Following the municipality’s approval to conditionally permit medical marijuana manufacturing in its AI-10 zone in July, the Green Township Committee will hold another public hearing to further amend the zoning, during its regular meeting at 7 p.m. Wednesday.
Green Township Mayor Margaret “Peg” Phillips also said Monday the upcoming closure of Trinca Airport on Sept. 1, 2020 is not tied to the creation of the original medical marijuana ordinance or its revision. Phillips said the ordinance revision was instead driven to tighten the original language from the first ordinance conditionally permitting medicinal marijuana facilities, following the Land Use Board’s review and recommendations for the ordinance. Phillips said the change is also to align the township’s ordinance with the state law, which in 2019 was expanded to include definitions and provisions for medical cannabis cultivators, manufacturers and distributors.
Changes include the expanded definition of what type of industry is allowed in the AI-10 zone or agricultural-industrial zone, that stretches from the vicinity of Brighton Road to past Creek Road and cuts through Airport and Whitehall roads. Originally stated as permitting a medical marijuana growing, production and manufacturing facility, the expanded definition in the new ordinance calls for “medical marijuana cultivation and manufacturing.”
Phillips said Monday that this type of facility is not subject to farmland assessment, although it is a grower and falls under an industrial category.