MCKINLEYVILLE 215 COLLECTIVE A NO-GO FROM THE GET-GO

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."