McKinleyville 215 Collective a No-go From The Get-go

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A medical marijuana growing collective that organizers hoped would be housed in a downtown McKinleyville building was quashed in its early stages after planners failed to contact the owners of the property.

In late November, an Arcata-based developer Danco submitted a conditional use permit application to the Humboldt County Planning Commission for a new project called The Rose Center.

The application was filed on behalf of Steven Gasparas, the owner of the Arcata iCenter, who envisioned The Rose Center as a marijuana growing facility allowing Proposition 215 card-holding growers, who cultivate more than they need for their own purposes, a commercial space to house their gardens.

According to the application, The Rose Center would provide growers with an environmentally secure facility that would be run in accordance with Proposition 215, Senate Bill 420 and the Attorney General's 2008 guidelines for medical marijuana cultivation.

The Rose Center was intended to be housed in a building located on Nursery Way in McKinleyville. Gasparas was unavailable for comment, and there is no word as to whether he plans to seek another property to house The Rose Center project.

Danco officials did not respond to phone calls and were unavailable for comment.

Humboldt County Senior Planner Trevor Estlow said Danco leases that 5,475-square-foot building from Miller Family Partnership, which owns the parcel as well as the adjacent Miller Farms Nursery.

Danco, Estlow said, submitted the conditional use permit without first consulting Miller Family Partnership.

When Miller Farms owner Don Miller learned of it in early December, he wrote, “The Miller Family Partnership was greatly surprised, even shocked” by the application.

According to Miller's statement, the permitted use of the property was for Danco to manage the building for medical offices and medical clinics under compliance with state and federal law.

”The cultivation and dispensing of medical marijuana from this property was not a permitted use under the lease agreement and the Miller Family Partnership would never agree to its property being used for such purposes,” the statement from the Miller Family Partnership reads.

However, Estlow said as the managers of the property, they may have assumed they were under authority to sign the permit application on the Miller's behalf.

Estlow said that with the project stymied at the application phase, it is difficult to tell whether the McKinleyville community would have supported such an endeavor. If the project application had been properly submitted, Estlow said the Planning Commission would have taken it before the public at a hearing.

The Rose Center application details a number of community incentives and pollution control actions in its plan. According to the application, all growing materials used at the site would be certified organic, the center would employ wind and solar power and keep indoor solar panels to recapture unused light.

According to the permit, upon construction, carbon filters would guard against escaping marijuana odor. Within the first year, donations would be made to help employ a new police or fire officer. After five years, money would be donated to help improve renewable energy resources in McKinleyville, and within 10 years two energy efficient vehicles would be donated to the community.

The Rose Center was not designed to be a dispensary and medical marijuana would not be given to patients at the site, the application states.

Estlow confirmed the project may have also proved useful for 215 card-holding residential renters who are prohibited from growing medical marijuana.

”Unfortunately,” Estlow said, “the Millers weren't kept in the loop since the beginning, so that's the shortfall.”


News Hawk: User: http://www.420magazine.com/
Source: Times-Standard
Author: Sean Garmire
Copyright: 2008 Times-Standard
Contact: Contact Us - Times-Standard Online
Website: McKinleyville 215 collective a no-go from the get-go - Times-Standard Online