WILMINGTON — Papa’s Garden LLC’s application to grow cannabis indoors and outdoors was found to not meet zoning regulations in the village zone.
On Thursday morning, the Wilmington Cannabis Control Commission voted 5-0 against issuing a license. The commission is made up of the Select Board.
Town Manager Scott Tucker said village zoning allows for a home business, which would essentially allow cannabis grow operations indoors only.
“So the difficulty for everybody was they applied for a mixed use indoor/outdoor grow,” he said in an interview. “So I imagine they’re going to reapply. When we receive that license, we’ll schedule another hearing with the local Cannabis Control Commission and we’ll take up that license at that time.”
Adam Katz and his father Arnold Katz, co-owners of the company, hadn’t decided whether to reapply as of Thursday afternoon.
Tucker said the commission first heard the application in November and only has 60 days to act on a license after the Vermont Cannabis Control Board provides its blessing or else it is approved automatically. In November, Commission Chairman Tom Fitzgerald suggested Papa’s Garden seek permission from the Wilmington Development Review Board (DRB).
Since the project is in the village zone, Tucker said it would likely need a local permit to operate what would be considered a home business. The proposed site is at 49 Lisle Hill Road.
The commission’s meeting Thursday followed a DRB hearing on the project Tuesday. The board has 45 days to issue a decision and there had been none as of Thursday.
Before Thursday’s hearing, Papa’s Garden had withdrawn its application to the DRB then asked to rescind that request.
“Now, it’s in the DRB’s hands,” Tucker said. “They’re taking up the request for reversal into consideration.”
Tucker estimated more than 20 neighbors or concerned citizens attended the DRB hearing, where abutters and the applicants provided testimony. He said Adam Katz sent an email to the zoning administrator and the commission seeking to withdraw both applications, but the commission was not in a position to do so.
“We were going to get denied anyway,” Adam Katz said in an interview. “It seemed like it was the right thing to do.”
Katz noted how neighbors opposed the project.
“I think the town had a lot of interesting items on their list, all their standards,” he added, in reference to the DRB process.
The Vermont Cannabis Control Board (CCB) asks towns if projects will meet zoning regulations.
“The CCB has nothing to do with zoning,” Tucker said. “Zoning is a local piece. So they will approve state licenses then the local cannabis commission gets it and they will review things like does it follow appropriate zoning ordinance, wherever the business is going to be. In this case, it did not based on the mixed use indoor outdoor grow, and so it had to go to the DRB.”
Tucker suggested the process might have been smoother had Papa’s Garden owners gone to the town’s zoning administrator in the beginning.
“In that case,” he said, “I think it would have been a straighter line.”
Katz is unsure about next steps.
“We’re going to see what the deal is,” he said. “We just found out today.”
