thank you thank you staff for a lot of work on this you

know sensitive and controversial issue I know and I want to thank the public for coming out to

speak and let us hear your thoughts on this I without going into more detail I think I would

agree with my fellow commissioners who have expressed concerns about keeping buffers you know

some of the things that should remain you know that as we move forward sensitive uses buffer

distances so I won't go into detail on those I think but I think I do support those things you

know faith-based facilities other issues and I'd like to mention too though I do support the

provision of other zones as being possibilities as a D2 resident I think that could help open up

and help disperse you know some of these two other than just simply district two and district six

you know throughout other parts of the city that said I think my biggest concern here has been

the elimination of the CUP process here I see more similarities than dissimilarities

between alcohol and cannabis you know they both will have the ability to know they both have

their pros and cons and no question about but they both have the ability to impair one and so I

think what would work for one would seem to me should should be a requirement for the other so if

we're not considering eliminating at which I think we have the ability to even if we wanted to

to eliminate the CUP procedure for alcohol-based facilities I I'm not sure why we would introduce

eliminating that for cannabis facilities it that said I do want to I think something that

Commissioner Mercedes-Reed mentioned the the the the owner's cost and time thing for the CUP

procedure particularly for core applicants you know who are coming forward I heard somebody

mentioned the potential of a state some kind of a state fee waiver procedure I would suggest that

that staff could look into whether it could be limited just to core applicants or would need to be

applied to all cannabis applicants but some sort of a fee waiver for a CUP since the cost

implications are pretty high here probably get pushed back from you know alcohol ABC you know

clients but whatever I think that could help that the modification could help perhaps

eliminate some of the you know the difficulty in overcoming this and I know a number of the

core applicants to date have overcome it's probably been through investors and other ways of

bringing in money to help them offset those costs but it is pretty expensive but that said I think

my biggest issue here is that I just cannot bring myself to eliminate support eliminating the CUP

procedure for cannabis facilities as we go forward that's kind of a broad brush brush approach but

it's the first that jumped out to me after going through as you mentioned the very lengthy

staff report which was very well written so that said I do have a great deal of difficulty

in approving the removal of the CUP process for it thank you I yield chair thank you

Commissioner Lamas thank you chair and thank you to my colleagues for all the

insightful questions and comments and staff for preparing the report and to the community for

showing up this evening there's been a lot of questions and comments that have already been made

but I did want to bring up some concerns that that I did have one of them was in terms of the

direction number two adding additional zones particularly with the RMEX the mixed

use residential when the the map was put up for areas or this could be applicable

you know Northgate Boulevard was lit up the whole Northgate and so if we're talking about

trying to avoid over concentration I know there's a lot of efforts to redevelop that neighborhood

and I didn't see the whole map and it was kind of flashing so there's probably other areas that

are impacted the same way but you know there's there's a lot of efforts to do some redevelopment work

there and so I'm concerned right if we were to include a zone like that that's mixed use residential

and it's an interesting designation for that area because there's not like two story buildings

three story buildings these are it's just an old neighborhood that just so happens to have

single story houses next to businesses and it has this mixed use residential zone but

but I have some reservations about making changes to include that RMEX zone for for that reason

I also had some questions about the sensitive use areas I am in support of keeping the child care

facilities the faith-based institutions the sensitive areas and I was also curious about the

redefinition of parks I believe parks was redefined and I saw on the map briefly that some

parks that I've been to are or not I guess defined as parks some I was kind of curious if you can

speak to how the parks have been redefined and then also I believe it was the community

the youth-oriented facility being tied to nonprofits and so I have a young child and sometimes when

it's raining and he wants to go outside we go to like a designated play area like an indoor

play area it's not run by a nonprofit but I assume that would no longer apply and there's

probably other areas that you know folks take their kids to when there are any would apply outside or

to go to a nonprofit-based facility so I was wondering if you can speak to the consideration for

you know kind of limited it to just nonprofit run spaces so particularly I had those two questions

the moment parks and that youth-oriented facilities so currently dispensaries are subject to a

parks sensitive use buffer there is no definition for park so when we we look at our parks master plan

we we capture everything that is defined as parkland this includes what you would think of

when it comes to parks right the Natomas Regional Park but it also includes other

public spaces designated as parkland that doesn't necessarily support recreation or

in outdoor lifestyle so think about such examples include natural habitat areas so areas we don't

want any development or activity is captured so the recommendation was to define and clearly

identify what parks would be captured or would be considered as a sensitive use and that would be

neighborhood parks community parks and regional parks I believe you mentioned that some of the

parks you mentioned you didn't you you go to you know weren't necessarily included I'd be

interested in seeing those parks and maybe looking into that matter a little bit further

but that was that was the intention to provide a clear definition so that staff and applicants

understand what would classify or what would be defined as a park okay thank you for that and

that I can see that rationale I think the park that I noticed was on El Camino and like the Gateway

Oaks area there's like a park right on your right-hand side if you're heading west so just as a

reference but I mean there could be other parks that that maybe aren't being captured with this

redefinition so I'd be curious yet to see why those may not be meeting those definition

and I mean we probably don't have to pull them out but just just try to be mindful of that right the

parks definition also the youth-oriented facilities can you speak to the rationale with focusing

on the nonprofits yeah I would say the motivation for the definition revision is very much in

form with the struggles that we've had it here at this commission or at the ZA level is what is

that mean specifically on the ground and I believe at the last in September where we were

presenting our preliminary recommendations it was you know the Chuck E. Jesus use as an example

is that a youth-oriented facility and so it's a it's a very difficult thing to take those words

and then look on the ground and see is the particular operating characteristics of that business

youth-oriented or is it more of a commercial or other nature such as a restaurant or retail or

indoor recreation it's just very tricky to define that what is youth primarily so we were seeking to

get greater specificity by having a nonprofit designation included in there so they would be

verifiable in terms of a mapping location so we can look to see that they are in fact a nonprofit

and that their motivation is primarily for youth as opposed to a commercial for-profit venture

and when you say that you're looking at the nonprofit designation you're saying that there are some

nonprofits that are specifically designated as youth-oriented nonprofits I'm saying that that would

help us with locating them. Okay okay thank you for that clarification I think like my colleagues

have said and what we've heard from community members in addition to these these other directions

that we were advised from that you were advised from council the CUPE versus the ad administrative

approval process seemed to have an overwhelming support to retain it was interesting because it

seemed to come from both the business owners and community and I believe also that it is an

important part of the process to be able to hear from folks from the community to kind of get

a chance to voice their concerns or learn more about the process and kind of work through

any changes right for a final approval so I'm in support of that that idea of keeping this

UP process and I also kind of wonder like the intent right of trying to reduce some of the

administrative requirements to get an approval to operate cannabis business

and I heard there was a reference to a cap right there is only 40 licenses right now for

my understanding 10 general and I'm sorry 30 general and then 10 through the core program

I am kind of curious how this effort to reduce some of those barriers may tie into

a city's goal with future license approval or for you know license future cannabis

approvals is there going to be an increase to that cap do you know how much

it's going to be allowed is there like a target goal that the city is trying to work to

that may tie into some of the you know the efforts to remove some of these barriers

yeah that would not be for our department to be the lead on so I'd like to ask Fiona Madsen of our

office and cannabis management department to come up and thank you Fiona

Fiona

this one is it on

so to answer your question the city's goal so right now we have 40 to censories or 40 available

permits

right now there's 29 for what we call non-core and there's 11 opportunities for core

our goal is under the core guidelines to get all permit types up to 50% each so a parity across

so that's what our goal is so I answer the question so you're saying this new cap would be

19 more core so if you move forward with recommendations of opening up more spaces that would allow

us to present more opportunities for our core community because storefronts are the most desirable

permit type so there so it would be a restriction to only core applicants and it would

be 50% but is that a moving target like what if you gave more permits to non-core applicants with

that also increased the core applicants like is there so our goal is to uplift the core community

so we would that would be our direction is to to go down that path and then that would be up to

the law and legislation committee if they would want us to deviate from that and open up more non-core

permits

how many

I guess the question yes so how many would that be right 29 so we're going to bring different

options from 0 5 10 15 20 or free market

so we're going to ask the committee and they will decide they'll decide our direction

okay well that's that's good context to know that it's kind of a moving target at this point

which might be helpful to know as we're making some of these decisions thank you thank you

a yield my time thank you commissioner mcis read

I was going to yield my comments if any other commissioners had comments

missionally yeah I could just go next yeah thanks staff and the community and everyone else

who came out obviously there's a lot of work that went into this you know me being here I'll just

not think like gosh this is a lot that's a stuff that obviously a lot of time thought

years of work have gone into this and so I'm going to take this bite-sized pieces at a time here

and I have some questions for staff and apologies if you guys were he covered some of this already

um my my first thing I want to talk about is the CUP process I remember there was someone from

the public I don't see them here now but they mentioned that it during the process of

getting that CUP permit in its been four years is I don't believe that's a pending application I

believe it's a statement of a person's desire to get to filing an application got it and the

reason why I bring this up is you know I do hear the concerns about the CUP process but I'm

just trying to also think of the flip side and also staff's recommendation here that I think

you know one of the reasons why we're at this point today with with the administrative permit

process is that the CUP it sounds like it's been creating a lot of barriers or or a lot of

red tape is sort of say for some of these applicants and I know the OCEM Office of Canada's

Management was appeared earlier to maybe you guys can hope answer this question but also is

you're like a timeline on on when some of these applicants have to complete their permit by

and then if they don't then it expires I don't know if you can speak a little bit to that

so a new application with our office is valid for a hundred and eighty days and at a hundred and

eighty days if they have not completed the application process you can extend your application for

another hundred and eighty days by filling out a form and filing a fee there are different barriers

that would cause somebody to go over that time you know construction building permits one of our

requirements is you have to have a COO there are different factors of why progress takes longer for

certain applicants every application is unique okay got it thank you that's all I have okay thank you

so I'm just trying to think of you know the other other side of this which is you know we need

to find the right balance and I think if I understand staff's recommendation here tonight that's

what we're trying to do and so I just want to put that out there and we look at the amendments here

the other thing too that I heard and I heard my colleagues talk about to us these

these 600 foot buffer between dispensaries and so it looks like that's the current

existing regulation but that's being proposed to be removed right so essentially a dispensary

could locate right next door to each other if this gets adopted see staff shaking their head

yes my only concern with that and I think one of the speakers spoke to this earlier was that

you know obviously there are small players in this business and then there are also big players

and so I do definitely understand where they're coming from just you know thinking about an

example of like you know if I were to own a coffee shop and then Starbucks comes in and moves

right next door you know that could take away on my business and you know I just I just don't have

that level of capital to sustain my business when someone like Starbucks could you know they have

all the capital they I mean it could be a race to the bottom and so I just want to bring that up

that I have you know concerns with with eliminating that buffer you know because I mean it's hard

enough to run a business these days you know we see a lot of you know I figure what the status

but it's something like 90% of my restaurants fail within like five years and then of the

remaining like only a few survive so I just want to put that into perspective as we consider this

600 foot by for removal and you know I would depending on you know how this conversation goes

and I would recommend that we look at keeping that or even extending I think someone said you know

if we can even push it out to a thousand feet I don't I don't know what the possibility of

something like that is and then just looking through my notes here I know there was discussion about

removing the faith-based and childcare since it uses

I did have some concern about that as well because I do see you know obviously

we got you know both sides to this you know we got folks who who are opposed to it and folks

who support it I don't know if there's anything in the language here staff maybe you can help answer

where there would be flexibility but then the council districts for them to decide on a case-by-case

basis we're rather than what's being proposed here which is a complete blanket ban

I don't know maybe you guys can speak a little bit to that if there's more discretion at the

council district level

as opposed to a straight blanket citywide sort of as a medium ground between the

supporting side and the opposing side I don't know if there's any room for that

if I understand that the question it's are there regulations that are specific to council districts

more so is there like could there be discretion at the council level to decide if

a dispensary is right for a specific location if it's within a sensitive use area rather than a

blanket citywide ban on it so I think my answer would be the current regulations provided call-up

provision whereby that district could if it were in their district or if they were the mayor they

could call it up and then is that for all cannabis land uses

let me just make sure I don't have anything else

those are all I comments thank you thank you commission recating

yeah thank you chair and thanks commission and staff and public for coming out all I'll keep

this brief I you know I think I'm totally convinced I think by this sort of geographic concentration

concerns I think that's that's very real right and I heard the concerns from the community on

that loud and clear I do think that's like exactly what staff is trying to kind of do is reduce

that geographic concentration and I think that's to me one of the compelling reasons why you've

done the things that you've done on the sensitive uses and on the new zone so I am supportive of the

new zones on the process you know staff I think was tasked with creating a more consistent affordable

predictable approval process and I think that you know you you did that and so like with as many

uses as possible not just cannabis I think it's in our interest as a city to kind of have an

objective and streamline the approval process you know I I'd personally if anything want to see

more flexibility frankly but you know so for example I think even what we heard from some folks

from the public around preserving a CUP process for when you're within sensitive uses I understand that

you know we're striking a balance here and so I understand what staff is trying to do there so

I support that you know that's that I think I'm very much open to the amendments that have been

thrown out especially around the childcare facilities in the sensitive uses and then also I think

it was commissioner receives freed that brought this up but you know this the the CUP idea is not

just a black and white like yes or no there's a whole range of possibilities that are out there for

what types of uses we can keep a CUP process for which once we can move to administrative so

I just want to make sure that there's you know at least that conversation where we're at least

talking about the possibility of you know keeping the CUP process you know for some of these uses but

maybe things like storefronts or others we can leave with the staff recommendation for administrative so

all you have a lot of time thanks thank you I'm gonna make a few comments and then we'll kind of

move to make a motion and move this thing forward just quick clarifying questions so under the

current under the proposed kind of buffer zones and whatnot I think you talked about mixed use I

was thinking about like permanent supportive housing projects because I don't think those are licensed

and so many of the permanent supportive housing are are dealing with folks who are dealing with

substance abuse but they are also providing they're they're also providing on-site services so how would

how would that how would the new proposal possibly cover that that use it would be I virtually

impossible the direction we're going you know working very hard with each legislative cycle is

we brought a bundle of amend ordinances after the addressing housing one of those was supportive

housing it is a dwelling yeah it is not you don't look at the family the size of it the population

that's in that building whatsoever so we we basically wouldn't know not be able to capture that

got it thank you I think going back to the the question of kind of faith-based

being faith-based buildings being removed from the sensitive uses I think that

to be fair you know planning planning staff and we've we've had multiple meetings where you know

uses that were next to faith faith-based institutions where there was just no no response

and and I think they planning staff have also kind of on their own efforts have reached out

to multiple faith communities trying to to kind of get some type of response as to you know hey

we're thinking about removing this any any thoughts and they they have not gotten any response

that being said I just because there's no response doesn't mean that they're there's there's

not no opinion so I am appreciative of the pastor runny who actually took the time to come out

today and I was actually hoping if he could maybe come up and maybe give some clarification like

what is it about having a a dispensary you know adjacent to a faith community that

of why you're opposed to that what sort of issues are coming up for you probably it would be

some of the challenges that we face we have again I'm not trying to put a negative side on it but

some of the challenges that we challenges that we face I come with a D2 lens so you understand

where I'm coming from so in our community when something like this happens just say for instance

you vote and say you can you know put a dispensary close to a church the response in these

people in the middle can witness this the response in our community will be why they keep doing this

to us past the bottom line been honest transparent which these are the questions that we have to

answer as pastors as faith leaders I think a number of you've already admitted us not shouldn't

say admitted have shared with us that our community Delta as like D2 has been we got a lot of things

pushed our way so that would that would really affect us and I really want you to consider

sit at that that would that would really if we can't stop dispensers we can't stop what's already

been passed we understand that but the same way that you have been sensitive to the high schools

or to the schools would ask you to be sensitive to us as a faith base you know we do a lot of

lot of things and so it would the question would come to us it like I said on my way here if I had

known that this was going to be tonight believe me would have been a whole lot more people here

and it would have been here on a professional level not how the holler and all that kind of stuff

so I want you to just consider that consider that we can't stop we can't stop what's already done

we cannot stop that we understand that but consider us I know I get emotional just consider us

this me I cry at church I'm a cry here so just consider that that's all I'm saying just consider

that we'll have to answer the question Christine I want to school with her she knows we all want

school together she knows why they see these individuals know what I'm talking about we'll have to

answer the question why did they do it to us again thank you so much I think also just thank you

for your comments pastor I can sit down yeah yeah I think part part of you know my the questions

that come up to me is the churches in the past have have have youth fellowships and even before

the advent of like state-funded after-school programs you know a lot of after-school programs

have run out of churches and so so again kind of keeping kind of with the theme of just kind of

more youth oriented but again not licensed it's it's just you know they do provide kind of youth

youth services as well to the community especially in low-income communities and so that said also

you know with with kind of possible funding being decreased for after-school funding across the

state because of kind of federal cuts you know we're talking about possibly within a year

the idea of kind of after-school on-site services may be decimated and so I think that churches

will be called upon to be providing that service again in in many ways so that that said I

I did want to see if there are any motions from the dios on this or any other additional comments

commission or read all right so great discussion from the commission I just want to start by saying

that I knew I know that the golden intention over these last at least again for me over these last

years has been to better define the criteria which I think you have tried to do and be really consistent

and get to a place where we can you know at the dios make these really like at least feel like

we're making these really good informed decisions because these decisions are not easy they're

they're never going to be easy and they never have been they never will be so um so I appreciate

what the staff has done and and even adding in the community centers and library I know

it got to a point where we're like we want to decrease these sensitive uses we've done the outreach

with the community heard that this is what they need and want and and then we're we're making the

decisions moving forward um so this is a public hearing we do have to uh you know make a motion this

evening and and move this thing forward uh so I want to take a stab at trying to do that um

um and again this is you know I think the most balanced approach that we can take um just hearing

the feedback and from previous meetings that we've had um so I want to start with the permit process

because we've heard loud and clear we do not want to do a web of a CUP and the public hearing

process and so my ask um is that the existing land use requirements um for

for everything but dispensary and cultivation go to um the ministerial permit process and we

keep dispensary and cultivation at a CUP process public hearing process because again in my opinion

those are the most impactful those are the most controversial those those those are the ones that

we we have we have this issue with and and that also gives the community the opportunity to come

in and speak about the dispensary and the cultivation um specifically um sorry let me um

I I would really and I don't know if this is a part of my motion but I encourage staff to again

with the goal of trying to create clarity um with the criteria I really think adding like the

licensed or and somehow addressing you know that these facilities are licensed so that

staff and us know right we can track this we can identify this as an active use and we can use this

as um criteria for the basis of our decision making on the seat the on the public hearings right

I think that's really important so that licensed verbiage on the sensitive uses I think is really

important um also heard loud and clear that we want to include child care centers in our sensitive

uses staff recommendation is to remove it I am requesting that we keep it um as I've heard from

various comments on the dius uh I also in in heard and I think staff's intention is to include

but want to ensure uh when we make the motion that court ordered group homes uh are included under

the substance abuse rehabilitation center I want to include in the motion that C1 and C3 be included to

hopefully alleviate some of the over concentration in our city um but RMX with you know included in

the process with the CUP so the RMX which is the residential mix use be a CUP process rather than

rather than um well I guess it would be a CUP process for dispensary and cultivation anyway so

nevermind I'm repeating myself um sorry I'm really trying to get this right um

um

now I know the goal and intent was to condense down this list I have two I'm trying to make a motion

here but this is this is difficult um how so the youth oriented facility as it stands is being

identified as a non-profit non-profit who you know like I think I think of like think together who

provides after school and in youth programs it's a non-profit um so I see we have that identified

another with some concern around that's limiting but I do know you know we're keeping K through 12

schools we're keeping parks and even further identifying parks which I think are really important

um we have community centers in there we've got library we've got museum we've got the child care centers

um I feel comfortable moving forward with our youth oriented facility as it's being identified

now um because we have included those additional uses um I think the last thing I'm struggling with

is our faith-based institutions um not that I don't agree and obviously we've heard the community

feedback and and some of the feedback on the dius on how critical that need is and and the

importance of having you in our communities just generally um so I have a comment related to

faith-based institutions I believe that while we had streamlined went through our planning

streamlining process we changed some criteria around land use um improveals for faith-based

organizations am I right can you tell me what that process is now and how we identify that you

know they're located within a specific area whether it's through like a business license or a

use permit or yeah oh um well they're they're tax exempt um so no business but you can still apply

for a business license even though you're not exact but we we had the assessor has a geo space

we had they have a map of property that's classified as religious exempt category so we can

map it that way okay understood okay um yeah yeah so again I understand the intent I really

and it's like you know I'm struggling with this because I you know we're really trying to

condense this down and I you know I get it we we've been going at this for a long time um but

I I think I feel comfortable now my one concern and I don't even know if you can answer this now

because the maps that you've provided are already completed and you probably don't have your GIS

software right now to make one um this is not a fast process um I am aware so

you know I guess my challenge and I'm again I'm open to this just on this one issue having this

conversation is like the faith based institution I mean you know our goal also was to avoid the

undue concentration so the more we the more sensitive uses we add the less locations that these

places can go hence where we start to see some concentration in certain areas and that's sort of

what we're trying to avoid and I understand that and so I guess my question is you know if we

eliminate and I know you can't off the cuff like show me a map of what that's going to look like but

where you know how like where's that going to put us in terms of achieving those goals

so we do we do have them in the GIS app that we've created for this project the best I can

characterize it is they are prevalent faith based institutions are prevalent in neighborhoods

I wish I could tell you the percent of like I could with the percent of land zone

for cannabis that's in comfort business if you what's the delta right sure that's what I would

really I think you really that's what you'd like I'm sorry I can't deliver it right this moment

or for context faith based institutions is the second highest sensitive use in proximity to

operating storefront dispensaries number one being residential zoning and commissionary I guess

what I'm what I'm saying if you can sort of translate I'm not necessarily saying that we need

to put that in kind of the hard buffer zone I'm I'm actually thinking that if we can preserve that

kind of sensitive use where it it it leads to kind of the CUP discussion it triggers the CUP

discussion that way communities of faith who who do wish to like speak on it in that that's

in proximity then go at it but from our experience like 95% of the faith institutions have not

said anything and and so I think that's kind of what I'm yeah so I'm not really proposing put

that in the hard buffer like okay no because that's like really lynch yeah yeah not so okay

understood thank you thank you for the clarification so I think and this is my final point on the

motion and I wrote it down so if you need me to repeat it I can do so um so what I would say

is again going back to the permit approval process and I'm recommending for ministerial versus

keeping the CUPs for those two options that we keep um

um

can we keep can we continue to identify faith based under those two CUP processes for specifically for

dispensary and cultivation

can we clarify it's a firm buffer yeah I'm getting to that yeah we're already having the CUP

process rate or the recommendation is to have that CUP process for those two really controversial

issues and we have our sensitive uses yeah so I I understand so at the you know the pleasure of

the commission if you a majority agree that faith base should be added to that list the question

I would ask for clarification on is is it a firm buffer or not a firm buffer not a firm buffer

and if it were particular only to faith base as a flexible buffer versus others like

you know are we dividing mandatory versus not you can have a CUP with mandatory standards and

we will look at the Laney's characteristics of a dispensary or cultivation facility

but that is a criteria we need to set it in ordinance right

or you think you're essentially eliminating the hard buffers if you go the CUP route correct

now they're not mutually exclusive oh

okay I'm not that last um yeah that last final I have a motion

so I'm yes please please uh if you had something to add uh mr chair and perhaps staff maybe

I could get a clarification to understand what I where I think um commissioner msia's read I

I don't I want to be clear I understand obviously moving to a CUP adding C1 C3

um taking out rmx from the staff recommendation and that applies to dispensaries and cultivation

the and capturing the two other sensitive zone areas that we discuss but the outstanding question

is faith based so I think what I would like to know is what is a hard buffer versus a non-hard buffer

in a CUP process educate me because I don't know it's my I'm so glad you asked that question thank you

so the current regulatory scheme is every cannabis business of the very narrow exception

is a conditional use permit decided at either the zoning administrator or commission level

the difference being if you're outside of the buffer of sensitive uses you're at the zoning

administrator or if you're within any of them except for a school you're here got it so it okay so

let me just stay on this if you're a soft buffer as a faith based institution the zoning administrator

would review it at the CUP level no no yeah so the next layer to the question I appreciate where

you're going with this because if it's a mandatory buffer under our current process we have

those are at the zoning administrator level so if you if you if you met this it's the same

words but different like the outcome is the same the standard is not mandatory but if you meet the

standard you can be at the ZA level so or a soft buffer yes okay so if we were to proceed in the

direction that Macias commissioners Macias read is advising we don't deviate from the current

CUP process we add in C1 and C3 we clarify those two other sensitive zone or sensitive use criteria

the and a project comes through the CUP process and it's a j within some proximity 600 feet

of a faith based institution that project will be decided at what will where will they have

standing to contest wherever wherever you design the regulation it could under current the current

scheme to go in the buffer is to come here right okay we're eliminating but you could that

we're proposing to put over proposing to for this okay okay so you want to hear from a bunch of

faith based institutions I think I think the experiences were not yeah yeah yeah and they're the

ones dealing with yeah I do want to add that provision because and again I'm I'm really talking

about sort of the issue that we're dealing with specifically with D2 and D5 I know oh park I just

believe but yeah so those communities have a large number of churches on every corner I think

there needs to be a I don't think it needs to be yeah I think there needs to be something there I do

so I want to include I want to include it so okay I guess we need to

it's not a hard buffer yeah yeah it's soft yeah okay okay so I am going to go back

for all of us and just I appreciate everyone sticking with us through this process

oh I was going to give them the idea of what they need to do actually so yeah so sorry this is

getting kind of wonky here I apologize it's not meant to be but but I think it might be possible

to go to SHRA and grab the data for all the support of housing projects in the city because they

are funded through Project Bay section 8 and they will they will have identification of what's

what's support of housing and I think you will be able to take the address data and map that on

GIS because I used to do GIS also so I think that's what you would do to to get that data would that

be possible well I so we haven't specifically asked it what the information that I have encountered

has not a variety of public inquiries from members of the public who are working at the scale of a

single-family home for example for supportive housing and I have not encountered SHRA in the

dialogue today so I'm curious if it's publicly available if it's available okay I think it is okay

so I'm going to make a motion so I think again repeating what the motion is all the ministerial

with the exception of dispenser and cultivation keeping it at a CUP process with the public hearing

refining the sensitive use languages to include licensed businesses three to include child care

centers in our sensitive uses four to include court ordered group homes or facilities within the

criteria of the substance use and then the fifth one would be to have a soft buffer consideration

for faith-based institutions and I think the last one was to see if it's permissible with SHRA to

get to be able to to identify this permanent supportive housing okay I'm gonna I want to make

sure you're done before yeah I per my notes that is my motion my motion on the

table excuse me approve excuse me approve staff recommendation with the following amendments listed

and move forward to city council for recommendation yeah

um before we move to commission or niba I just want to make sure Courtney you had something

yes please I just want to have a question about the motion I want to make sure maybe staff gets

I have a question so the two uses that are going to stay at the CUP level currently those have

what we're now terming the soft buffer just to decide what level they go into but in the proposed

ordinance their heart their their their kill zones you cannot regulate in that area so I just

want to make sure when you say you're reverting back are they going back to CUP and if you're in

the buffer are you going back to existing city code or are you saying CUP's but with the new mandatory

buffer but these are terrible words with it might be in clear I think I I'm okay yeah I say we're

getting really complicated here and this is what I was trying to avoid um okay um so maybe a

way to think about it are you thinking for dispensaries and cultivation are you saying you want status quo

yes that is what I'm saying that's helpful okay so we know what that means because we're we

don't want to change that process okay and so with that faith faith organizations are already

addressed in the status quo so that okay okay I guess that's what I was getting to so we don't

need to then have a soft buffer requirements but it's not a sensitive use but we're not saying that

their proposal was to take big based out of the sensitive use out of the hard buffer yeah that

was a discussion that we were having treacherous territory um soft buffer is the CUP a hard buffer is

an admin permit right oh I'm sorry because of the recommendation I understand your question

yeah okay thank you for that clarification you're absolutely right good job hey um okay so

so then there is still okay so what we're saying then is if we're not including faith based institutions

as a hard sensitive use which is going to be very complex and limit incredibly um this the

ability for any of this to exist um we will at least keep it as the process that was relayed to us

and staff went through with us with the notifications and the ministerial approval okay

do does everyone understand what okay okay I think we're good thank you for that clarification

all right thank you I'm gonna move on to commissioner niba

I'm in level intimidated not to speak uh it's a real gordian not and every string you pull on

is affects something um you know when we include faith based all of a sudden we wipe out we would wipe out

a huge amount of the city kind of what are we doing here today if we did that so I like your

compromise on that um I appreciate um everyone coming out today thank you very much

real issues to deal with um I I would like to to to second your motion I think that that was a

great compromise and I had a lot of questions but they've been well answered by the questions that

have come up before the other commissioner so thank you very much commissioner Lee yeah I'm

starting to go off track here just for a little bit but I just uh want to make sure that I point this

out uh to staff um I was just recently made aware that on at the May 31st 2022 city council meeting

they passed an amendment to allow dispensary owners to hold up to a 5% ownership in in unlimited

number of storefront dispensaries um however that the change was never implemented in the city code

even though council gave clear direction and the motion passed uh I know it's not within the

subject matter of the uh planning and design commission but uh it's relevant to this uh discussion

and should be noted for uh probably OCM office account and business management and a staff to

address uh at a later time but I just want to make sure uh we note that uh for the record

and then just another question of regarding um the motion on the table here um and maybe it's

a question for legal uh could I add an amendment to the motion or uh what do I have to make a new

motion with that amendment in my submission there's always a substitute motion but initially you

could ask commissioner mcis read if she might take a friendly amendment uh so my uh my one and

only ask is uh that uh we retain the 600 feet to 600 feet dispensary buffer um between the two

dispensaries so that way um because it's in the uh staff uh recommendation here it's slated for

removal um but if we can retain that 600 feet buffer between dispensaries um

I will accept that thank you and that's all I have thank you

thank you Courtney are you headed other comments I think so yeah I think we so the 600 feet is there

it's really just going to go back to your maintaining status quo for those two but you want to add

the 600 feet to the admin permit once is that right so the status quo for CUP's yeah

the status quo is what staff is recommending in this status quo no so status quo has all the

sensitive uses that you can come and get a CUP right so for those the two uses that we're going to

remain at status quo just that your recommending remain at status quo dispensary and cultivation

within that text is the 600 feet right so that's already in that and then we have the separate

separate admin permits for those last uses and so it's it's a hard no if you're within 600 feet

you cannot get an admin permit yeah like like right now if you're going with staff's recommendation

on admin permits if you're within those sensitive uses you cannot get an admin permit

it's not an option so you're going to say okay so 600 feet is on that new list and

okay thank you is that what commissioner Lee intended I just wanted to make sure that that's

yeah I'm trying to understand that um what the main go is that we don't want

dispensaries opening next to each other uh so I don't know if that accomplishes okay so that's

one okay so right now it is a possibility if they're within 600 feet they can't open right now

that's with the CUP they've got to come okay got it and so but with the admin permit it's going

to be a hard no they can't get an admin permit but they can still come and argue for a see apply

for CUP okay thank you so to clarify the latter is what we are

yeah thank you commissioner Resky or is that commissioner Chase who's uh I can't imagine why

there could be any confusion on my mind at this point but uh Courtney I'd like to if I could clarify

by status quo are we proposing and commissioner ms a is it in your

motion that dispensaries would remain as a CUP

that's okay so which uses are going to be admin

distribution manufacturing volatile or non-volatile

testing distribution

okay okay thank you that's very helpful because my my concern was that dispensaries were going

to be taken out of the CUP procedure so okay

I mean historically right from the communities our perception or my perception certainly

and my work on the commission has been sorry about that um the reason why I want to keep

the CUP process for dispensaries and cultivation specifically is because those have been the most

controversial and impactful to the community and I think it's only fair that we maintain that

public hearing process okay yeah thank you for that clarification that said I will be supporting

the motion thank you um no having no other comments we have a motion in a second

all right um with the clerk please call roll for a vote thank you chair commissioners please

unmute commissioner Lee aye commissioner Lamas I Commissioner Nibbo

okay commissioner Caden I Commissioner Hernandez a job everyone I

Commissioner Moss is three I Commissioner Ortiz I

Commissioner Blunt I vice chair Chase I

Commissioner Rishki I Commissioner Thompson I and chair young I thank you the motion passes

oh you go ahead feel free to give us a warm round of applause

thank you sometimes we need the warm fuzzies also you know um the next item is commissioner comments ideas

and questions are there any commissioners who wish to speak having none we're going to move on

yeah we're going to give her time oh commissioner Chase sorry I didn't see it thank you chair um

totally unrelated to this but just a comment I wanted to make I think but it's time we walk outside

there should be the beginning of a full lunar eclipse uh oh speaking at around 11 o'clock tonight so

anyway thank you thank you all right that was very important thank you uh commissioners our last

item for today is public comments matters not on the agenda clerk are there any members of the

public who wish to speak on the public comments matters not on the agenda thank you chair have no

speaker slips on this item great thank you all right well we want to welcome uh commissioner

Ortiz welcome to the the planning and design commission that how's that for your first uh first

meeting uh we'd love for you to provide introduce yourself and provide some comments well no thank you

I'm really honored to uh join you all I watched the past uh planning commission meetings and I uh

was quite impressed and I was excited that I get a really fun project the first night um a little

background I sat on the county planning commission a hundred years ago and then I sat on the city

council when we actually had land use authority in the 90s and then I'm just thrilled to be able to

contribute to our city in a difficult time and um and really appreciate that the land use decision

making processes now at this level it wasn't the standard in the past so thank you for giving me a

warm welcome and thank you for the immersion into a controversial project thank you thank you

well this concludes today's agenda thank you for everyone for your participation meeting as a

journey

yeah it was good it worked for me yeah I just