Humboldt Planners Mull Cannabis’ Skunky Odor as Farm Expansion OK’d

Skunk Magazine serves as table for rolling a product that has strains whose odor is described as skunky. [Stock photo from RHBB]

With odor and water issues resolved, a Carlotta area cannabis farm has a green light to expand its cultivation area by 20,000 square feet.

Humboldt County’s Planning Commission continued an initial permit hearing to its May 21 meeting, where the issues that seemingly complicated approval were deemed to be addressed.

Permit applicant Irene Levi, doing business as as Carlotta Gardens LLC, will expand an existing 50,000 square-foot combination mixed light/outdoor farm to 70,000 square feet.

The farm is located on Highway 36 in the Carlotta area and is in a community planning area, which kicks in requirements to enclose cultivation areas for odor control if neighboring residences are within 600 feet.

Levi sought a waiver from that and at the previous hearing, a neighbor complained about odor, saying it already “smells like an actual skunk is in our yard.”

Levi has agreed to do the odor control and her agent said the public hearing process has been helpful.

“Although this isn’t turning out the way the applicant wanted, we also want to thank the neighbors because this public process gives us chance to be better neighbors,” he continued. “And I think one thing that gets missed in this whole process is for the public is to see that they do have a voice. They get to influence how we all work together as a community.”

But the odor issue got further discussion generally, with Commissioner Jerome Qiriazi questioning whether waivers of the enclosure requirement should be allowed even if neighbors agree to them.

“They’re supportive of their neighbors, they want to see this agricultural product. So we put it in and they say, “Oh, actually this really stinks.” But they’re permitted so now we’re stuck,” he said. “And I’m wondering if we should revisit this allowance.”

Planning Director John Ford agreed that odor is a significant impact and related his experience talking with people affected by it.

“I personally spent a lot of time walking neighborhoods with people who just were so upset because their houses smelled like a skunk and they were sending their kids to school and their kids smelled like a skunk,” he said. “And it was like, ‘I take good care of my kids, they’re bathed, they’re clothed but I sent them to school and kids are making fun of them because they smell,’ and so that really is the public interaction that resulted in the ordinance provisions like they are.”

Ford added that “complaints have gone down dramatically” since the updated version of the county’s cannabis ordinance – known as 2.0 – was put in place with the odor control requirements.

Commissioner Iver Skavdal credited Levi for the “willingness to do their best to be a good neighbor, work with the neighbors, and to accept the fact that their project changed a bit between what was on the consent calendar at our last meeting and what we’re approving tonight.”

Water use sourced from a well was another issue that was raised during the prior hearing, as it was originally pegged at 1.76 million gallons a year.

But a written staff report says that estimate is “artificially high” and actual annual water use will be about 1 million gallons.

The conditional use permit for the expansion with denial of the request for waiving the enclosure requirement was approved with a 4-1 vote, with Commissioner Todd Fulton dissenting.