The Long Beach Planning Commission made recommendations at its May 17 meeting to the Long Beach City Council that suggested changes to the city’s zoning code and allowable land uses regarding recreational marijuana. According to city officials this week, the city council is expected to address and make necessary amendments to the proposals at an undetermined council meeting in late June.
In December, the City of Long Beach declared a moratorium prohibiting adult-use cannabis uses for 180 days, ending in June, and instructed staff to develop recommendations to legalize and regulate adult-use cannabis businesses in the city.
In an interview Monday with the Signal Tribune, Assistant City Attorney Michael Mais said the effort to address the cannabis issue would typically only involve City planning staff, but because this is an “unusual circumstance,” the business-license and city manager staff have both worked together to formulate recommendations.
“So, really, what the planning commission was doing was saying, ‘If we are going to have recreational marijuana in the city, these are the areas where it should take place and these are the types of permits that the operator should have,’” Mais said.
The Long Beach Planning Commission’s purview is the city’s land use and zoning, which is Title 21 of Long Beach’s municipal code. The commission’s recommendations for recreational marijuana were specifically related to the logistics of several types of recreational pot facilities within the city.
However, the Title 21 changes only provide part of the picture of what is being proposed for both medical and adult-use cannabis businesses, according to Ajay Kolluri, cannabis program manager for the City of Long Beach. In a phone interview Tuesday, he said the recommendations will be updated sometime next month to reflect changes via Title 5 of the city’s municipal code, which is the regulation of businesses, trades and professions.
“What you found with the proposed Title 21 changes with the planning commission were amendments to where adult-use facilities will be able to locate in the future,” Kolluri said. “However, we do recognize we have medical businesses and medical applications all over the city in industrial areas and commercial areas, and we consider a process for allowing those businesses to convert to adult-use or co-locate with adult-use, but we consider that process through the Title 5 changes. The Title 5 changes were not presented to the planning commission because their purview is only over Title 21, the zoning code. So, for that reason, really, you’re looking at only part of the picture, and I think the full picture will come into view after we present both changes to Title 5 and Title 21 together to the full city council.”
Kolluri added how the Title 21 changes do not factor in medical-use cannabis. Many existing businesses and medical applicants will need to convert to adult-use or provide both services– adult-use and medical. The upcoming Title 5 proposals would attempt to accommodate that need for businesses, he said.
“You have to remember that these are all recommendations for the city council,” he said. “Staff has put together a package as a starting point for city council to then take and amend however they see fit. So, although we may be suggesting a process for conversion for medical businesses, the city council may view it differently. Although the staff and the planning commission have now recommended zoning changes for adult-use businesses, the city council may view that differently, as well. Until the city council decides what the final shape this ordinance will take, a lot of things are still up in air.”
Mais explained that the Title 21 recommendations would change what the City calls “use tables.” Each zoning district has a commercial zone, or a use table that shows what can be done in that specific zone and what kind of permit is needed. The planning commission analyzed the city’s retail, industrial, manufacturing, institutional, park, port and professional-service areas.
The assistant city attorney provided an example of one proposed change in the planning commission’s recommendations– commercial cultivation. In this proposed setup, commercial cultivation of marijuana would be permitted in industrial, light-industrial, medium-industrial and heavy-industrial zones, the latter of which could require a conditional-use permit. Commercial cultivation would be prohibited in port zones.
“They went through the same exercise for dispensaries, manufacturing, distribution and testing,” Mais said. “The recommendations the staff gave are absolutely consistent with how they would treat other similar types of uses. So, the point that was made at the planning commission meeting by one of the planning commissioners was that we are not treating recreational marijuana any different than you would treat any other kind of commercial use, whether they are going to do cultivation or manufacturing. For instance, if you look at manufacturing, the recommendations this planning commission adopted were basically the same types of restrictions you would have with any kind of manufacturing in the city, whether they are manufacturing, I don’t know, desks or widgets or tires or anything else. So, the recommendations were very much consistent with other similar-type uses in the city.”
Kolluri said opening the city to the adult-use market will have an impact on tax revenues, and an estimate of the impacts will be included in the council letter that will presented with the proposed ordinance in late June. His analysis of the recommended changes were that they keep the long-term outlook of the city in mind, but there is also an understanding that there is currently work to be done to have cannabis businesses qualify and meet the needs of this modified zoning ordinance.
“The zoning revisions are really made with an eye toward the future, recognizing though that we do have a situation currently where not all of the businesses that are going to want to convert are meeting those new requirements and so, therefore, we have to identify specific consideration for them,” Kolluri said. “That’s basically the recommendation from staff, and we’ve done our best to accommodate all interests– the interests of businesses, but also the interests of community members who may want an industrial-like activity in some of their more commercial corridors side-by-side with residents and in areas where they may not be appropriate.”
The full staff report and list of recommendations regarding recreational and medical cannabis use are available at bit.ly/2GJ9zwB.
