Robert Celt
New Member
Now that Pennsylvania has legalized medical marijuana, what's the chance you'll have a pot-growing operation or dispensary in your neighborhood?
It may depend on your local zoning code.
That's the painfully dry development manual that sets block-by-block rules for what kinds of businesses can set up shop in a municipality and what types of homes can be built. In Pennsylvania, it's not configured to deal with the newly legalized medical marijuana businesses.
Local municipal officials are asking for advice, said Lehigh Valley Planning Commission Executive Director Becky Bradley. She's gotten at least a dozen inquiries since Gov. Tom Wolf signed the medical marijuana bill into law April 17.
"The Pennsylvania Municipalities Planning Code requires that every conceivable use be accommodated in a zoning district within every municipality," Bradley said. "This includes new uses such as marijuana growing, processing and distribution. We do intend to outline the basics of the legislation and a host of references for Lehigh Valley communities to utilize to begin to zone for marijuana-based businesses."
When Pennsylvania legalized medical marijuana, it allowed municipal zoning to control where the operations can be located, but codes don't have specific provisions for pot growing, processing or dispensing businesses. That means they'd have to be treated the same as other retail or industrial uses.
Growing operations will be relatively rare, but at least one company in the business – Minneapolis-based Vireo Health – has already been scouting locations in the Lehigh Valley for a processing location.
State law allows for up to 25 growing/processing facilities, 150 marijuana dispensaries and as many as eight research-related marijuana production facilities that must be affiliated with a research partnership between a medical school and hospital.
It is very early in the process. The state Department of Health has just begun working on temporary regulations that will create detailed rules for the introduction of medical marijuana in Pennsylvania so the system can get up and running while final rules are developed. It has six months to complete them. Spokesman Wes Culp would not even discuss the effect on zoning.
"We know this legislation will affect every level of government in Pennsylvania," he said.
There are a few hints contained in the enabling legislation. It says dispensaries, which is where patients will pick up their marijuana prescriptions, cannot be within 1,000 feet of a public, private or parochial school or a day care center, for example.
Land use attorney Stephen Pollock, whose Philadelphia law firm has created a model ordinance for marijuana business zoning, said municipalities should start looking at their zoning codes now. Without specific provisions dealing with marijuana production or dispensing, the businesses will likely fall under existing zoning categories.
The state law requires that dispensaries be held to the same requirements as other businesses in a municipalities' "commercial" zone, while growing and production facilities would be held to the same standards as businesses in "manufacturing, production and processing" zones.
It also requires permit applicants to demonstrate "the ability to obtain in an expeditious manner the right to use sufficient land, buildings and other premises and equipment to properly carry on the activity." That right to use could be interpreted to mean municipal approval.
Until more detailed regulations are completed, it's difficult to say exactly what options will be available to municipal planners, said Brett Roper, founder and chief operating officer of Medicine Man Technologies, a marijuana business consulting firm that is representing four clients looking to do business in Pennsylvania. The language on zoning in the law is very brief.
"The whole section is two paragraphs," he said. "What that tells me is that while [marijuana operations] must meet the same zoning requirements, that doesn't mean a municipality can't go in and create their own carve-out for cannabis."
In other states, Roper said, some communities that are hungry for jobs and tax revenues have bent over backward to streamline their zoning rules to encourage marijuana entrepreneurs, while others have placed roadblocks in the way.
The city of Detroit rewrote its zoning code in December, adding restrictions after a contentious debate that marijuana industry advocates said may result in the closing of up to half of the city's 150 medical marijuana dispensaries.
In Massachusetts, municipal boards have been adjusting zoning ordinances to restrict or loosen restrictions placed on marijuana-related businesses.
"I would think municipalities are going to want to tweak things," Pollock said.
Potential options include listing marijuana production or dispensing as a "conditional use," which requires the approval of the municipality's governing body, or a "special exception," which would require the approval of its zoning board.
Municipal officials in the Lehigh Valley are just beginning to examine where marijuana businesses would fall within their existing zoning rules, and whether they need to add specific provisions to address the industry.
"We do not have answers at this time and will need to study the issue and ramifications," said Sara Pandl, Lower Macungie's director of planning and community development and a board member of the Pennsylvania chapter of the American Planning Association. "It's too soon to tell."
A growing and processing operation would operate mostly out of sight, Pollock said. The law requires them to be located indoors under tight security, such as in an industrial park. Dispensaries will be more public, in commercial areas where customers come and go, he said.
Interested investors are already lining up, looking for potential locations, said Michael Patterson, CEO of U.S. Cannabis Pharmaceutical Research and Development, which is holding seminars on the industry in June in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.
Patterson said he expects a vigorous competition for Pennsylvania's marijuana production and dispensary permits, because the law has been set up in a common-sense way that will allow proprietors to make a living.
Lawmakers, he said, "listened to all sides and set the system up to succeed."
News Moderator: Robert Celt 420 MAGAZINE ®
Full Article: PA: Could A Marijuana Operation Set Up In Your Neighborhood?
Author: Scott Kraus
Photo Credit: Brendan Smialowski
Website: The Morning Call
It may depend on your local zoning code.
That's the painfully dry development manual that sets block-by-block rules for what kinds of businesses can set up shop in a municipality and what types of homes can be built. In Pennsylvania, it's not configured to deal with the newly legalized medical marijuana businesses.
Local municipal officials are asking for advice, said Lehigh Valley Planning Commission Executive Director Becky Bradley. She's gotten at least a dozen inquiries since Gov. Tom Wolf signed the medical marijuana bill into law April 17.
"The Pennsylvania Municipalities Planning Code requires that every conceivable use be accommodated in a zoning district within every municipality," Bradley said. "This includes new uses such as marijuana growing, processing and distribution. We do intend to outline the basics of the legislation and a host of references for Lehigh Valley communities to utilize to begin to zone for marijuana-based businesses."
When Pennsylvania legalized medical marijuana, it allowed municipal zoning to control where the operations can be located, but codes don't have specific provisions for pot growing, processing or dispensing businesses. That means they'd have to be treated the same as other retail or industrial uses.
Growing operations will be relatively rare, but at least one company in the business – Minneapolis-based Vireo Health – has already been scouting locations in the Lehigh Valley for a processing location.
State law allows for up to 25 growing/processing facilities, 150 marijuana dispensaries and as many as eight research-related marijuana production facilities that must be affiliated with a research partnership between a medical school and hospital.
It is very early in the process. The state Department of Health has just begun working on temporary regulations that will create detailed rules for the introduction of medical marijuana in Pennsylvania so the system can get up and running while final rules are developed. It has six months to complete them. Spokesman Wes Culp would not even discuss the effect on zoning.
"We know this legislation will affect every level of government in Pennsylvania," he said.
There are a few hints contained in the enabling legislation. It says dispensaries, which is where patients will pick up their marijuana prescriptions, cannot be within 1,000 feet of a public, private or parochial school or a day care center, for example.
Land use attorney Stephen Pollock, whose Philadelphia law firm has created a model ordinance for marijuana business zoning, said municipalities should start looking at their zoning codes now. Without specific provisions dealing with marijuana production or dispensing, the businesses will likely fall under existing zoning categories.
The state law requires that dispensaries be held to the same requirements as other businesses in a municipalities' "commercial" zone, while growing and production facilities would be held to the same standards as businesses in "manufacturing, production and processing" zones.
It also requires permit applicants to demonstrate "the ability to obtain in an expeditious manner the right to use sufficient land, buildings and other premises and equipment to properly carry on the activity." That right to use could be interpreted to mean municipal approval.
Until more detailed regulations are completed, it's difficult to say exactly what options will be available to municipal planners, said Brett Roper, founder and chief operating officer of Medicine Man Technologies, a marijuana business consulting firm that is representing four clients looking to do business in Pennsylvania. The language on zoning in the law is very brief.
"The whole section is two paragraphs," he said. "What that tells me is that while [marijuana operations] must meet the same zoning requirements, that doesn't mean a municipality can't go in and create their own carve-out for cannabis."
In other states, Roper said, some communities that are hungry for jobs and tax revenues have bent over backward to streamline their zoning rules to encourage marijuana entrepreneurs, while others have placed roadblocks in the way.
The city of Detroit rewrote its zoning code in December, adding restrictions after a contentious debate that marijuana industry advocates said may result in the closing of up to half of the city's 150 medical marijuana dispensaries.
In Massachusetts, municipal boards have been adjusting zoning ordinances to restrict or loosen restrictions placed on marijuana-related businesses.
"I would think municipalities are going to want to tweak things," Pollock said.
Potential options include listing marijuana production or dispensing as a "conditional use," which requires the approval of the municipality's governing body, or a "special exception," which would require the approval of its zoning board.
Municipal officials in the Lehigh Valley are just beginning to examine where marijuana businesses would fall within their existing zoning rules, and whether they need to add specific provisions to address the industry.
"We do not have answers at this time and will need to study the issue and ramifications," said Sara Pandl, Lower Macungie's director of planning and community development and a board member of the Pennsylvania chapter of the American Planning Association. "It's too soon to tell."
A growing and processing operation would operate mostly out of sight, Pollock said. The law requires them to be located indoors under tight security, such as in an industrial park. Dispensaries will be more public, in commercial areas where customers come and go, he said.
Interested investors are already lining up, looking for potential locations, said Michael Patterson, CEO of U.S. Cannabis Pharmaceutical Research and Development, which is holding seminars on the industry in June in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.
Patterson said he expects a vigorous competition for Pennsylvania's marijuana production and dispensary permits, because the law has been set up in a common-sense way that will allow proprietors to make a living.
Lawmakers, he said, "listened to all sides and set the system up to succeed."
News Moderator: Robert Celt 420 MAGAZINE ®
Full Article: PA: Could A Marijuana Operation Set Up In Your Neighborhood?
Author: Scott Kraus
Photo Credit: Brendan Smialowski
Website: The Morning Call
