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With a one-year moratorium on medical marijuana due to expire this coming spring, town officials in Hanover are beginning to discuss how and when to develop regulations to control the medical marijuana business in the town.
"We really need to know what the community sense is with medical marijuana," said Hanover Town Manager Troy Clarkson at the selectmen's meeting Monday night, which was attended by Hanover Police Chief Walter Sweeney, DPW Director Victor Diniak, Assistant Town Planner Margaret Hoffman, and members of the planning board, zoning board of appeals and board of health.
Clarkson said the key element in the process at this point is providing some direction to the town's regulatory committees, which will be responsible for drafting appropriate zoning measures for medical marijuana dispensaries, including where they will be allowed and what they might look like. Clarkson said this direction should come from the selectmen, as policy makers for the town, but also from the community itself.
"What do we want the next step to be? Is this something we want to encourage? There are a whole lot of issues with this," he said. "There are a lot of policy decisions that need to be made by this town. This is happening, and it's happening very quickly."
Hanover Town Meeting voted last May to implement a one-year moratorium on medical marijuana in town, which is in effect until May 1, 2014. If the town has no zoning regulations in place by that time, medical marijuana will technically be allowed anywhere in town, with some exceptions based on state regulations.
Clarkson said one company has already approached the town, with interest in opening a medical marijuana facility on Washington Street. Clarkson and Sweeney both described this company as very professional and experienced.
"This is a very organized business that came to us. They have clearly targeted the community they want to come into," said Sweeney. "This is a well-funded group. They had very well-informed answers to many of my questions."
At this point, the planning board's main focus is to determine the best location in town for medical marijuana, said board Chairman Richard Deluca.
"The main goal right now is to find out what parts of town we would want to have this in," he said. "Locations in town is what we're looking at right now."
In this regard, the state Department of Public Health (DPH) has already done much of the legwork for the town, said Hoffman. The state regulations announced a few months back established 500-foot buffer zones around schools, daycares, parks, fields and other areas where children congregate, meaning there is already a "limited area" in Hanover where medical marijuana facilities would be allowed.
"It's not specific, but it's a somewhat limited area" mostly contained to Route 53 near the Hanover Hall, said Hoffman. "The size of the facility depends on the number of patients it serves."
Given that the law allows only 35 dispensaries in the state, with a limit of five per county, Hoffman predicted that many of these dispensaries will serve as regional treatment centers serving as many as 1,000 patients. She also felt these will be two distinct and separate types of operations: medical marijuana cultivating sites that grow the produce and the dispensaries that sell them to licensed patients.
Clarkson said he has also been in touch with the neighboring town of Norwell, which has already adopted zoning to allow medical marijuana in its two major industrial areas: Accord Executive Business Park and Assinippi Industrial Park. There was general agreement that it would be beneficial to examine how Norwell and other towns are approaching the issue, and possibly create at least a partial template from those communities.
"I think we're in the initial stage of looking at this. There's a lot more homework to do," said Selectwoman Susan Setterland. "This is a start."
As far as a next step, Clarkson said he would arrange at least one informal meeting of department heads and board and committee members to start drafting a zoning proposal, which will likely be brought to the Annual Town Meeting in May.
Also at the meeting, selectmen unanimously voted to set a Special Town Meeting for Saturday, Oct. 12, at 8 a.m.. Clarkson said a petition of 250 signatures has been submitted calling for a town meeting to fund the remainder of the Forge Pond Park recreation project off King Street. Parks and Recreation Committee Chairman MarkTivnan previously was seeking an additional $300,000 to complete Phase II of the project, the majority of which would fund construction of 12 dugouts and solar-powered scoreboards for the ball fields at the site.
News Hawk- Truth Seeker 420 MAGAZINE ®
Source: wickedlocal.com
Author: Scott Mackeen
Contact: Wicked Local Upton Contact Us
Website: Hanover officials consider zoning for medical marijuana - Upton, MA - Wicked Local Upton
"We really need to know what the community sense is with medical marijuana," said Hanover Town Manager Troy Clarkson at the selectmen's meeting Monday night, which was attended by Hanover Police Chief Walter Sweeney, DPW Director Victor Diniak, Assistant Town Planner Margaret Hoffman, and members of the planning board, zoning board of appeals and board of health.
Clarkson said the key element in the process at this point is providing some direction to the town's regulatory committees, which will be responsible for drafting appropriate zoning measures for medical marijuana dispensaries, including where they will be allowed and what they might look like. Clarkson said this direction should come from the selectmen, as policy makers for the town, but also from the community itself.
"What do we want the next step to be? Is this something we want to encourage? There are a whole lot of issues with this," he said. "There are a lot of policy decisions that need to be made by this town. This is happening, and it's happening very quickly."
Hanover Town Meeting voted last May to implement a one-year moratorium on medical marijuana in town, which is in effect until May 1, 2014. If the town has no zoning regulations in place by that time, medical marijuana will technically be allowed anywhere in town, with some exceptions based on state regulations.
Clarkson said one company has already approached the town, with interest in opening a medical marijuana facility on Washington Street. Clarkson and Sweeney both described this company as very professional and experienced.
"This is a very organized business that came to us. They have clearly targeted the community they want to come into," said Sweeney. "This is a well-funded group. They had very well-informed answers to many of my questions."
At this point, the planning board's main focus is to determine the best location in town for medical marijuana, said board Chairman Richard Deluca.
"The main goal right now is to find out what parts of town we would want to have this in," he said. "Locations in town is what we're looking at right now."
In this regard, the state Department of Public Health (DPH) has already done much of the legwork for the town, said Hoffman. The state regulations announced a few months back established 500-foot buffer zones around schools, daycares, parks, fields and other areas where children congregate, meaning there is already a "limited area" in Hanover where medical marijuana facilities would be allowed.
"It's not specific, but it's a somewhat limited area" mostly contained to Route 53 near the Hanover Hall, said Hoffman. "The size of the facility depends on the number of patients it serves."
Given that the law allows only 35 dispensaries in the state, with a limit of five per county, Hoffman predicted that many of these dispensaries will serve as regional treatment centers serving as many as 1,000 patients. She also felt these will be two distinct and separate types of operations: medical marijuana cultivating sites that grow the produce and the dispensaries that sell them to licensed patients.
Clarkson said he has also been in touch with the neighboring town of Norwell, which has already adopted zoning to allow medical marijuana in its two major industrial areas: Accord Executive Business Park and Assinippi Industrial Park. There was general agreement that it would be beneficial to examine how Norwell and other towns are approaching the issue, and possibly create at least a partial template from those communities.
"I think we're in the initial stage of looking at this. There's a lot more homework to do," said Selectwoman Susan Setterland. "This is a start."
As far as a next step, Clarkson said he would arrange at least one informal meeting of department heads and board and committee members to start drafting a zoning proposal, which will likely be brought to the Annual Town Meeting in May.
Also at the meeting, selectmen unanimously voted to set a Special Town Meeting for Saturday, Oct. 12, at 8 a.m.. Clarkson said a petition of 250 signatures has been submitted calling for a town meeting to fund the remainder of the Forge Pond Park recreation project off King Street. Parks and Recreation Committee Chairman MarkTivnan previously was seeking an additional $300,000 to complete Phase II of the project, the majority of which would fund construction of 12 dugouts and solar-powered scoreboards for the ball fields at the site.
News Hawk- Truth Seeker 420 MAGAZINE ®
Source: wickedlocal.com
Author: Scott Mackeen
Contact: Wicked Local Upton Contact Us
Website: Hanover officials consider zoning for medical marijuana - Upton, MA - Wicked Local Upton
