WESTFIELD – The Zoning, Planning and Development Committee further amended the two ordinances proposed to regulate medical marijuana facilities and usage in the city last night as it voted to send a version of the amended ordinance to the Legislative & Ordinance Committee.
The evolution of the two ordinances, a general ordinance and a zoning ordinance, began with the Planning Board, which held a public hearing before sending the proposed ordinances to the City Council, which held its own public hearing.
The original zoning ordinances created buffer zones of 300 feet between medical marijuana facilities and residential units and 500 feet between the marijuana facilities and places where children congregate, such as schools playgrounds, daycare centers and churches.
The zoning ordinance, which limits medical marijuana facilities to the Industrial A and Business B zoning districts, was then sent back to the Planning Board, which amended the buffer, increasing it to 700 feet between the marijuana facilities and places where children congregate.
That Planning Board vote to increase the buffer from 500 to 700 feet was approved by a split vote of 5-2, with the two dissenting members seeking a buffer of 1,000 feet between the facilities and places where children congregate. The majority feared that the 1,000 would be so exclusionary that it would violate state law allowing the medical marijuana and could be grounds to challenge the zoning ordinance in court.
Both the Planning Board and the City Council requested maps to visually show the Industrial A and Business B areas where those facilities would be allowed and how the various proposed buffers would allow, or limit, the locations of the medical marijuana facilities.
The ZP&D committee reviewed the ordinance and buffer maps with the city’s Principal Planner Jay Vinskey, Community Development Director Peter J. Miller Jr., Community Policing supervisor Eric Hall, Planning board member Carl Vincent, who supported the 1,000-foot buffer, and Matt VanHeynigan, an At-large council member, but a former Planning Board member who helped craft the original ordinance proposals.
Last night the ZP&D members, At-large Councilors David A. Flaherty and Cindy Harris and others city officials examined the buffer maps and discovered that the two areas where the facilities would be allowed at along East Main Street, (Route 20) in the Business B zone, which is allowed by special permit issued by the Planning Board., while the Industrial A zone would be along Southampton Road (Routes 10 & 202) and around Barnes Regional Airport.
“I like the 1,000-foot buffer,” Flaherty, chairman of the ZP&D committee said. “It is not unreasonable for the Industrial A and Business B buffer. It’s not going to change (where the medical marijuana facilities are allowed) much.”
The committee also made minor changes to the general ordinance which authorizes the Board of Health to set standards and annual fees for medical marijuana facilities. ZP&D members discussed the issue of orders, especially in apartment buildings and if regulations controlling could be considered too exclusionary.
