Shawn Stivershawndiver@yahoo.com

Geography 385: GIS For The WebAmerican River College

Professor Nathan Jennings

Northern California Commercial Cannabis Cultivation Laws – An Interactive Map Using ESRI ArcGIS Online

Abstract

Over the last several years, the subject of medical marijuana has been a hotly contested subject nationwide. One side claims many of the complex compounds contained in cannabis are useful as an anti-inflammatory and aid in anxiety and seizure relief, while the other side paint it as a gateway drug with no clinically proven medicinal purposes. However, the acceptance of the medical uses of marijuana is now the law of the land in many states, including California. However, laws vary from county to county, in some instances, even by city. Until statewide laws are approved and passed, it is difficult for the average person to know if growing marijuana is legal in the area where they live. This is the premise on which this project is based, a quick reference to what cannabis services and laws apply to them.

Introduction

In this project, I used the mapping and application tools available on ESRI Online (www.arcgis.com) to design and distribute an interactive map showing allowed services in northern California counties. A link to a website providing the specific ordinances for that county is also provided. In order to limit the scope of the project to a manageable size, I used the city of Sacramento as a demonstration to show applicability of local laws and legality of specific parcels to be used for commercial cultivation of cannabis. The city of Sacramento is also relatively unique in the fact that the city ordinances allow several services that are illegal in unincorporated areas of Sacramento County.

Method

County Ordinance DataIn an attempt to limit the scope of this project, the study area was limited to the northernmost counties of California (Figure 1) and the legality of four services chosen to be displayed. These categories included indoor cultivation, outdoor cultivation, distribution, and manufacturing. Most of the data regarding these services was derived the website Cannabusiness Law (http://cannabusinesslaw.com) and from local ordinances online from the various counties.

Figure 1. Northern California Counties

Based on this information, I added appropriate attribute columns to the California county feature class, reflecting the legality of each service in that county. Another column was added containing the hyperlink address to that counties ordinance page at Cannabusiness Law. (Figure 2) A feature class outlining the City of Sacramento boundaries was used to erase that area from the main county feature class, and a separate City feature class was inserted to allow for symbolization due to differences in allowed services from the county.

Figure 2. NorCal Attribute Table

The city of Sacramento has specific requirements regarding the commercial cultivation of cannabis. These requirements include specific zoning requirements and also contain specific proximity requirements to school zones and parks. These requirements were addressed by downloading the Sacramento City shapefiles regarding zoning in the city, park and school locations, and parcel data contained within the city boundaries.

Using the Select by Attribute function in ESRI ArcMap, I first selected the zones allowing cultivation. These include zones C-2 (general commercial), C-4 (heavy commercial), M-1S (light industrial), M-2

(heavy industrial), M-2S (heavy industrial), and A (agricultural). A new attribute column was then added to the feature class and the Field Calculator used to insert a yes value to these zones. The selection was then inverted, and a no value entered to show that these zones were not compatible with commercial cultivation.

Next I used the school location feature class and created a buffer feature class with a radius of 600’ (as dictated by county ordinance) from each school. The process was then repeated with the parks feature class, using a buffer of 300’. These two buffer feature classes were then merged, and an Erase function used in ArcMap to eliminate those areas from the zoning feature class e. The result was a feature class that showed areas that met the requirements for both zoning and proximity from restricted features. (Figure 3)This feature class was then overlaid the City parcel data, and a select by location function used in ArcMap to identify parcels that intersected within the allowed zoning areas. Again, another attribute column was added and a “Yes” value added to the column. All other parcels that were located outside the allowable zoning areas were then labeled with a “No” value.

Figure 3. City of Sacramento Zoning

Service Upload and Map Creation

Once all the appropriate data had been entered and geoprocessing was complete, I uploaded the appropriate feature classes to the ESRI Online cloud as feature services. Upload times ranged anywhere from a few seconds to almost an hour for the parcel data feature service. I created a new map for the project, and added the appropriate uploaded services as layers. The layers added included NorCal counties, Sacramento City, Schools, Parks, Zoning Allowed, Zoning Not Allowed, and SacCity Parcels. Once the layers were added to the map, I adjusted their order so they would overlay correctly. Next I symbolized all the layers, some by attribute to indicate their status, while some were simply assigned colors appropriate to what they represented. (Figure 4)

Figure 4. NorCal County Symbolization

By clicking on a particular feature a pop up flag would appear listing the attributes for that feature. Using the pop up editing feature, I changed the titles of the flag to appropriate names, and chose which attribute fields in particular would be shown in each layer. (Figure 5)Next, I assigned a visibility range to each layer so they would appear or vanish as appropriate. I set the counties layer, seen at a small scale range, to disappear at the Cities (as defined on the visibility slider) level, and the Zoning layers to appear. The parcel layer was set to appear at the Neighborhood level as at higher levels, I received error messages that the layer had failed to draw completely due to too many objects.

Figure 5. Popup Flag

For the map legend, I made sure that the symbolization and labeling were correct and appropriate, and that only symbols currently shown in the current visibility range were displayed.

Map Application

The next step was to create a web application to add search capability to the map. Using the ESRI Web AppBuilder, I first chose a theme layout for the map, and customized the colors used in the layout. I chose to add three widgets. The first, “About”, was used to add information about the map, and lend guidance to the user as to the layout and functionality of the web app. (Figure 6) The second was a Base Map widget that allows the user to choose between a topo view, a street view, or aerial imagery as the base map. The third was a search widget allowing the user to search for a particular parcel number, or address in the city of Sacramento. For the Search application, I added the parcels layer to the search source list, and specified the APN attribute column as the appropriate source. For the address, the ESRI World Decoder functioned well to identify parcels by address within Sacramento. The parcel layer was identified as the primary search source, and if no result was returned to then use the decoder as the search engine. Place holder text was also added to assist the user as to how data should be entered in the search box.

Figure 6. The About Widget

Performance

Overall, I found the performance of the application to acceptable for its purpose. In normal use, access and redraw times only took a few seconds. Searches worked as expected for APN data, the ESRI Geocoder worked well, although street addresses without a city designated by the user would show multiple addresses if it existed in other towns or cities as well.

I was able to open and use the application on my iPhone 6 with no issues, both on my home wireless system, and also just using cellular data access. Draw times were still very acceptable and all search functions worked well. (Figures 7 and 8)

Figure 7. Iphone Screenshot Figure 8. Parcel level Summary

Overall, I was impressed by the layout and ease of use of the ESRI Online application. I found the layout relatively intuitive and a reasonable amount of options available to the user to be able to accomplish most common goals.The most time consuming part of this project was in the geoprocessing of the raw data in order to accommodate the goal. Layout of attribute data, along with the addition of columns and values took up the largest part of this project.

However, I did find some serious limitations to the application. Symbology is relatively limited, making map design that much more difficult. One improvement I would also like to see would be add base maps as layers so that the base map would change (topo to imagery for example) as the user zooms in and out of the map. It would be a definite improvement if base maps could be added as layers to be able to achieve this effect.

Without significant programming or design experience, I found that the icon selection for widgets is also limited. Having a larger pool of icon graphics would also be helpful.

Another shortfall of the ESRI cloud has been noted by the professor of this class. On three separate occasions, I attempted to access my data, only to find that performance was extremely slow, or unavailable. This in itself limits the use of the ESRI Online to casual information access, and not for mission critical data. This is one of the main advantages of ArcGIS Server, allowing organizations to control the maintenance and performance of data to their clients or employees.

References:

Cannabusiness Law, http://cannabusinesslaw.com Last accessed 2016.12.02City of Sacramento, Special Business Permits, http://www.cityofsacramento.org/Finance/Revenue/Special-Business-Permits