City Plans Medical Marijuana Information Meetings
When the Grand Rapids City Commission approved the medical marijuana ordinance, it was not so fast for accepting applications, but that changes soon for some and later for others.
The Grand Rapids City Commission has set the requirements for medical marijuana - related businesses within the city. The Commission on Tuesday night approved a series of zoning ordinance text amendments related to medical marijuana.
These changes are to address issues from the July 24 adoption of the medical marijuana ordinance and affect:
- Secure transporters and safety compliance facilities as a permitted use in certain zone districts
- Administration, timing and mapping of required separation distances
- Separation distance requirements for provisioning centers located in industrial zone districts
- Previously adopted language
The City Commission approved the medical marijuana ordinance with an effective date of Jan. 18. The ordinance allows for the acceptance of applications for safety compliance facilities and secure transporters beginning Jan. 22.
Applications for growers, processors and provisioning centers will be accepted starting March 4.
Now that the medical marijuana requirements have been finalized, City staff are responding to requests from community members to help them understand and navigate the ordinance.
Two informational meetings are set for Jan. 3 and Jan. 4 at the City's Development Center, 1120 Monroe Ave. NW. The Jan. 3 session is 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. and the Jan. 4 session is 7:30 to 9:30 a.m.
The informational sessions are developed for residents, neighborhood representatives, nearby business owners and business district representatives.
City staff plan to have an open discussion about the zoning ordinance, implementation timeline, how residents can play a role in the review of medical marijuana businesses and Good Neighbor Plans (GNP).
A GNP is a cooperative agreement between a marijuana business and nearby residents and business owners to address concerns both before and after the approval process.
A written implementation program helps set expectations to reduce anticipated issues and provides a framework for ongoing dialogue.
The informational sessions will focus on the medical marijuana ordinance and will not address recreational marijuana. Michigan voters in November approved Proposal 18 -1, which allows recreational marijuana across the state.
The City Commission has not yet indicated its intent for local action regarding recreational marijuana, stating it plans to act after the state finalizes rules for the implementation of recreational facilities.
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