Pubdate: Thu, 13 Feb 2014
Source: Prince George Citizen (CN BC)
Copyright: 2014 Prince George Citizen
Contact:  http://www.princegeorgecitizen.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/350
Author: Charelle Evelyn

REGIONAL DISTRICT NOT ALONE ZONING IN ON POT

This afternoon, the Regional District of Fraser-Fort George board of 
directors will pass or defeat a bylaw limiting new medical marijuana 
grow sites to big rural properties.

Under the federal government's new Marijuana for Medical Purposes 
Regulation effective April 1, production facilities licensed by 
Health Canada would be allowed in the same areas as other intensive 
agricultural uses and kept out of areas zoned as residential.

Last month, board members passed the first two readings of a new 
bylaw to limit these grow operations to rural parcels of 16 hectares 
or larger on land zoned as M5 Agriculture Industry.

The most-recent municipality to tackle the issue was Canada's capital city.

On Tuesday, the city of Ottawa's planning committee voted 8-1 to add 
medical marijuana facilities as a permitted use in both rural and 
non-rural general industrial and heavy industrial zones. Language, 
which still has be approved by their city council as a whole, will 
expressly prohibit these facilities from being defined as an 
"agricultural use" in their zoning bylaw.

"Ottawa's a unique place because we have greenbelts, which is a big 
part of it, and we only have so much agricultural land remaining 
[despite large rural area]," said Ottawa Coun. Tim Tierney, who sits 
on the city's planning committee. "So I think that's why they really 
focused on the commercial industrial land use areas at this point. 
It's more about the protection of a lot of these lands."

The cities of Toronto and Brampton, Ont., are also placing these 
facilities in industrial zones.

Prince George has yet to tackle the medical marijuana land use issue.

Ottawa stipulated the need for these facilities to have a 150-metre 
setback from other residential and institutional zones.

In the local regional district, a 60-metre rear and side set back and 
a 30-metre front set back have been proposed.

In B.C., the Agricultural Land Commission has given these facilities the OK.

"If a land owner is lawfully sanctioned to produce marijuana for 
medical purposes, the farming of said plant in the Agricultural Land 
Reserve (ALR) is permitted and would be interpreted by the 
Agricultural Land Commission as being consistent with the definition 
of 'farm use' under the ALC Act," said an information bulletin.

Despite that sanction, some communities have also gone the route of 
keeping medical marijuana production facilities out of agricultural 
areas through their zoning bylaws.

The Lower Mainland Local Government Association forwarded a 
resolution to the Union of B.C. Municipalities last summer pushing 
for changes to the Assessment Act so that land used for the growth of 
medical marijuana couldn't be classified as a farm use and that 
farmland in general not be used for the growth of medical marijuana.

The City of White Rock put forward placing the use of the federally 
licenced grow operations in a special commercial service use zone, 
which accommodates the facilities as a standalone use in an an 
existing commercial area. Potential applicants would have to apply 
for site-specific zoning amendments.

Surrey council amended their zoning bylaw to specifically exclude the 
growing of medical pot from the definition of "horticulture" early last year.

Mayors from Langley, Delta, Abbotsford and Kelowna wrote to the 
provincial agricultural minister to ask for a prohibition on grow ops 
in agricultural areas.

Some have gone so far as to rejig their zoning bylaws to ban sites 
growing weed for medicinal purposes outright.

The City of Richmond adopted a bylaw in mid-December that excluded 
medical marijuana production and research and development facilities 
not only from being classed as farm business, but also from being a 
permitted use in any zoning category.

That wasn't the way Ottawa went, said Tierney, though the topic was broached.

"That discussion did come up [Tuesday]," he said. "Obviously there's 
probably some opportunity to be able to make money off of these as a 
city as well."

The federal regulations restrict facilities from being inside a 
residential dwelling and limit production, packaging and labeling to 
being done indoors at the producer's site. Cannabis can only be 
stored indoors on site and can only be destroyed by legislated 
methods that don't result in anyone being exposed to smoke. The 
site's perimeter must be secured against intruders with physical 
barriers monitored by visual recording devices.

Even with those in place, there are still a lot of uncertainties as 
to what exactly these facilities will look like, said Tierney.

"Is it going to look like Guantanamo Bay or something with big fences 
and barbed wire along the top or is this something that can be tucked 
into the community within an industrial park?"

The real test will come when an applicant to Health Canada for such a 
facility actually receives a licence and goes about trying to set up shop.

"That's where we're going to really see people being more vocal about 
what the aesthetics are going to look like. What's traffic going to 
be like?" Tierney said. "And that's a lot of the questions I had. 
It's one thing to think 'oh great, they might put something out 
there' but it's another thing about how's it going to actually function."
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom