On November 17, 2020, the Board of Supervisors adopted Ordinance No. 2020-28, an urgency interim ordinance that established a moratorium on the cultivation and processing of industrial hemp. On December 15, 2020, the Board of Supervisors adopted Ordinance No. 2020-30, an urgency interim ordinance that extended the moratorium through March 10, 2021. The attached urgency ordinance, Ordinance No. 2021-10, extends the temporary moratorium on industrial hemp cultivation through March 9, 2022, to allow County staff time to continue developing and to finalize reasonable industrial hemp regulations. Staff is developing an ordinance that would require industrial hemp growers to obtain a County permit from the County Agricultural Commissioner, as well as a separate zoning ordinance that would mitigate the impacts and regulate the location of industrial hemp cultivation. Staff anticipates that these permanent industrial hemp ordinances will be completed and presented to the Board of Supervisors before the end of 2021. When these permanent ordinances are presented to the Board, staff will also recommend termination of this urgency ordinance.   
  
Under the attached ordinance, no person or entity, including any established agricultural research institution, may grow or process industrial hemp for any purpose within the unincorporated area of Contra Costa County. No County permit, registration, or approval of any type will be issued for industrial hemp cultivation or processing, and no County building permit or approval of any type will be issued for any structure used or intended to be used for industrial hemp cultivation or processing.  
  
However, Section 3 of the ordinance authorizes existing industrial hemp growers that meet specified criteria to continue cultivating industrial hemp at their existing sites. A grower that has an active registration with the Agricultural Commissioner may continue to cultivate hemp under this ordinance as long as the grower’s existing cultivation site is located outdoors and more than one mile outside the Urban Limit Line, or the grower’s existing cultivation site is located within an existing greenhouse. A grower that meets either of these criteria may continue cultivating industrial hemp under this ordinance if the grower obtains a new registration for a one-year term from the Agricultural Commissioner and complies with all other provisions of law. A grower that is allowed to cultivate under this ordinance is prohibited from cultivating nursery stock, may not move plants from the site at any time before harvest, and is prohibited from using artificial lighting at the cultivation site. Staff has determined that allowing cultivation under the location criteria and restrictions specified in Section 3 is appropriate because this restricted cultivation will result in minimal odor and lighting impacts on residential properties.

The failure to enact this emergency moratorium during the stated period may result in problems with enforcement of a program with insufficient regulations. Allowing more Industrial Hemp registration can create incompatibility issues with land use and licensed Cannabis crops.

Speakers:    No name given; No name given, grower; No name given, farm employee; hemp farm representative; Written commentary received (attached):

ADOPTED Ordinance 2021-10 as amended today, extending through September 30, 2021, a moratorium on industrial hemp cultivation and processing; DIRECTED staff to provide a status report on the matter by June 30, 2021, with the report including information of those growers with licenses scheduled to expire before September 2021.