Centennial council adopts emergency ordinance regulating natural-medicine facilities

Centennial — The City Council adopted an emergency ordinance (2024-0-19) on Jan. 7 that establishes local zoning, spacing and basic operating rules for natural-medicine businesses licensed under Colorado’s voter-approved framework.

The ordinance sets a city overlay that generally limits nonclinical healing centers, cultivation, manufacturing and testing facilities to an area roughly bounded by I-25, E. Arapahoe Road, S. Parker Road and the Arapahoe/Douglas county line. It also adopts state-mandated personal-cultivation limits and adds local time, place and manner restrictions, including limits on hours and a requirement that administration and integration sessions happen indoors.

City Attorney’s Office attorney Jill Hassman and Planning Manager Michael Grama presented the ordinance and walked council through local steps the city can take without conflicting with state law, which requires that licensed facilities not be banned outright. Hassman described three lines of state oversight: facilitators (regulated by the Department of Regulatory Agencies, DORA), facility licensing and product oversight (Department of Revenue) and the Natural Medicine Advisory Board.

The city’s ordinance mirrors the state’s 1,000-foot minimum spacing requirement between healing centers and schools, day cares and preschools, measured by a “route of direct pedestrian access.” It adds a 300-foot spacing requirement measured “as the crow flies” between standalone healing centers inside the city’s natural-medicine-business overlay, and prohibits natural-medicine services as a home-based business or as the commercial portion of a live-work unit.

Grama and Hassman said the most public-facing use — the healing center — will be regulated similarly to medical counseling or therapy offices, and the city will treat cultivation, manufacturing and testing facilities like light industrial operations in appropriate zone districts. The ordinance allows an exception to the overlay and the 300-foot spacing if a licensed clinical facilitator provides services co-located within a health-care facility; Grama said the clinical-facilitator route was intended to preserve access to medically supervised services in more parts of the city.

Council members asked detailed questions about the state licensing timeline, security and how the spacing rules would apply in practice. Several members emphasized a cautious approach. Councilmember Karnes, who earlier thanked staff for the presentation, asked whether the city had received any state applications; staff said they had not been notified of any completed applications specifically for Centennial as of the meeting.

Two members of the public who spoke in favor — Allison Lee, a licensed professional counselor who said she is pursuing a healing-center permit, and Bennett Rutledge — urged access and pointed to state safety rules and screening. Other public commenters asked about the overlay’s boundaries and whether parks or other public property should be included in the state’s 1,000-foot sensitivity buffer; Grama said the state language specified schools, day cares and preschools.

Mayor Pro Tem moved to approve the ordinance as an emergency measure; Councilmember Sullary seconded. The council voted 9-0 and the ordinance took effect immediately. Staff told council they will monitor state licensing and return with any applications or recommended changes to the city’s rules.

The ordinance text and staff presentation note that the state began accepting facility applications Dec. 31; the city’s emergency adoption was presented as a way to have local zoning guidance available while the state issues licenses.

The council and staff emphasized that the ordinance regulates time, place and manner but does not create state licensing or the detailed security and testing standards governed by state agencies.