A Budding Dispute

Approval for a cannabis grower in Santa Fe County has kicked off a neighborhood fight over whether officials gave existing property owners a chance to prohibit the operation.

People who live in San Marcos say they’ve been trying to convince the county to amend their community plan, but have faced delays. In the meantime, LRA Growers acquired a permit on April 20 from the Growth Management Department to begin outdoor cannabis cultivation on 10.22 acres in the area.

Now, neighbors have asked the county to rescind that permission. Commissioners held a hearing July 11 on the matter and plan to discuss it again at the end of the month.

As part of the Santa Fe County Sustainable Growth Management Plan, the Sustainable Land Development Code allows for the establishment of community district overlay zones, a tool “intended to preserve and protect unique communities and areas” through the implementation of community plans and individualized zoning regulations.

Santa Fe County Community Planner Nate Crail tells SFR one of the primary reasons for a community plan is to establish “a role for local public involvement.”

“Santa Fe County is a really large county, and there’s a lot of different types of communities and different interests and histories and contexts and demographics. A community plan tries to reflect that through our land use regulations,” he says.

San Marcos adopted its county-approved community plan in 2006 and updated it twice since: in 2015 and again in 2019. San Marcos Community District Committee member Doug Speer says the group spent “a good 18 months” on the most recent revision, with the intention of next working on the overlay’s “use matrix,” or permitted uses of land. Following the COVID-19 pandemic’s onset in 2020, the process stopped completely.

After New Mexico legalized broad cannabis cultivation in 2021, the county adopted zoning rules to regulate where producers could set up operations countywide. While the county stipulated that its 14 existing community planning districts could ask for stricter rules later, it has been slow to roll out a process for doing so.

That’s why Speer and other neighbors filed an appeal against the cannabis operation. It cites typical development disputes such as water usage and potential road damage, but also calls out the county for failing to update the community overlay district and for poor communication about new zoning laws on cannabis cultivation.

“There was no thought of a commercial agricultural level in any of our discussions … It was much more of a ‘if you want to grow some carrots and take them to farmers market, that’s totally acceptable,’” Speer tells SFR, “but having a commercial operation to grow marijuana is not.”

Early this year, at the same time the LRA Growers’ application was moving through the review process, Santa Fe County contracted with Southwest Planning & Marketing to conduct a public opinion survey in San Marcos about whether district property owners wanted commercial cannabis.

According to survey data from April and May, 73.3% of 194 respondents in the area said they believed commercial cannabis outdoor growth should not be allowed in residential areas, with one resident writing San Marcos community district is “no place for a pothead business.”

The county also conducted a similar survey in Chimayó, and spokeswoman Olivia Romo tells SFR the county “will be surveying additional communities this year and in 2024 as necessary.”

It’s not clear what happens next for any of the community planning areas, and in the meantime the county code allows cannabis cultivation in its rural/residential, rural fringe, residential fringe and traditional community zoning districts.

Emails provided to SFR show Crail explained to members of the San Marcos Committee that the community plan and zoning process are distinct and the latter is not always based on popular opinion.

“While the Community Plan process is focused on community-led consensus decision-making, the Overlay process is on County Planning staff to ‘implement the recommended land uses of an adopted community plan’ (SLDC 8.11.3) and not always by consensus,” Crail writes.

San Marcos is not the only community district on the waiting list for a plan update, according to District 5 County Commissioner Hank Hughes.

“Both the 285 Corridor and San Marcos are wanting to update their plans,” Hughes says. “I guess the trouble is we don’t have enough staff to do all of these quickly.”

San Marcos Association President Dennis Kurtz said during the July 11 meeting that after the county paused the plan during the pandemic, the committee continually asked for updates to no avail.

“This is not a case of the San Marcos Planning District Committee jumping up now and saying we want to enact some kind of regulations concerning cannabis,” Kurtz testified during a public hearing. “We have been in limbo. We feel like granting these applications and even considering them when we haven’t had a chance to fulfill our legal obligations is not really fair.”

Other locations in New Mexico have also seen adverse reactions to the idea of a cannabis grow near homes. Executive Director of the New Mexico Cannabis Chamber of Commerce Ben Lewinger says Tingen Farms in Doña Ana County suffered similar criticism from neighbors.

“That definitely sounded like a reaction out of fear of folks not wanting cannabis in their neighborhood,” Lewinger says, noting the business was permitted to grow.

The Santa Fe County Commission punted the San Marcos permit appeal to a meeting on Aug. 29, but the community plan doesn’t seem to be the major issue its members are considering. They asked the applicant and neighbors to come up with a road management plan.

Neither Jim Harris, principal of LRA Growers, or his agent at Santa Fe Permits returned a request for an interview. The appeal, agent Michael Salimbene said at the hearing, “isn’t about whether we or anybody supports cannabis growth or not. This is about whether it’s allowed on 62 Southfork Extension.”

Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this story gave the wrong name for the business located in Doña Ana County. It has been corrected.