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Council fails to approve zoning amendment to expand medical marijuana locations
Summary
The Springfield City Council on Monday failed to pass a zoning change that would have expanded where registered medical marijuana dispensaries can operate in the city.
The Springfield City Council voted down a proposed zoning amendment to Article 4.7.100 that would have updated the city’s registered-medical-dispensary (RMD) rules to mirror adult-use retail siting.
Phil Drummond of the Office of Planning and Economic Development told the council the current medical marijuana rules date to 2014 and restrict RMDs to Industrial A and add 500-foot buffers for a broad set of institutions, including colleges and child-care uses at the time. The proposed amendment would open medical dispensaries to the same zones and distance rules that currently apply to adult-use retailers and would allow an operator with an existing medical permit in an approved location to add adult-use sales through an administrative site plan review.
Drummond said the change would allow existing adult-use retailers to also host medical sales at their sites under administrative review and argued that the perceived impacts from adult-use retail have been less than expected as the market matured. He described the amendment as aligning the older medical ordinance to the ordinance already used for recreational retail.
Several councilors asked questions; no speakers testified in opposition in the hearing. When the council took the roll on the zoning change, the clerk recorded eight yes votes (insufficient under the charter for that change) and the item failed.
