Planning Commission Minutes 2018 12 13

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Planning Commission Meeting Minutes December 13, 2018 Page 2 of 21 Director Zuccaro stated that proper notice was made for the hearing and proceeded to present the proposed amendments. Two titles in the Louisville Municipal Code (LMC) deal with marijuana regulation — Licensing (Title 5) and Zoning (Title 17.) Current code restrictions include limitations on the size and location of retail and medical marijuana establishments, a limit of four businesses within city limits, geographic buffers around certain uses, and a ban on cultivation (manufacturing and testing is allowed.) Staff had three discussions with City Council in 2018 on what to change in the Code. Council directed staff to explore an option to align marijuana regulations with current liquor store regulations. The proposal from Council is as follows: • Eliminate 4-store limit. • Add 1,500 feet spacing between stores. • Align medical and retail regulations for testing and manufacturing and expand to Industrial District. • Increase store size to 5,000. • Decrease buffer from 1,320 to 500 feet and only from primary school and higher. • Allow cultivation in Industrial District with odor and ventilation requirements. Zuccaro responded to the question in Commissioner Hsu's email asking for the maximum number of stores under the proposed ordinance. Staff found that the max number would be about 12 stores. Zuccaro explained that the biggest concern staff found when talking to other cities was odor regulation. The City would have to figure out how to enforce odor regulations. The proposal would allow cultivation in Industrial Districts and would include a ventilation requirement to ensure that there would be no odor from the building. Odor would also be address in the permit review and licensing processes. Brauneis asked how federal regulation would impact city regulations. Zuccaro replied that marijuana was not legal under federal law, so there were no applicable federal regulations. As a controlled substance, some cities like Denver have chosen to apply a 1,000-foot buffer to align with the Controlled Substances Act, but that was not legally mandated. Rice asked why there were only two stores now, even when four were allowed. He also asked if staff thought there would be additional demand to open new stores under the new regulations. Zuccaro replied that there were only two stores currently because of the buffers and because sometimes landlords do not rent to marijuana businesses. He added that staff gets inquiries often and the new proposals had increased interest in opening new stores. Rice asked if the point of the proposal was to use the buffers as the limiting agents.