SAGUACHE COUNTY— A conditional use permit for a new massive grow rivaling Moffat’s Area 420 will be presented to the Saguache County Planning Commission (SCPC) March 28 and a couple owning property adjacent to the grow are sick at heart about the project.
Jim and Carol Gustin built their dream home in Saguache County and have an unobstructed and striking view of the Sangre de Cristo range. But if the medical/retail grow is approved Berlin O’Butler, who already owns marijuana cultivation operations in both California and Salida, will forever change the peaceful landscape the Gustins have enjoyed for years.
Stryker Industries LLC owner Justin Butler (Berlin’s birth name) and his mother Joyce Butler own a combined total of 400 acres along County Road 45 and Roads N and P in Saguache County. In O’Butler’s letter of application to the SCPC, he lays out the parameters of a 320 acre “planned community” for five to 30 employees who would work and live on the property.
This would be “a planned community and tax generating project [which], because of its location, size and commercial attributes would service the entire state with its unique commodity and perhaps even the nation once interstate constraints are expunged.”
The facility will be comprised of eight greenhouses covering 115,000 square feet and includes a huge solar array which would generate enough electricity to feed back into the electric system. There also are plans to build an extraction plant and a community greenhouse for residents.
The farm would use some 4,000 gallons of water a day, O’Butler estimates. Many are concerned about water usage by marijuana cultivations especially given the return of drought conditions in the county.
O’Butler, who for awhile tried his hand at acting in California, is featured online in a cannabis entrepreneur blog at http://www.cannapreneurmag.com/2017/07/17/cannapreneur-berlin-obutler/ He is described as a visionary who migrated back to Colorado after his acting stint to take advantage of the “Laissez Faire county government” in Saguache County and realize his dreams.
The county is referred to as an “Eden” and a dream come true for those who cherish their independence. O’Butler is styled as a green-thumbed, if eccentric entrepreneur with visions of yurt encampments on his acreage in an attempt to create a mystical atmosphere akin to those in Mongolia and other Middle East and Asian destinations.
His idea is to provide a home for the “kindred spirits” who share his dream of a pot kingdom — one he envisions as the world’s largest marijuana cultivation facility in the world — a little slice of heaven on earth.
Meanwhile the Gustins are fearful the pristine paradise they treasure will slip out of their hands when the planning commission meets next month, and with only a few grows turned down by the commission over the past nearly three years their fears are not unjustified.