Pubdate: Wed, 08 Jun 2011 Source: Arizona Republic (Phoenix, AZ) Copyright: 2011 The Arizona Republic Contact: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/opinions/sendaletter.html Website: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/24 Author: Allie Seligman, The Arizona Republic GILBERT'S DEFINITION OF PARK COULD HOLD UP POT-DISPENSARY PERMITS Plans for Gilbert's first two medical-marijuana dispensaries could be held up as the town grapples with the definition of a park. The Town Council discussed appeals challenging permits for the two locations in the northwestern part of the town that were approved by the Planning Commission in May. Though the commission debated what constitutes a park last month, it made no decision on how a dispensary's distance from a park should be measured. State law requires dispensaries to be at least 1,000 feet from public or private parks. Council members agreed Monday the issue needs to be examined by town staff and citizens. "This needs to be more carefully vetted," Councilwoman Linda Abbott said. "There does need to be clarification because that part of it was not discussed." Both appeals, submitted by businesses near the planned dispensaries, questioned the distance between the marijuana stores and private parks, among other issues. The difficulty in determining the way to measure that distance was underscored when planning and development services manager Kyle Mieras discussed Sonoran Star Remedies, which he said is 1,025 feet from a private park. Since there is no standard point in a park the town staffers use for a beginning point for measurement, activity areas are considered, he said. The distance from the proposed dispensary was measured to park areas where people are likely to congregate, including a basketball court and green space, he said. Abbott said water-retention basins, which are often not viewed as activity areas, are "very active in some parts of the community." She also said she is hesitant to set a precedent on where a park begins without any discussion with parties involved, including HOAs that run private parks. "There needs to be a public process to the definition so that those HOAs that are affected . . . have some weigh-in to this definition," she said. Vice Mayor Les Presmyk agreed there should be a definition but noted some areas clearly aren't being used as parkland. "We're not programming retention basins that are covered with decomposed granite," he said. "You're not going to put your kids out there or we're not going to program soccer games or whatever on decomposed granite." No matter what the council decides in the short term, the applications are on hold until a lawsuit Arizona filed over the federal government's warning that marijuana distribution is a federal crime is decided, Abbott noted. That may not be a problem since it could take at least 90 days for the town to resolve a definition of a park, staffers said. Meanwhile, the council also discussed a block-wall replacement on Chandler Heights Road that would divide the Greenfield Acres subdivision from the road. Residents have asked the town to replace the wall with an 8-foot privacy wall, assistant town engineer Edgar Medina said. The town has offered to reimburse some of the cost but not enough that the residents are willing to go through with construction, he said. An estimate from May 2010 put the replacement at $263,000. Though the town isn't bound to reimburse residents for the wall, Medina said the town has offered to reimburse residents for 50 percent of the cost up to $60 per foot for an 8-foot wall. That means the town would pay back $30 a foot, or $36,000 for 1,200-foot Chandler Heights wall. Before the Chandler Heights Road improvements, a 20-foot drainage ditch separated Greenfield Acres from the road. That area has since been turned into a paved pathway with trees for use by pedestrians and equestrians. In March, a truck careened through construction barricades and into the wall, something neighbors had long warned Gilbert officials may happen. That change and road improvements have reduced privacy for residents, Medina said. People driving along the road and on horseback can now see over the existing fence into the properties. Abbott argued the town should consider taking on the full cost of the wall, which she said has been done in the past. Presmyk said the town has already extended an offer it didn't have to make. If the town agrees to pay the total cost, he said, every neighborhood bordering an arterial road will want a privacy fence installed. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard R Smith Jr.