WESTFIELD – Time is slipping away on the year-long medical marijuana moratorium approved by the City Council in May, a concern of the Planning Board which will propose a draft ordinance to address a number of issues related to the medical marijuana law approved by more than 60 percent of voters statewide in the 2012 elections.
The Planning Board members discussed the process for developing and reviewing a draft ordinance, hopefully by the end of the calendar year. That draft ordinance will then be sent to the City Council, and Law Department, for review and approval prior to the May 1, 2014 moratorium expiration.
The City Council initiated the moratorium process last spring at the request of the Planning Board to allow time for development of local zoning regulations. The moratorium is in effect for a year or less if a local zoning regulation is adopted.
The Planning Board voted to endorse the moratorium and send the City Council a positive recommendation to enact the temporary ban at its May 7 meeting after conducting a public hearing that night at which no resident spoke either in support or in opposition to the temporary medical marijuana ban under Article 4, Section 4-92 of the city’s code of ordinances. The title of the legislation is “Interim Restriction for Medical Marijuana Uses.”
Principal City Planner Jay Vinskey said Tuesday night that he has been working with the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission and several surrounding communities to develop zoning codes to control the location of dispensaries and growing facilities. The city cannot ban those facilities outright, but it can identify certain zoning districts and establish other requirements, such as buffers from churches, schools and other institutions, as part of the local medical marijuana ordinance.
“The clock is ticking,” board member Matt VanHeynigen said. “The goal is to have an ordinance in place when the moratorium expires in May. If we’re getting it in December, does the timeline work?”
Vinskey said the board will get a model ordinance “in a couple of weeks’ and will then have to adopt that draft to the city’s ordinance language format, usually done with the assistance of the Law Department.
“The PVPC is very close to finalizing the draft,” Vinskey said, adding that by back-planning from the May 1 end of the moratorium the board has to submit a draft to the City Council by late February or early March to allow time for the proposed ordinance to be published and a public hearing conducted. The City Council could vote as late as May 1, 2014 to approve the second reading and final passage of the ordinance.
Board vice chairman William Onyski began to define some of the issues that the ordinance will have to address, such as will the dispensaries and growing facilities be a by-right use with only a site plan review or will the ordinance require a special permit which is a much more stringent review process.
Other questions are will those facilities be allowed in all zones, or will they be restricted to specific zones in the city and what support facilities, such as dedicated off-street parking, will be required as part of the permitting process.
