##VIDEO ID:ku0PZZEMEFM## e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e okay I'd like to call this meeting on December 10th at 5:30 to order we have a roll call please uh commissioner kermes present commissioner feling present acting chair mmud here uh and uh commissioner Bia and commissioner Lighty are absent tonight okay uh does anybody have anything to say about the minutes from last time which was like three months ago August 6 yeah I looked them over saw nothing that stood out okay all right well um Nathan could you go over the chair we will need a a motion and a an action on the meeting minutes motion to approve it's been a while okay it's been it's been seconded any all in favor I carries okay all right so uh acting chair Mamud uh thank you we are on item four which is the public hearing for the ordinance amendment to regulate cannabis and hemp businesses in the city uh so this is something that we have been working on uh as you may know uh behind the scenes here for some time to make sure that we're ready for uh the New Year 2025 and so um Madison uh from my office has been helping with some of that work behind the scenes and so I'll ask Madison to help me we've got a presentation for you uh that can be put on the screen here uh shortly which will be broken down into two parts because this is a big um topic there's a lot of information the first part of the presentation will be focused on what this means what this industry means in Minnesota um what the licensing you know process is and what those businesses are that are are licensed in the state for cannabis uses and the second part of the presentation will be what we're basically recommending to the city in terms of an ordinance after getting some feedback from the city council as well so uh with that said U I will hand it over to Madison uh to start us off here and so if we can get the presentation up on the screen thank you'll go into part one so like being said I'm going to kind of talk about the basics of cannabis in Minnesota we're going to kind of talk about what it is we're going to go over license type definitions all of that good stuff um so a brief history um it's been a long time coming but in 2023 this is when the state legalized adult recreational Cannabis so in 2023 you saw a lot of cities start to adopt moratoriums ending January 1st 2025 which is what 2024 has kind of looked like that's why a lot of cities have been pushing their ordinances through right now to make sure when that January 1 date comes we're ready and prepared for the city for the state to start licensing the businesses um so we will start with definitions so cannabis is kind of the main focus of the ordinance update that we're focusing on and that's defined as a plant with 3% or more THC if it's less than 3% then it's considered a low potency hemp edible which we'll get into a little bit further um cannaboids are what were legalizing in 2022 so the definition of those has changed and those will now be found under what we consider the lower potency hemp products and then we have cannabis business and this is a super vague definition and includes a lot so we're going to talk about the different license types that fall under the Cannabis business that you all are able to regulate um so like I said a hemp is a plant that has. 3% or less THC and then the low lower potency hemp Edibles those are the products with that hemp in them um they're called edibles but to clarify this also does include beverages so it's anything that can be consumed so eaten or or drinken um and then a hemp business is anything that's selling those hemp lower pocy heades so now getting into the different license type so this is what you all can regulate under the ordinance so we have Micro businesses this is most similar to what you would understand as a micro Brewery so they can cultivate cannabis on site they can manufacture cannabis on site they can pack package the products they are permitted to have on-site consumption within this and then there's regulations restriction like restrictions similar to craft breweries so they can be limited in terms of like where the onsite consumption can be square footage requirements all of those within State Statute and then all of that equivalent of growing and the acreage Outdoors all of that's monitored under the state statute so the state regulates all of that under the license that's not something the city has to worry about meso business so this is similar to a micro business just on a little bit of a larger scale and this is something they're able to operate multiple locations it's like I said basically just micro on a larger scale they cannot have on-site consumption with this business so that's kind of the important distinction between the two um a manufacturer that's someone that is not growing and they're not selling they're just manufacturing the product and then a cultivator is someone that's indoor or outdoor growing based on the way the city that has their ordinance canvas retailer this is kind of what we think about when we think of like a sale so they sell any of the sorts of products that are listed on your screen it's important to know L is limited to one license per City three Per County and then five total so they can't have the same individual can't own multiple cannabis businesses in the same city and they can't own a separate type of license so they can't be a retailer and a transporter and a delivery service they can't do all of those things at once um a wholesaler so this is someone that is selling typically from the what you would see is like the manufacturer the cultivator to a retail store um your transporter business these are people that transport the business from the manufacturer to the wholesaler from the wholesaler to the retail store and then your cannabis delivery service this is what you would think of as a door Dash a GrubHub those delivery services from a retailer to a single family home type situation testing facility it's unlikely that the city will see any of these coming in these are typically you'll see these at an Institutional level where they're testing the Cannabis they're testing like levels all of that stuff so it's unlikely you would see that but we still have it in here because you still can regulate it um the event organizers this is under a temporary cannabis event per state statute they're permitted to last no more than four days and there's a few other event specific regulations we can get into within the ordinance as well these are your hemp retailers so you have your hemp manufacturer and your retailer these are listed separately under the de licensed type because they operate a different way State Statute regulates them very different than they regulate cannabis retailers which you'll see when we present Evo ordinance to you and then this is the last license type it's cannabis research um like this is also similar um where it'll typically be an institution higher education you won't typically see these within the city but again you can regulate them so we have them in here these are the license types and then what they use so you look and see micro bus and meso business have the most uses associated with them and then cultivator has a significant amount as well but it's pretty limited to retailer is just selling to customers those things so this is just a table to kind of break down the license types and then what usage is associated with them and then we wanted to walk you through what the license process looks like from an applicant's perspective so when an applicant submits they'll submit everything to the office of canvas management the office of Canabis management will review their application for completeness um there's a 30-day response required within the application so the state reaches out to the city and double checks is this business permitted do they conform to zoning are they permitted at the site let us know um we are having kind of this is where the most open-ended questions come from in terms of the conditional process so you'll see in your ordinance a lot of these are conditional use es that we're recommending and the conditional use permit would typically never go through as quickly as 30 days typically takes around the 60-day mark so it's kind of up in the air on how they're going to regulate these if it comes to the city and the city says no they don't have a conditional use permit so they're not permitted or is it does it look a little bit more like they're working on their like application they'll get we'll get back to you when they have their permit and then they can come in so we're kind of sitting in an awkward spot right now but we're hoping to get more information from the office of cannabis management as that goes through but right now we're required to do the 30-day response from the city side and then from there once the office of cannabis management has their determination they'll give the license within 90 days so it's a pretty quick turnaround and like I said it could start happening as soon as January 1st 2025 which is why we're here in front of you all and then I'll pass it over to Nathan who will do your specific ordinance thank you Madison um so yeah we have taken all that information into consideration lots of information for you do you have any questions before I jump into the recommendations in front of you okay I'll get started and you can stop me if you've got anything question question wise so first we want to start with what is the authority of of Newport with with these new businesses the city cannot prohibit a licensed cannabis business that you know any of the businesses Madison just told you about we cannot prohibit them outright in the entire you know through the whole Community because they're a licensed business by Statute we also cannot license take over business licensing for the state that is the state's job through the statute we do have authority though however to regulate these businesses in a in a way that's reasonable in terms of the time the place and the manner and so you'll see a number of different areas in which we can basically regulate these different businesses and we've Incorporated most of these into the ordinance so these are things like which zoning districts are businesses allowed to be in um we can establish minimum buffers from schools and other locations we can establish hours of operation regulate signage noise levels odor those kind of performance standards for a business we can also prohibit use in public places so uh given given all those things that we can do there are there are some different approaches to how we would approach regulating this new industry in the city um there is you know the the business friendly approach which is maybe the the least restrictions uh in terms of where things can be located uh and then the performance standards that they might be subject to there's a middle ground approach somewhere in there with you know some more attention to the location and the performance standards but maybe allowing them to get permitted more easily and then there's a a more restrictive or higher standard approach that uh at least for now might start with restrictions on location having these uses be conditional as Madison indicated and having those higher development standards and at this time staff are thinking that it's it's probably in the the city's best interest to start with that option three which is the more restrictive approach uh certainly not trying to be you know overly overly um restrictive on on on businesses but really paying attention to uh location and performance standards and giving our ourselves time for the dust to settle in this industry and really understand if flexibility is needed and certainly being able to give flexibility if it's decided that it's it's necessary so uh give that there are a number of questions that there you know there could be on zoning including where cannabis and hemp products can be sold that's one of the important questions uh another question is where should the other parts of this industry be located including cultivation production manufacturing and processing those types of things for both cannabis and hem products and lastly um should we be allowing these uses as permitted or conditional uses so we've taken more of a approach of conditional use permits you've seen conditional use permit requests in front of this commission before you've been able to apply conditions to them as as is necessary based on the conditions of the site so there might be things that we want to look at on a case-by Case basis and so we've we've taken that approach so in front of you on the screen this is in the city's draft ordinance these are the land use tables this is kind of where the rubber hits the road and really what these show is where these cannabis businesses and hemp business business would be allowed in the city so starting with the mixed use districts which is obviously as you know those mixture of of residential and Commercial areas throughout the city um we've only allowed for the Cannabis um businesses including um meso businesses micro businesses sales in the mx1 which is the downtown area along Hudson or sorry not Hudson um houst Hastings Avenue and then um the MX2 District we do have cannabis sales and lower potency hemp sales permitted through a conditional use permit know now that I'm seeing this I'm thinking this slide is a little outdated because I'm remembering we put um not permitted under the MX2 so apologies for that we have changed the MX2 and three to be not permitted for for those St uses so just to clarify that uh and then on the bottom of the slide you'll see the business and Industrial districts as well um this this table is a little bit different in the actual ordinance we've really restricted where those cultivation meso micro businesses sales Etc can take place to the B one and B2 zoning districts and so not allowing for those uses in the industrial districts so uh one of the specific questions about what we can do relates to buffers those these are allowed by the statute you can put them within 1,000 ft of a school and 500 ft from parks dayc carees and res residential treatment facilities you cannot get more restrictive than that the other piece of this is development standards or performance standards so how do we control for things like security of the business orders that come from this business uh this industry outdoor uses lighting signage and temporary cannabis events so in the draft ordinance we do have those most restrictive buffers in it so a cannabis businesses cannot a cannabis business cannot be located a th000 ft from a school or 500 feet from an attraction in a park such as a playground ball field Etc a daycare or a residential treatment facility in terms of the actual performance standards for these businesses uh We've also taken a I would say a a little bit more of like a higher standard type approach with security being required as it is in in state statute for these locations to be secure as as required through their license for oders specifically requiring that no order be detectable by an average person at a a joining property boundary outdoor uses so things like outdoor storage for example or other things that are associated with the business would not be permitted so you'd only have parking allowed as with other businesses where ourdoor storage is restricted like lighting is required to meet the city's standards and the same is uh for signage as well although in some cases the state statute might be a little bit more restrictive on signage given some of the restrictions through state statute on Advertising lastly cannabis events we're limiting them to only properties where uh we've got an approved cannabis business so let's say you get an approved micro business at in the city at a location and you want to have an event you could do that but you first need to obviously have your business established your your micro business established we would also control for things like hours of hours of operation for the particular event like I mentioned uh the state statute restricts signage so there are some restrictions on Advertising you know not promoting over consumption being careful with advertising to Young members of the community those types of things there are some additional restrictions in State Statute we would also compare the city's ordinance for signage and so businesses in the uh Business Park and industrial areas are limited in terms of signage on their property so the more restrictive s sign standard between those cities ordinance and the statute would be the one that we would use the number of retail operations this is something that has been a big I think point of discussion in a lot of communities is the the the state legislature did allow for cities to put a cap on the number of retail we're just talking sales not production or cultivation but but retail sales so the state statute does allow for cities to cap retail sales but you must allow at least one retail location for every 12,500 residents well in this case Newport doesn't have that many residents so you'd have to allow only one location you have to allow at least one although if the county in this case Washington County has enough retail locations to satisfy that ratio One retail location for every 12,500 residents if there are enough retail locations in the county the city doesn't have to permit any retail locations once again Washington County has reached that thresold now it's going to be tough I think for us to tell when Washington County's gotten enough locations CU it's going to be you know incumbent on us to ask them and I don't know what their tracking looks like and you know what their process will be so for now the city should probably expect to have one retailer at at a maximum if it chooses to adopt that restriction so that is something that we have built into the city's um ordinance right now we have an or a draft ordinance for retail registration for retail uh locations and that cap is is in that particular draft ordinance so like I said uh cities are not allowed to license but they are allowed to register these retail locations so ocm the office of cannabis management will exclusively license although cities can undertake registration that being said we do have a draft retail registration ordinance the city is also allowed to defer registration to the county and so instead of the city standing up its own process internally these businesses have to get registered somewhere so it would have to adopt a resolution deferring to Washington County those registrations for hemp retail locations or cannabis retail locations so it's either the city or the county that will register those businesses generally I'll summarize our recommendations here on this Slide the zoning ordinance update on the left so these are the zoning standards we're going to add definition to those specific cannabis and hemp operations just as Madison has described we're going to define specific uses and where they can take place and whether it's through just a regular um building permit if that's all they need or it might be that they need a um conditional use permit to allow us to provide conditions and so that's the majority of these uses are going to be conditional uses all of them and lastly we do need to make sure that we adopt good performance standards and so we propos proposals in the city's ordinance as well there is a draft registration ordinance for cannabis and hemp businesses um like I said I think the city council will ultimately need to make a policy choice on whether it wants to register retail locations or if it wants to not place that burden on its staff it can um defer those registrations to the county and we've got a draft ordinance that would help basically if the city wanted to adopt one that's what we would recommend so I think that'll be a conversation uh certainly that that is carried on um there's a couple bullets on this slide that summarize what what that draft registration ordinance does really it creates a process to register businesses capping the fees at what they're allowed in statute um and creating a standard procedure that we can all discuss it should you have questions so in a nutshell the registration process would be very similar to ocm where we would take in as the city and application for registration administrative staff would review for completeness if we've got everything we need we' check for zoning if they're compliant with our zoning ordinance that's great if they need a conditional usee permit then they have to apply uh and then after they've gotten those things cleared up they are good to go so lastly uh we will I'll have ask Madison to give you a very brief rundown of what your adjacent communities have done in terms of ordinance updates to just give you an idea of where some of of your other um kind of pure communities are at so Madison yeah so we looked at when we were evaluating how to present this to you we wanted to give you kind of an overview of what other Washington County communities were doing what their buffers looked like what their performance standards looked like um so if you look on the table you'll see generally in terms of zoning regulations they were typically putting retail in business puds mixed use areas and then warehousing Manufacturing in industrial and then for the communities that do have agricultural land they were permitting indoor outdoor cultivation so you kind of saw a mixed bag on cultivation whether indoor or outdoor was preferred um but that's kind of what the layout of what zoning regulations looked like in terms of retail buffers everybody stayed relatively restrictive I think in all of these conversations we saw everybody really wanted to focus on being as restrictive as possible with the knowledge that we can come back later and lighten some of this stuff up it's a lot harder to start enforcing it when it's not enforced in the first place and then other performance standards looked pretty typical of what you'll see um I apologize I think this is a slightly outdated presentation like Nathan said all of these are finalized presentations all of these are finalized ordinances at this point um even as recent as last week communities are kind of getting their in so you will benefit from seeing what these finalized ordinances look like coming in a little bit later to the game um some performance standards that we kind of borrowed from the City of Woodbury was the first Community we noticed that did water conservation measur so that was something we really wanted to focus on um the language here and then you saw the typical like security odor outdoor use sign Edge all of those things the other thing I'll note um the last important thing I think is the retail buffers when we looked at communities daycare seemed like the thing communities were less concerned about regulating because you have at home dayc carees you have dayc carees and Commercial centers we really wanted to focus on what would be easy to enforce and easy to make people aware about so when you look at these list jty daycares are typically left off of the buffers but for the most part everybody tried to be as restrictive as possible thank you Madison that was good summary so we've got discussion questions but I'll skip ahead you know if the Planning Commission needs some prompts we can we can come back to these some common questions that I've gotten that that you might have or others in the community might have uh can cities limit businesses if there are enough in the county yes we discussed that one are liquor stores allowed to sell cannabis products no uh however they can sell low potency hemp edible products with a license they are allowed to get one if those products uh buffers uh it cannot be increased Beyond State Statute limits and lastly gotten question before is Industrial Hemp already allowed in the community uh the answer to that is actually yes in agricultural in areas that already allow agricultural products so be looking primarily at the residential estate Zone so um lastly there is there has been some consideration in other communities about outdoor cultivation particularly where communities already allow Agriculture and so because the city cannot prohibit um a licensed business there there are considerations for needing to allow it in outdoor cultivation I'm still working with the city attorney to make sure that we understand whether we do or don't need to allow this so we'll uh we'll get the answer to that and incorporate it into the ordinance if we do need to allow outdoor cultivation the answer is that we can do that and we can also prescribe qualifying criteria so if you're going to grow it you got to have Outdoors you got to have commercially by the way outdoor Commercial Business you got to have 28 10 to 20 acres you got to be 200t from a property line so we'll make sure that there are checks in place okay uh the timeline for action on this as discussed the city council met in provid a guidance on November 7th here we are tonight we had we do have a public hearing you'll have to hold before you make a decision and then provide a recommendation to the city council they'll consider this on December 19th so uh as this was a public hearing we did have a a notice published in the City newspaper um we've not surprisingly gotten any comments uh from residents on this at this time so certainly if there are folks that have comments they can feel free to reach out to the city and we would love to hear from them I have an example motion on on this slide here and it's also in the staff report but we are looking for a direction from you in terms of a recommendation on what the city council should do so with that um take your questions okay well I think we'll open it up to the public hearing and then we'll go to the questions great yep chair and you'll need a motion to open and close that okay fa motion to open public hearing okay uh we will open the public hearing at 558 anyone want to come up oh not seeing anyone come up but we will close the hearing at 5583 um okay any questions that you guys have for these guys will existing cigar in smoke shops still be selling canab under the St that's a great question so if they're already selling like the hemp products is what You' legally be able to sell right now yes um if you are selling those products you will likely have to go back through the license process when the state finishes it the office of cannabis management has to stand up its process internally as an agency okay we don't know exactly when that's going to start it could start as early as the first of the new year but it's probably the case that it will take them longer maybe some sometime up to like 6 so those business businesses will have to come back in and if they're in you know an area that requires them to have a cup to have the use they'll actually have to request one in City okay the way that this is written out so no being grandfathered in so no through this process you would not see any uses grandfathered in that's correct it's a bummer form um you got anything else well on the 1,500 ft um our zoning is there anything really affected in that area 7th Avenue wouldn't wouldn't have any it's not business one right so chair and commission um the question of is good like where what areas would you actually be allowed to open a business given the buffer basically Hastings Avenue only yeah so you're looking at likely those business zoning districts that are on this along the here I can pull up the presentation and bring up a picture of the zoning or zoning map okay so hopefully we can get the slide to show on the screen the cursor is hovering on those red Parcels those are the business zones that's where you're going to be allowed to potentially open a a cannabis business through a conditional use permit and that's retail or cultivating or so we're looking at allowing we have to allow the uses somewhere and so those business zones are where we're looking at allowing those uses however I will note um if you're right now the way the ordinance is written cultivation and processing all have to be done indoors in a business or a facility that would meet the city's standards for a commercial or industrial building all right can I see that zoning again and it's just the red areas correct so if we're looking at the red areas you see obviously south of sth and Hastings and there is a there there are a number of parcels in the in the city on the north east corner of the community that are uh zoned right now for business like if we really wanted to see a booming business when we want to put it over by Maxwell and uh kind of the freeway I mean do we if we want people is our goal to bring people into the city or no not these people I think that's a policy question frankly for the for the Planning Commission and city council so we're open to your your ideas about what you'd like to see okay because I'd hate to see is lose out an opportunity where it's just easier to get to a different location than a location business in Newport I think that this is at the beginning end of what could be a trend more popular than going to bars and alcohol eventually you know I I I think members of the commission I I think it's also um some a point that Madison made was well made which is that the city can definitely come back and change these requirement they're not set in stone what this gives us right now is really just kind of a baseline before the new year hits okay so right on Main Street Hastings where all the businesses are they won't be allowed well I should I should say that that mx1 Hastings the it's the light blue on this map if you're looking at that you could have a sales use there okay we we yep we you could okay so like the existing cigar shop or smoke shop whatever correct they would have to receive a conditional use permit but they they could do it if they requested okay so it's not just the red conditional use permit okay yeah sorry if I misled you there the the mx1 is the only other Zone outside of the zones you so as far as um what our laws are with the liquor stores and bars what do we how far away from schools and what kind of buffers do they have and are we making this more restrictive than we do liquor stores and bars the answer I I believe is yes it is more restrictive um I don't think that the city has any buffers that are in its um liquor like license requirements for for that particular use I don't know administrator hatch can correct me on that I'm not familiar with any um we do offer temporary liquor licens for folks that you know want them and you know setb back's not something that we look at um that I that I recall okay so so I guess my question is if we're going to be if this is going to be a legal business why are we trying make it so restrictive when we want to get as many businesses in Newport as we possibly can so I guess why are we doing why are we why are we being so restrictive to this one particular business if it's going to be a legal business chair and members of the commission I'll just say it's a policy discussion it's certainly a conversation uh chair members of the commission uh we'll be happy to relay that feedback and that comment I think you know there's a balance uh in making any kind of ordinance where you're going to regulate any type of business and so I think uh looking at you know a lot of times when I'm talking with staff in particular Nathan because he's coming up here all the time and changing ordinances and things like that my expectation is Staff will set the hardest line uh in that then you know the city council and the Planning Commission and the Community as a whole can give you know feedback uh on that and and say Hey you know this is where we want to land as a community um but generally from from a staffing perspection uh uh perspective and and my Direction that's usually where I tend to go um allowing then the community and and and different folks like you're saying hey you know is this a you know we want to be a community that may be a little bit more uh Pro business um then ultimately that is a policy tocis de ision so no we appreciate the feedback and you know that's something again uh that Council will have to consider in the final adoption and but we you know any other recommendations you have or thoughts we appreciate that all right well thank you um okay think I'll just make sure for folks at home uh we do have uh you know uh uh the leason to the Planning Commission just mentioned that if there is specific recommendations from the Planning Commission to the city council for a recommendation that they do make mention and then have a motion uh uh so there is an actual formal action staff would definitely appreciate that too if there is something that uh you know so it's not just a uh a discussion item but an actual motion and an action if that's what the what the Planning Commission uh would like to do okay I do feel though that it's easier to loosen it up as we go along than to make it tighter as we go well if it's so strict that you don't get anybody in here there's no need to loosen it up I guess is what my point is well I mean we don't have any businesses over by the school and you know I I think that following what all of our neighbors are doing isn't really being tight with it I think I know I just hate to be a follower I guess I don't know um so I just I just wanted to bring that up I just for my own curiosity is if we're trying to attract businesses why would we make things tougher I I just just thought it would be something that I should say um we don't have to go any further than that I mean my biggest concern would be what's the easiest way to get to Newport to come buy product and get out of Newport would be the Maxwell exit um I mean if if the condition use permit is needed and it's we could do that but uh if I were to like shop a business you'd want to see what was it 140,000 cars a day go by is the number we used one time on 494 can we get them to pull off in Newport on their way to Wood Barry or wherever um that was just my only thought would be that zone how can we make a very attractive spot to get on and off easy so as the Lea's on marvie said make a recommendation to things like this mean like there's two different districts there Industrial it is okay no it was taken okay yeah MX2 you said you had it down as a conditional use but you said that that was an old slide and you Chang commission yeah chair and commission I'm right now verifying the um use table in the ordinance so as published um yeah commissioner or council member Taylor is correct the ordinance does allow for cannabis retail sales in the MX2 okay which is through a cup um that would be allowed in addition to lower potency hemp edible sales which is a different business license I do expect to see that there is also the table which allows this use the in the MX three that that is something staff have discussed and will be removed moving forward um certainly but with the planning commission's recommendation uh certainly this use table could allow for the MX2 which is again that area right around the Newport transit station uh the city could you know proh uh permit sales in that location I wouldn't recommend allowing the processing cultivation uses in that area because they use a significant amount of land there could be other Transportation related concerns too so recommendation from the Planning Commission on the MX2 would be very helpful to staff as we move forward recommendation didn't you just say it was already in there well it's in there but it would be helpful for the Planning Commission to either affirm that or if you have a different idea let us know I would recommend sales in MX2 for sure cultivation does red make a motion uh all right so I'd like to make a motion to allow sales MX2 keep cultivation in business one I believe was the Zone okay I'll second okay all in favor all right all right motion carries um there's one thing that I would like to recommend and if you want us to to vote on it we can um I would recommend that we do defer registration to the counties um I I would hope that most cities do that so that the county has an idea of how many they have in their in their County I mean if we're just registering them then we have to relay it to the county and the county has to process this and if it's just done with the county then it's done we don't have to worry about it they know who how many they have and it should be better that way y just to be clear chair and members of the commission if the city defers the processing or yeah the processing of the registration request to the county the county will not necessarily limit the number of businesses in Newport the retail locations that's a trade-off um you certainly may not be worried about how many retail locations there are in the community provided there in the spots where you allow them in the zoning ordinance so that is a consideration if if a community wants to restrict the number of retail locations it would probably be better by registering them but again that does create a burden for staff of course to have to stand up a process like that so there's just trade-offs to discuss okay anything else so just to just to make sure staff have the feedback on the registration the Planning Commission seems to be relatively unified in the in recommending that the city defer registering retail locations to the county would you guys like to have a discussion about that a little bit I mean as far as I'm concerned I'd like to see it registered through the county and if that means that we can actually have more than one that's fine with me that's just more business for our community um so so that's kind of where I stand that sounds accurate yeah so okay that's helpful First St yeah thank you otherwise if there's nothing else we will adjourn well uh we would like a a a final recommendation it you provided a a motion that was approved to have the retail sales allowed in the MX2 I'd be helpful to get another motion just to clarify that the ordinance for zoning amendments pull yep let me let me get that um example motion for you on the screen so there's an example motion that's on the screen now uh you'll want to move to recommend the city council approval of the proposed ordinance ordinance amendments for regulation of cannabis and have businesses as amended or recommended uh by the Planning Commission and written by staff okay I'll move to recommend City counc Council approval of the proposed ordinance and I don't see the rest of it there whatever it was with what we changed with changes to MX2 MX2 I'll second that okay all in favor I motion carries we we do have another item uh on the agenda this evening it it will be shorter than this so oh is it the zoning code update I know we've got about 10 minutes 15 minutes here so um I will pull this up and be brief one moment to get that pulled up for you I'll have to shave a minute off as I pull this up so okay so it's up on the screen now uh this is discussing some U zoning ordinance amendments that have been in in the background in progress for some time and we wanted to provide an update to you um on this whole process and so um the city has applied for the livable communities act policy development Grant this is a grant that allows for cities to use those funds in order to improve their zoning ordinance which is great uh the background for this is that the city did complete a uh commercial small area study for the 7th Avenue in Hastings Avenue corridors the top of the list on the right side of the uh uh from that plan the top of the list for City initiatives was the zoning code update there are a number of reasons this was a top objective um some of them have been things we've discussed in the past where the code is a little bit um confusing in some areas the performance standards for example like for building facades and things like that um are tough for developers to work with because they don't really contemplate like modern um building materials and and types of uses that are allowed in the city so there are number of reasons that city um went for that policy grant that Grant was uh is summarized on the screen the funding allows participating communities to adopt Zing ordinance amendments like I've said the city got $20,000 from that Grant so that would be um used to cover part of the cost of doing the work to update the city's ordinance ordinance amendments are there are three primary goals one is to do process amend M ments or sorry improvements process improvements to the city's ordinance so these are things like updating the Pud process in the city's ordinance to make sure that works is is as a tool for the community we've talked to the City attorney there's some issues with how I have with how it's currently written that we'll be able to really iron out very quickly there are um other approval processes in the in the city's ordinance that we'll want to revisit as well um the second primary objective is design and performance standards so like I said um we've got design standards for the R2 District which is a multi it allows for some multif family projects uh we've got design standards that just don't work for those types of buildings and so we need to create some standards that work better that uh the city can set good expectations for development and then development will have to achieve that uh it will also provide us an opportunity to revisit things like our um building standards for commercial developments as well as Landscaping requirements in the city lastly uh just the structure of the city's ordinance it's it seems like it's a little bit past due to consolidate some of the requirements in the ordinance to um make things a little easier for everyone to figure out how to find in the code um streamline processes where we can uh reduce you know duplicative sections and those types of things to really make this or um feel like it it makes a little bit more sense you can find what you're looking for ETC and lastly we also have to Define um land uses that we permit so as we adopted an or or we're looking at adopting an ordinance for cannabis businesses we had to create definitions for what those businesses meant and so we should do that for the rest of the uses in the code as well so those are all the things that we look to accomplish through that process we would also be making Associated zoning map changes that are overdue uh some of these changes would be in basically to make our comp plan and zoning map um the same they're not in all cases in the city and so we need to make sure that we're having those um maps in coordination or um consistent with each other so you'll you'll notice some differences uh in ordinance amendments that we'll put forward along sth Avenue and there are a couple of other properties along the Hastings Avenue Corridor that we will also look to change the zoning designation for those to make sure that they make sense so that's kind of a high Lev overview of this all the things we're looking to accomplish um so we've gotten some counil direction in order to get the direction we needed to move forward with this we're at the stage now where we're U going to be looking at these things in the new year and really coming forward with a plan um to attack all of these different objectives so the the first thing that we'll do is do those zoning map amendments uh because that will inform if there are issues through that process we can fix some of the code stuff after we adopt those changes so that's why that would come first we would adopt those changes and then work on the zoning ordinance next I put together a Gant chart it's called it really just kind of shows our project schedule on the screen um this is just like a common a common uh thing that we look at in our industry but really just the end the end date is June or sorry May in order to have something adopted we could do something sooner uh this this is kind of a tentative schedule of course but just an idea of all the different tasks and things that will be going on at the same time so with that I can certainly take your questions here's a schedule that's a little bit more um maybe easy to to read here so looking at starting in January in Earnest with some of these changes coming in front of you and ending in May of next year or April uh if the timeline permits there are some discussion questions we can get into if you would like but that is what I have prepared for you um I do I do want to say that we will expect to have an technical advisory committee that helps with this process which would include a couple members from the Planning Commission uh so at least probably two members of the Planning Commission would be nice to have um this isn't a a huge time commitment it would be likely one maybe two meetings in order to help staff really kind of make sure this is feeling good before it's brought for formally in front of the Planning Commission and city council for review so we are looking potentially for for folks to help out with that um and then everyone will be able to have input of course throughout the whole process for the amendment so that's what I have prepared for you now we're looking at a joint Workshop in the New Year between the Planning Commission and the city council to also help make sure that everyone's aligned on what we're working on moving forward on this project and others so that's what I've got for you awesome okay thank you welcome okay does anybody have any questions for them no who wants to step up and be one of the two we have you can volunteer that you don't have to figure it out now I I did want to put that on your radar said they would do it the here although although it pays you let us know when you need to have that answered by I will be all of February so I don't know if that would make a difference or not so we haven't scheduled the meetings yet for the the the joint the sorry the technical team here but we we will have that joint Workshop in January where it will be good to have folks attend and we would like at that point probably to have that team figured out cool okay thank you all right if there is nothing else we will adjourn the meeting at 6:24 or 3 a motion to just been a motion second all in favor I all meeting is adjourned e e e e