Pot Grow Plot Plans...

[Ian Wilson]

Humboldt Chapter Quarterly Report for the Board Meeting on Saturday made mention of the Marijuana Grow Permit Plot Plans being required by Humboldt County for permits to operate.

It seems that the County is not currently requiring a Licensed Land Surveyor to prepare the plans. This is resulting in some of “grows” encroaching on neighboring properties as well as other difficulties.

With the enactment of the new statutes as of January 1st of the coming New Year, many of the other counties and jurisdictions in California will be scrambling to try to enact ordinances to control the operations that will be permitted under new State Statutes. CLSA should be at the forefront of working with the agencies to ensure that the plans required for such permits be prepared by Licensed Land Surveyors. CLSA should be at the forefront of the information “game” in acting as a clearing house of such information for growers and other interested parties relative to the requirements under the new ordinances.

I am asking that anyone who has access to the ordinances and the permit application process through Planning and/or Health Departments and/or other local agencies, please send me copies of the ordinances so we can catalogue them. If your local jurisdiction has such an ordinance and requires plans for the permit application, do they require that the plans be prepared by licensed land surveyors?

Finally, if you would like to work on a short-termed task force collating the information and preparing of for dissemination, please send me an email with you contact information to let me know.

Thanks!

Ian Wilson,
2017 CLSA President.

[mpallamary]

Great idea! I am too far away to be effective but will support your efforts any way I can.

[subman]

Here is the home page for all efforts in unincorporated Los Angeles County.

http://cannabis.lacounty.gov/

[mpallamary]

Ian, maybe we can cobble together some basic plot plan requirements and start there. I recommend the following basics.

Boundary lines.

Lines of occupation.

Location(s) of ingress and egress.

Location of structures.

Third party rights and easements.

Location of power and water supplies.

Proof of water and power permits (to assure that utilities are not being stolen or hijacked).

Statement of authorization or permit.

Owner's name, address, etc.

It would be like a modified ALTA survey.

What do you think?

[Ian Wilson]

I think we should look at the existing requirements from the local jurisdictions and fit them to the statutes.

Many agencies already have their requirements. My goal is to make sure that the agencies are requiring licensed surveyors prepare the plans from a field survey..

[David Kendall]

Why is this different than any other plot plan required by an agency for land development?

It seems to me that the system is designed so that any property owner can go in and file a plan for improvement of their land. The agency usually has discretion to require certain conditions of approval in the case where they foresee problems arising or to flag for further investigation into areas of concern.

Sometimes those conditions involve a boundary survey. Sometimes a survey is not relevant.

I understand that everyone wants to get a piece of the pot pie but requiring all plot plans to be prepared by licensed surveyors is not prudent or realistic.

Mr WIlson, I suspect there is more to this discussion that what you are recounting here. I work in Humboldt, I understand the problem and I have staked plenty of property lines through the middle of a massive pot garden with extensive grading over onto the unsuspecting neighbor's lot but I don't agree with the solution you present. All of the things in Pallamary's list above are required of any plot plan. I have attached the Humboldt County plot plan checklist for your consideration.

Also I don't think you are appreciative of the volume of plot plans currently moving through the Humboldt County planning process relative to the number of licensed surveyors practicing in Humboldt County. This is certainly a worthy discussion as it could be a bellwether for many other parts of the state. I hope you will reconsider your premise.

Please re-read Evan Page's recent post here:

http://clsaforum.californiasurveyors.or ... 438#p45370

[surveyoron]

This issue was brought up at our local Humboldt chapter meeting by a few private surveyors. The main problem is singling out cannabis grows when County Planning does not require a surveyor to prepare plot plans for most other types of agricultural development. Also, many of the grows are on unsurveyed parcels which would trigger a Record of Survey and add additional costs to the applicants which will go over like a fart in church around here. I have brought this to the attention of the Deputy Director for Land Use and in the future we hope to have a sit down with the Planning Director to discuss the matter. For right now though, the train has left the station as most growers who intend to comply have already submitted their applications.

[Ian Wilson]

Dave and Ron:

My "premise" is nothing more than getting CLSA to work with each of the jurisdictions to provide whatever assistance we can. It's that simple. There is no "ulterior motive". As I said at the Board Meeting on Saturday, the goal is to collect information and share it.

And, I do appreciate the number of plans the run through Humboldt County. I also appreciate that the surveyors in your area have far more experience with such plats than any other area. Perhaps, by sharing experiences and knowledge, some of the problem you faced in Humboldt County can be forestalled in, say, Riverside County. And, while the situation in Humboldt County may already be set, I assure you that it is not in many other areas where they are still wrestling with how to enact ordinances to handle the changes that the passage of Prop 64 brings.

Ian

[William Magee]

I just finished a lot line adjustment for some folks whose neighbor had built his garage over their boundary line. New construction, both residential and commercial, in many areas are not required to prove the boundaries to the building department. That is a bigger issue to me.
On a personal note, I won't take any jobs knowingly funded by pot growers. Not just for the same reasons as the banks won't take their money.

[David Kendall]

One of the failures of the Humboldt cannabis planning experiment (that Ron touched on above) - which will hopefully not be met in areas of CA where cannabis cultivation is not as prevalent historically - is that people in Humboldt have very little incentive to bring existing grows into compliance (in the short-term that is, which unfortunately many of these growers are not typically thinking years down the road).

If I was developing a new vineyard (or cannabis garden) in Sonoma then I would be expecting to do things by the book. If I already had a profitable vineyard in my family for three generations and all of my neighbors did too then I would not really care much for someone from the county or state coming in to tell me how and where to do things.

As the regulatory system tightens up over the next 3-5 years this attitude will certainly change. Still, I don't personally see any value to treating a pot grow differently than any other ag or land development activity

Here is the website for the Sonoma County cannabis program: http://sonomacounty.ca.gov/Cannabis-Program/

It is a much more complex matter than a simple plot-plan for a garden. There are six different land use permit types some of which require significant infrastructure: http://sonomacounty.ca.gov/Cannabis/Permits/

This is not a matter I care to participate in resolving. It was a big factor in my decision to move away from Humboldt County as I see our industry getting consumed by matters that don't really have much to do with the practice of land surveying. My personal attitude is to let the civil engineers handle those matters and they can call me when they need a line marked on the ground. If I wanted to draw plot plans all day I would not be pursuing a career as a land surveyor.

[RAM]

Simple here, County ordinance has been passed, NO commerical grows.

[A_O'Rourke, PLS]

Here's a few links to research..in addition to the plot plan link Kendall Posted.
Residential Plot Plan vs. Commercial Medical Marijuana Land Use Ordinance checklist, which is subject to CEQA review.

http://www.humboldtgov.org/2159/Commerc ... Permitting
http://humboldtgov.org/DocumentCenter/View/53497

http://www.trinitycounty.org/index.aspx?page=371
http://www.trinitycounty.org/modules/sh ... entid=4771