EVERETT — Marijuana-enterprise owners are expected to plead for their businesses at a public hearing before the Snohomish County Planning Commission on Tuesday.
Neighbors who oppose pot operations also plan to weigh in before the commission makes a recommendation to the County Council.
The council asked for recommendations as it considers amending the rules for marijuana businesses in the spring. In October, the council imposed a temporary moratorium on new pot operations in some of the county’s rural areas after some neighbors voiced opposition.
Meantime, an emergency ordinance is in place until April 1. It bans state-licensed growers, processors and retailers in some rural areas that weren’t already in business as of Oct. 1. It also put in place another measure that bans new collective gardens and dispensaries for medical marijuana along a one-mile stretch of Highway 9 in Clearview.
State Initiative 502, passed in 2012, regulates Washington’s recreational marijuana system, but some local jurisdictions have been imposing limited or total bans on such businesses.
The Planning Commission hearing is at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday on the first floor of the Snohomish County Administration Building-East, 3000 Rockefeller Ave. in Everett. After the hearing, the Planning Commission will consider recommendations on regulations to present the County Council.
The prohibition of recreational pot businesses now applies to those in R-5 zones and in the Clearview rural commercial area, which covers about 116 acres along Highway 9. R-5 zones are rural areas where the county typically permits only one house per five acres, with some exceptions.
With increasing political pressure from neighbors and organizations opposed to having marijuana businesses nearby, dozens of existing and would-be producers in the R-5 zone have formed a group known as the R5 Cooperative. The businesses fear that the county might permanently prohibit marijuana producers and retailers after they have invested in launching the businesses. That has happened in a number of jurisdictions across Washington.
The state Liquor Control Board, which regulates I-502 businesses, has approved more than 80 producers and processors in R-5 zones, but there now are four legal marijuana growing and processing businesses operating, having beat the Oct. 1 moratorium.
The county Department of Planning and Development Services has offered four options for commissioners to consider, including doing nothing, making pot operations a conditional use in R-5, banning them in those zones or allowing them with certain development standards:
- The do-nothing option would keep in place regulations adopted by the County Council in November 2013 which allow state-licensed marijuana production and processing in two rural zones, including R-5, an agricultural zone, and four urban zones.
- The second option would change pot production and processing to a “conditional use” in the R-5 zone. Operators would have to go through a public-hearing process and demonstrate that their business meets certain standards. The county Hearing Examiner could impose additional requirements to ensure compatibility with the surrounding area and protect the rural character of a neighborhood. Depending on the number of applications, this option could require significant county staff time would be costly for operators.
- Another option would prohibit pot production and processing in R-5 but continue to allow it in the remaining six zones. Department of Planning and Development Services Director Clay White said this would give the county time to see how such businesses affect surrounding areas. If experience proves the operations are compatible with the R-5 zone, the rules could then be changed.
“It’s the start-small option,” White said, noting his department’s support of it.
Such a ban could be detrimental to dozens of R-5 businesses already in the process of getting up and running.
- The fourth option would impose a number of requirements to address concerns about marijuana production and processing in R-5 zones, such as setback rules to provide physical separation and additional landscape screening to address such things as lighting, odor and noise.
The R5 Cooperative has hired land-use consultant Reid Shockey to help navigate the complex zoning issues. He wrote a letter to the commission urging it recommend the fourth option to allow grow operations in R-5 zones under certain conditions.
Jamie Curtismith, another advocate for the R5 Cooperative, said the complex regulatory issues have discouraged some operators. A handful of marijuana businesses have decided to leave the county, she said.
“Prohibition is not an option,” she said. “That’s a reefer-madness mentality.”
Curtismith, of Everett, said the marijuana industry needs to quell fears by providing accurate information about how the businesses will affect surrounding areas.
That’s exactly what Alice Johnson has been trying to find out since a grow operation set up shop near her rural Arlington home last year. Johnson said she’s wants to know what goes on at a such a site and what it means for neighbors. She has concerns related to water use, waste disposal, environmental effects, lighting, noise and odor.
“It’s absolutely intolerable,” she said. “It smells like a skunk. It’s not like they’re just growing plants and not offending their neighbors. This just doesn’t belong here.”
The council will hold another public hearing on the matter before making a decision, but a date has not been set.
Amy Nile: 425-339-3192; anile@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @AmyNileReports.
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