Grand Rapids may greenlight first medical marijuana shops this week

GRAND RAPIDS, MI — City planners may give the go-ahead to Grand Rapids’ first medical marijuana dispensaries Thursday afternoon.

The Grand Rapids Planning Commission is holding public hearings at 1 p.m. Thursday, May 23, at 1120 Monroe Ave. NW on proposals for medical marijuana provisioning centers at 3510 E Mall Drive SE and 3425 Plainfield Ave. NE.

The applicants are the first of 80 vying to open a medical marijuana facility in Grand Rapids that will go before the planning commission. The order was determined by a random-draw lottery weighted by an application scorecard.

Going before commission early is important because once a facility is granted a special use permit, it could void another applicant for being too close, city officials previously said.

At the end of both hearings Thursday, commission members will vote to approve or deny a special use permit. If approved, the permit is granted after an appeals period of 16 days.

Once a permit is in hand, companies then must obtain a medical marijuana facility operating license from the state before they can open up shop. The process could take a while because the state must, among other things, conduct an inspection of the facility after it is remodeled to final specification.

Grand Rapids’ marijuana business locations prioritized during lottery draw

A Plainfield Avenue address will likely get the first chance to secure a permit to open a medical marijuana facility.

Among the considerations for a permit, planning commissioners have to examine if the facility will overburden the area with traffic and parking and if attempts to engage the community were “adequate, authentic, and/or consistent with the intent” of the city’s “Good Neighbor Plan.”

The application near Woodland Mall from Greenstone Michigan LLC has no listed neighbor concerns. Neighbors in the area of the Plainfield Avenue application, however, are petitioning the planning commission to postpone the public hearing.

Nick Dobkowski, president of the Creston Neighborhood Association Board of Directors, wrote the commission on May 17 that the association has “significant concerns” with the Good Neighbor Plan presented to them “last minute” by applicant Green Skies-Healing Tree LLC.

“The Good Neighbor Plan presented by Green Skies on May 16, 2019 was sorely lacking, especially in the areas of security, lighting, parking, management and community engagement,” Dobkowski wrote. “Also disturbing was a lack of transparency and inability to answer questions.”

Under the city’s Good Neighbor Plan, an applicant is required to contact a neighborhood association in the area and hold a public meeting.

Green Skies officials wrote they tried to reach the neighborhood association three times — on March 12 and 14 by email, and again on March 14 by phone call.

Green Skies held only one public hearing. It was from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. on March 12 at the Amway Grand Hotel.

They notified the neighborhood association three hours before the meeting started. No one attended.

The planning commission expects to tackle at least two medical marijuana facility applications each meeting. They meet twice a month.

Because of the setback distances that could potentially void another applicant, the commission won’t hear applicants vying for the same area in the same month.

The hottest contested areas, called “influence areas,” in the city are just north of downtown (area B on the map below), on Michigan Avenue east of medical mile (area C), just west of Woodland Mall (area L) and just east of Woodland Mall (area M).

Two applicants, MPM-R West LLC and Battle Creek-based Humble Roots LLC, are suing the city on allegations that claims city staff has acted arbitrarily and unfair to non-locals in the process.

Lawyers for the applicants petitioned a judge for an emergency order to postpone the drawing but were unsuccessful. The case will proceed in court.