New letter from neighbor:
To: Everett Louie <elouie@migcom.com>; bos@sonoma-county.org
Subject: UPC 18-0001 / Aug 12, 2020 9:30 AM
Dear Everett and Board of Supervisors,
There is a very old saying that goes, “When God wants to punish us, He gives us bad neighbors.” We all know the wisdom of this saying because bad neighbors can rob us of so much that is precious: our peace of mind, the safety of our children, the value of our property, the simple pleasure of stepping outside on a quiet morning and taking a breath of fresh air.
The cannabis operation at 885 Montgomery Road has robbed their neighbors of all these things. And they have done so by ignoring and violating many of the ordinances that you put in place to protect these neighbors. The aerial timeline photographs, the ground-level photographs, and the many letters of opposition in your files document these violations conclusively.
There is a wonderful word in the Irish language – “Meitheal.” It describes the ancient practice of neighbors going from farm to farm to help each other with the harvest. And it describes the deep impulse of a people to work together for the benefit of their neighbors and their community.
The cannabis operation at 885 Montgomery Road benefits no one but the owners and leaves the neighbors with a degraded quality of life and a deep disillusionment with the county government that allowed it to happen.
Please set things right by denying the permit.
West County Home Owner
“Our case could be one of those landmark cases in the county — will the Supervisors actually approve an acre-sized cannabis business that is surrounded by 7 small-sized neighbors (with pools, stables, and playgrounds within feet from the indoor and outdoor plants)? This is truly a neighborhood, not a rural farm tract or a forested seclusion. It could set a precedent for future cannabis business locations inside neighborhoods around Sonoma Co.”
Neighbors appeal cannabis permit in residential area
The 1-acre cannabis cultivation business adjacent to our home received their cannabis permit hearing date (permit # UPC18-0001). We are on vacation, but still spending some time contacting people about a window of opportunity to send objections to the county before staff writes their final report.
Please help us by sending an objection letter by Sunday 7/19 5:00 pm to both at the same time:
Everett Louie (elouie@migcom.com)
Board of Supervisors (bos@sonoma-county.org)
Include in your email the following identifiers:
– UPC18-0001
– Aug 12, 2020 9:30 AM
While you won’t be a legitimate complainer about this commercial business or its cannabis odor in your neighborhood, we hope you can legitimately influence the Board of Supervisors to stop approving commercial-scale cannabis businesses adjacent to residential parcels, and to keep commercial cannabis cultivation 1,000 feet away from residences, just like the ordinance states for schools and parks.
Your message to Everett should include an argument against approving this cannabis business because it’s in the middle of a neighborhood. And that seven families surround the property and their backyards are 100 feet from thousands of cannabis plants. These backyards and homes don’t have the ability to move to an opposite location on their property, away from the new cannabis business. It’s the wrong place for a commercial-scale cannabis business. Just because it’s on a 10-acre lot doesn’t automatically qualify it for a permit approval.
Our case could be one of those landmark cases in the county — will the Supervisors actually approve an acre-sized cannabis business that is surrounded by 7 small-sized neighbors (with pools, stables, and playgrounds within feet from the indoor and outdoor plants)? This is truly a neighborhood, not a rural farm tract or a forested seclusion. It could set a precedent for future cannabis business locations inside neighborhoods around Sonoma Co.
The planner’s MND report is available for review. https://migcom.egnyte.com/fl/dI1ZLsTohu
It includes many subjective opinions which favor the cannabis business. Everett recommends that Sonoma County tell neighbors to plant multiple rows of bushes and tall trees in order to stop cannabis plant odor from transiting properties (references an indoor enclosed chicken barn study on page 22 “USDA NRCS 2007” as an excuse that we should all just plant a thick forest to create odor buffers…and wait for them to mature and ‘work’). These subjective opinions and wild theories about unproven mitigation strategies to quiet citizens’ complaints should give everyone serious pause, and we are writing a rebuttal to all of them. Everett also ignores wrong-doing hidden by the cannabis business but continues to mark compliance with the cannabis ordinance in spite of it.
We have attached a photo to show just how close the cannabis business is to the neighboring properties and their lot sizes.
The below photo demonstrates that we have many small-sized lots in our neighborhood. This is a residential area, not commercial farmland with a pre-existing odor nuisance when everyone bought their property.
The circle represents a 2,000-foot radius and the 128 lots inside that radius. Just the cannabis area alone is about half the size of the median neighborhood lot size — 1 acre of cannabis to 2.1 acres of surrounding properties.
If Sonoma County approves this cannabis cultivation permit in this sort of neighborhood, it would set precedents to expand and stay inside rural residential neighborhoods.