Should indoor cannabis farm be built in rural SLO County town? Neighbors push back
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- Templeton residents filed an appeal to block a planned indoor cannabis facility.
- The 35,500 sq ft greenhouse would use groundwater and industrial ventilation.
- Neighbors cited concerns over odor, noise, water use and potential trespassing.
A new indoor cannabis farm may be coming to rural Templeton, but some of the town’s residents have petitioned to block the project.
Sitting on an 100-acre plot of land at 4339 South El Pomar Road, Eden’s Dream Cannabis Project would demolish a barn on the property and add a 35,500-square foot greenhouse structure for an indoor cannabis nursery and production facility in its place.
The project already secured the necessary permits from the county, but a group of Templeton residents, many of whom live in neighboring properties, are appealing the project. The appeal hearing will be held Tuesday at the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors meeting.
The residents circulated a petition opposing the project, which had over 500 signatures as of Monday afternoon.
Their main concerns include the sound, odor and water use impacts of the project, as well as increase in potential criminal activity and the project’s general incompatibility with the surrounding residential neighborhood’s quality of life.
“I would hate for what is our home to be invaded and affected by the smell and the sound,” Kristen Gemeny, one of the petition organizers who lives downwind of the proposed cannabis farm, told The Tribune. “We moved here for peace and quality of life and good air for health, and that’s all at risk right now, which is pretty scary.”
The project has been in the works in some form since 2018 — and it’s even been halted before.
In 2020, the applicant, Elizabeth Ross, withdrew her original project proposal — which proposed an even larger operation that was both indoors and outdoors — after receiving considerable public pushback.
Her revised proposal, however, only includes and indoor operation. It was approved by the county planning committee on Jan. 17.
SLO County Planning Commissioner Eric Tolle said the business would add revenue to the county from annual cannabis-related fees and associated taxes.
The future of the project now rests in the hands of the Board of Supervisors, who will make a decision for or against its completion on Tuesday.
What would the cannabis farm look like?
Sitting approximately 4 miles east of downtown Templeton and 3 miles east of Atascadero, the project site of Eden’s Dream is currently the site of two residences, a vineyard, an olive tree orchard, a few agricultural structures and a commercial bed and breakfast.
To make room for the proposed greenhouse, a small portion of a vineyard would need to be uprooted and a barn would be demolished.
The project would be developed in two phases. Phase one would take place within the next three years and build the greenhouse, water tanks and parking spaces. Phase two, which would add another 9,000-square-foot additional storage and processing building, is proposed for development anytime within a three- to 10-year period after permit approval.
The farm would be open and operate every day, from 7 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. This includes all heating, air conditioning, ventilation, air purification and odor prevention units — which consist of large industrial fans and a carbon filtration system.
The farm would employee six full-time employees and seven seasonal workers, who would work six harvests a year, every other month.
Ross, the project applicant, did not immediately respond to The Tribune’s request for comment.
Neighboring Templeton residents opposed cannabis farm
Gremeny represents a group of residents who have rallied behind the name Save Our Templeton Neighborhoods to appeal the project’s building permits.
Among their chief concerns are the impacts the neighborhoods surrounding the cannabis farm would experience due to ongoing odor, sound, water and energy use, potential increase criminal activity and what they say is a fundamental incompatibility with the quality of life in rural Templeton that “the residents surrounding this project enjoy and have the right to enjoy,” Gremeny told The Tribune.
“We don’t have another choice,” she said. “Our wells don’t have another choice. We can’t avoid the noise and the odor and any other impact.”
Ross has taken measures to address these concerns.
To lessen the impact of the “skunk-like” odor of the cannabis operation, cannabis cultivation will occur entirely indoors in the greenhouse equipped with fans and an air scrubbing system that has carbon filtration to absorb odors, while processing will take place in enclosed buildings with similar odor suppressing technology, according to the staff report. The younger, non-flowering plants in the nursery will not produce odors at that stage of growth.
But Gremeny is unconvinced these measures will work and cast doubt on whether the issue is being taken seriously.
“We don’t trust that it’s going to be good enough,” Gremeny said. “They say they’ll use state-of-the-art. Well, what is that? I know that’s a sales term.”
Another concern of hers was the sound produced year round by the new construction and later by the harvesting and processing operations and industrial fans.
“It is continuous,” she said. “There will be no harvest season, they’ll always be harvesting and growing. So therefore there is always going to be noise from the fans and odor escaping the fans.”
Gremeny also shed light on the environmental concerns of the project, particularly the strain it stands to put on the critically overdrawn Paso Robles Groundwater Basin, where the farm is located.
The farm’s sole water source is an onsite groundwater well that pumps from the basin.
Gremeny said 13 of the neighboring property’s wells within a mile of the project site have gone dry since 2015. Her concern is that based on the heavy water cannabis plants require, more water will be drained from nearby wells.
According to the county planning and building staff report, the project will require 2.7 acre-feet, or 879,798 gallons, of water per year. By comparison, a single-family home in the United States typically uses around 0.4 to 0.5 acre-feet of water per year.
The farm also expects to reclaim 23% of its greenhouse water through recycling it from various mechanical systems and using water-efficient plumbing fixtures, according to the staff report.
According to the appeal request, the project’s energy demand is projected to be 42.7% greater than a typical commercial building of the same size. A solar panel array on the roof of the 9,000-square-foot processing center would offset this demand by 50%, but construction of the solar array is slated for construction during phase two and thus may be delayed by up to ten years, according to the appeal.
Gremeny also expressed concern over how the operation may increase criminal activity and trespassing incidents.
At least one neighbor already experienced the effects of this on Jan. 14, when the SLO County Sheriff’s Office was called to investigate a man trespassing on private property while seemingly looking for the Eden’s Dream Cannabis project, according to the appeal. It was clarified at the SLO County Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday that the trespasser was a neighborhood resident who was curious about the project and that no criminal report was ever filed.
The resident’s home, immediately adjacent to the Eden’s Dream project, had two children, the appeal said.
Overall, Gremeny said Save Our Templeton Neighborhoods’ efforts are not about the “virtues” of cannabis. Those who use cannabis will “be able to get their products elsewhere, and it’s not going to impact them,” she said.
“But as adjacent neighborhoods to the commercial farming and processing facilities, we don’t have alternatives,” Gremeny said. “This is our home.”
She added: “Every individual here is afraid of this turning into a cannabis area. If this gets approved, what’s going to come next?”
This story was originally published July 15, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
