Oregon: UPDATE: Jackson County Hearings Officers Agree That the County's Greenhouse Enforcement Regime Openly Flouts State Law
CANNANNEW REPORT
In my post last summer, I reported that Jackson County Code Enforcement officers had begun citing landowners, tenants and others with a mere tangential connection to cannabis cultivation for alleged violations of the County's building code, which incorporates the Oregon Structural Specialty Code by reference, and violations of the County's zoning code, alleging that the defendants erected greenhouses or hoophouses without prior County approval or building permits. As referenced in my post, the vast majority of these citations involved land that is zoned for exclusive farm use, for which the construction of greenhouses, hoophouses or other crop protection structures have never before been controversial and is indeed allowed outright under Oregon state law. County Hearings Last December, I had the opportunity to present my argument that building permits are not required for agricultural buildings on land that has a zoning designation that allows farm use as of right, in two separate cases before two different County hearings officers. While both hearings officers agreed with my argument, they found other deficiencies in the County's cases against both of my clients to rule in my clients' favor and avoided my argument that state law does not allow counties to add a pre-approval requirement to uses that are allowed outright by statute in exclusive farm use ("EFU") zones. However, in one of those cases, for reasons that I can only speculate, Jackson County code enforcement staff delayed their delivery of the hearings officer's ruling in my client's favor for several months – which would have been extremely problematic had the rulings not been in my client's favor as the appeal periods are jurisdictional and begin running on the date the hearings officer signs the order. My client and I did not receive the order until well after any appeal period had expired. At one…
Excerpt only ...
READ MORE BELOW
Source : Oregon: UPDATE: Jackson County Hearings Officers Agree That the County's Greenhouse Enforcement Regime Openly Flouts State Law
reposted by Cannabis News World
No comments:
Post a Comment