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No Pot on Purvine Update: Upcoming meeting with Supervisor Rabbitt

Notice from No Pot on Purvine – Feb 21st meeting with Supervisor Rabbitt 6PM

Hello Neighbors! We have some very important updates and an upcoming event that deserve your immediate attention.

UPCOMING EVENT:   Mark your calendars for February 21st and attend this important Meeting!

  • COMMUNITY MEETING WITH SUPERVISOR DAVID RABBIT. Attached to this email is a flyer which we are mailing to our community this weekend. It is a fact sheet containing the addresses and basic details of the five commercial cannabis applications we are most concerned about. Feel free to distribute it, and plan to bring a crowd. All are welcome and we want to pack the meeting hall!

Community Meeting with David Rabbit:

Where: Petaluma Ghost (Portuguese) Hall: 4649 Bodega Avenue, Petaluma CA 

When: Wednesday, February 21st, 2018.   6pm-7:30 PM

RSVP or Questions: Respond to this email or call our coordinator at 707-559-8563

  • The Website. Stay up-to-date on all relevant developments by checking out our website. Most notably is our new Community Map, which shows most known commercial applications in our area. Please visit WWW.NOPOTONPURVINE.COM

 

  • Number of applications. As if Petaluma Hills Farms (334 Purvine Road) wasn’t bad enough, the number of applications in our area has jumped from one to SIX commercial (up to 1 acre) cannabis farms within a three mile radius. The county has not indicated that they are thinking about concentration of cannabis in our area, nor are they addressing the cumulative impact of these applications on our area’s overall water, traffic, safety, etc. Our area is under siege. This is a huge problem and we are planning to address it with David Rabbit at our next meeting (see attachment).
  • Petaluma Hills Farm. Our efforts and counsel have succeeded in forcing the County to require a 72-hour test of the well on 334 Purvine Road. This is great, as this test would normally not be required and will work toward proving the water scarcity issue we face. As an added bonus, it delays their application process by three to four months (until July), affording us the time required to focus on our policy initiatives. Water User. Do not be fooled by applicants’ claims of using low-or-no water. We had a development representative run their numbers. Petaluma Hills Farm states they plan to use only 200,000 gallons on water annually. According to our newer numbers, their actual water use is closer to 2,500,000 gallons on water annually. THAT’S A LOT OF WATER.
  • Commercial Cannabis Exclusion Zone and the Cannabis Advisory Board. Given the fact that the county continues to accept applications in our area despite public outcry, we have become increasingly aware that our best chance of preventing ALL of these applications is to become a commercial cannabis exclusion zone. A cannabis exclusion zone means that the commercial cultivation of cannabis is inappropriate because it will cause significant impacts to an area’s 1) environment, 2) water resources, 3) utilities, 4) roads, 5) Fire Protection, 6) Security and 7) Residential Character. Sound familiar? This designation aligns with the community’s concerns and with the availability of resources in our area. We are working with the Cannabis Advisory Committee to develop an application process for this designation and to be classified as an exclusion zone.  
  • Neighboring City Grows: We also remind you to support our neighbors in Penngrove: A cannabis permit application on 8105 Davis Lane was approved on 2/5/18. Although their situation is a bit different than what we face here in West Petaluma, we stand with them and maintain the current Cannabis Ordinance is flawed for numerous reasons and needs to be corrected.

Final npop meeting flyer february_

Just Say No to Commercial Pot Grows in Residential Neighborhoods

Due to missteps in the original planning, and permitting process. Sonoma County is now in the position of having large scale commercial cannabis cultivation operations in residential neighborhoods.

When formulating the new rules, Sonoma County specifically intended to exclude cannabis operations from residential areas. Guess what, they didn’t, oops Do over needed.

There are currently permit applications for large scale commercial growing operations:

In Penngrove, on Davis LaneI
n Spring Hill Area, on Purvine Street
In Bloomfield Area, on Moro Street

These are only examples, there are 100’s of permit applications pending. Possibly in your neighborhood. In some cases under current rules, you would not be notified or have an opportunity to speak against it.

These are residential areas. How would you like a Pot Farm smack in the middle of your neighborhood, where your kids play and ride their bikes and where you walk your dog and where you enjoy the quiet peaceful enjoyment and rural lifestyle you likely worked your whole life to have?

Keep in mind that 8 out of the last 10 murders in Sonoma County took place at pot operations.

When asked that question at a recent meeting, the Sonoma County supervisor in attendance said plainly, no, he wouldn’t like it in his neighborhood. The Sheriff concurred.

That was at a meeting recently in Penngrove with David Rabbitt to discuss this issue and several properties that are in the works. @80 people attended and the great majority were vehemently opposed to cannabis operations in residential areas of the county.

The problem cited was not legal pot or pot growing it was pot operations in residential neighborhoods.

This paper describes the problems that Sonoma County PRMD staff highlighted to Supervisors:

“Commercial Cannabis Cultivation in Rural Residential Zones(PDF: 73 kB)”

Found here:

http://sonomacounty.ca.gov/Cannabis/Legislative-Updates/County-Ordinances/

Issues cited:

  • Lowered property values
  • Safety. the fear of parents for their children and restricted outdoor play for children because of vicious dogs being used to protect grows
  • Noise due to massive amounts of air conditioning and generators and cooling systems for lighting
  • Massive amounts of water and electricity required, transformer blow outs
  • Heavy vehicle traffic on residential streets
  • Response considerations for fire fighters
  • Occupational hazards
  • Taxing police and fire departments, sometimes rural volunteer departments
  • The lack of right to be notified before a grower moves next door
  • The destruction of health and quality of life by pesticides and chemical fertilizers used in a residential neighborhood.

Extract: “Cannabis cultivation within residential areas can cause numerous compatibility concerns including offensive odor, security and safety concerns, proximity to sensitive land uses (i.e. schools), use of hazardous materials, unpermitted electrical and building construction causing high fire danger, light and glare, noise from generators, damage to housing stock from mold and mildew, and reduced housing stock due to single family homes being used for cannabis cultivation. Despite these compatibility issues, there are an estimated 3,000 separate cultivation operations within these districts, most of which are less than 2,000 square feet of canopy size. “

This is from the County itself and in fact the County has regulated only minimal size non-commercial pot farming in RR zoned areas (6 plants 100 Square feet).

Please write to the Sonoma County Supervisors and ask them to fix the rules to keep commercial cannabis operations in the industrial farming areas where security and lighting and other measures can be managed and where residential neighborhoods will not be put at risk.

A group has been organized in response to the proposed operation on Davis Lane:

No to Neighborhood Commercial Grows Alliance

A group has also been organized in response to a similar proposed operation on Purvine Road:

No Pot on Purvine

https://www.nopotonpurvine.com

If you have concerns you should contact David Rabbitt’s office and time is of the essence as these permits are in processing:

Phone: (707) 565-2241
David.Rabbitt@sonoma-county.org
Andrea.Krout@sonoma-county.org

Following is From No to Neighborhood Commercial Grows Alliance, modified:

To Sonoma County Supervisors,

Here are 5 requests for your consideration:

  1. Issue an immediate moratorium on ministerial permits for commercial cannabis grows on non conforming DA parcels of less than 20 acres to enable further review, including notice to surrounding neighbors and an opportunity for them to voice their concerns and have appropriate action taken.
  2. For non conforming DA areas, revise the permit process so that they would be discretionary, not ministerial.
  3. Revise the regulations to establish a minimum buffer zone of 5,000 linear ft, between all commercial grows and any residential areas, including non conforming DA neighborhoods.
  4. Revise regulations to require that all commercial cannabis grows are subject to CEQA review.
  5. Revise regulations for commercial cannabis permits to include limitations on saturation of an area, and cumulatively consider the impacts.
  6. In the case of split zoned Properties including an RR or AR designation, the RR or AR should take precedence when applying for cannabis permits

Also please go to ruralsonoma.org and join the mailing list there so you can be added to the list of concerned citizens and be kept informed

Response to RP City Manager claim that drought doesn’t affect them

I regularly submit articles in the papers about the mess the Rohnert Park development machine is causing to greater Sonoma County, and raising the point that we are in the worst drought on record and are on water restrictions, so how does it make sense to add 5600 homes now?
Inevitably the City Manager writes back that Lake Sonoma is full, our wells are at capacity and the drought has miraculously bypassed Rohnert Park! So the sheeple should just leave them alone. And also it’s all legal and approved.

This article by Brenda Adelman examines the claim.

http://www.sonomacountygazette.com/cms/pages/sonoma-county-news-article-4643.html

Community Separators, Press Democrat Close to Home 12-6-15

Nice to see the article by Jake Mackenzie on the need to protect our community separators, “Close to Home: Keeping greenbelts amid crisis in housing”.

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/opinion/4872694-181/close-to-home-keeping-greenbelts?artslide=0

However, it seems we have another case of the “Two Jakes”. This time it’s the Greenbelt  Alliance Board Member (Jake #1) and the Rohnert Park Councilman (Jake #2).

The part that Jake #1 left out is that the City Council of Rohnert Park, which he (Jake #2) is a member,  is the biggest threat to Community Separators in the County.

Petaluma Hill Road is a community separator and a designated Heritage Road. As such it should not be improved, widened, expanded according to the County Guidelines and General Plan.

The planned Rohnert Park developments abutting Petaluma Hill Road will add approximately 51600 new daily road trips, many on this bucolic country road, which is already designated as “congested” in the Sonoma County General Plan. This will incur the need to expand the road and there goes your community separator, thanks to Jake #2. Rohnert Park’s planned mitigation for the damage their new strip malls and tract houses will do includes “sound walls” on Petaluma Hill Road. If that’s not San Jose North, what is? Are sound walls the kind of separators we want in Sonoma County?

When Jake #1 spouts: “the county has prevented housing tracts and shopping malls from sprawling into our precious green places. By safeguarding adjacent unincorporated lands, community separators protect the urban growth boundaries around Sonoma County’s cities.” For full disclosure, he should mention what Jake #2 is doing.

I appreciate Councilman Mackenzie and Evans for speaking out in favor of the Community Separators. Now, we would like to see it followed up with a moratorium on Rohnert Park Developments on Community Separators, specifically, the University District Plan, Southeast Specific Plan, Northeast Specific Plan and Sonoma Mountain Village which combined will add 5160 new homes to the Petaluma Hill Road Scenic Corridor. Canon Manor is also of concern.

The Downtown area plans, near the Smart Rail, should go full speed ahead.

A little history

Came across this great recording session on local history with several of our entertaining local historians, and Chuck Lucas.

Not exactly on topic but relevant to the theme of the unique interesting character  of our area and why it’s worth preserving.

Each house generates 10 auto trips per day! – 51600 new trips on PHR

The average number of auto trips per house is 10 according to traffic engineers. It’s more for people closer to shopping areas. That includes, deliveries, trash, mail…

So, the new Rohnert Park subdivisions will generate 51600 new trips. Can Petaluma Hill Road handle that? Well, today I waited 10 minutes to drop my kid at Penngrove School.

http://www.ci.apple-valley.mn.us/DocumentCenter/Home/View/717

https://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/rita.dot.gov.bts/files/subject_areas/national_household_travel_survey/daily_travel.html

 

Stop the RP development machine

I don’t mind when Rohnert park builds new subdivisions within their city – until they impact vital rural areas that are important to all citizens of Sonoma County and it’s environs. That’s why the planned 5160 new units along Petaluma Hill Road must be stopped. This project  shown above, at Rohnert Park Expressway and Petaluma Hill Road, is currently paving over key recharge points for the Santa Rosa Aquifer. During the worst drought, ever.