[420 Girl]

The Fortuna City Council may prohibit or limit the growing of medical marijuana within the city limits.

At Tuesday's council meeting, City Manager Duane Rigge is seeking direction from the elected officials on whether they are interested in an ordinance outlawing or limiting the cultivation of medical marijuana.

The inquiry comes a little more than a year after the City Council adopted an ordinance prohibiting medical marijuana dispensaries in Fortuna.

”A number of California cities have taken local action by either limiting or prohibiting the establishment and operation of medical marijuana cultivation activities within their jurisdictions,” Rigge wrote in a report to the council. “The city of Arcata recently adopted an ordinance that established standards for both medical marijuana cultivation and dispensaries.”

The issue comes up now, Rigge continued, because of several building permit applications that indicate growing medical marijuana may be the focus of those permits.

”There have been building permits for hydroponics operations,” Rigge said.

Such permits cannot be turned down based on suspicions of what will be grown, he said.

Arcata enacted an ordinance stating that a medical marijuana cultivation area cannot exceed 50 square feet nor exceed 10 feet in height, per residence, and that the qualified patient must live in the home where the medical marijuana is being grown.

Arcata's ordinance also allows dispensaries to grow medical marijuana, provided the area designated for growing does not exceed 25 percent of the dispensaries' total square feet and is no larger than 1,500 square feet. Plant height is also limited to 10 feet. In addition, a use permit is required to grow medical marijuana within Arcata city limits.

These standards, however, do not apply to portions of Arcata that fall within the coastal zone, as the California Coastal Commission has not yet taken up the matter.

At Tuesday's Fortuna City Council meeting -- delayed because of the Labor Day holiday -- the agenda also includes a proposed amendment to the city's Capital Improvement Program.

The city's Public Works Department is suggesting that the city begin studies to move the wastewater percolation ponds out of the 100-year flood plain to nearby city-owned property. The action is necessary, according to the staff report, for the city to meet the requirements of its National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit, issued by the Regional Water Quality Control Board in 2008.

”Time is of the essence to gather information and develop effective work plans to meet these regulatory deadlines, and thereby avoid potential penalties and fines, or issuance of a cease-and-desist order,” according to public works Director Dennis Ryan's report to the council.

The expected cost for the multi-year project is $75,000.

Public works is also recommending that the Capital Improvement Program be amended to include a project to investigate protecting the wastewater treatment plant from Eel River and Strong's Creek flooding. The project's cost is estimated at $15,000.

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