Houston evaluates marijuana zoning options

HOUSTON — Marijuana supporters and opponents turned out for a standing-room only Houston City Council meeting introducing two zoning ordinances for marijuana businesses in the city.

Council members took no vote on the issue, and said any zoning regulations would likely require more than one public hearing and possibly an open forum on the matter.

Zoning regulations introduced at Tuesday’s meeting would prohibit marijuana social clubs in all of the city’s 11 land-use districts. Some cultivation and testing facilities would be allowed in residential-agricultural districts within city limits. Retail stores — with on-site consumption prohibited — would be confined to the city’s commercial districts. Marijuana product manufacturing would be allowed in industrial districts. Retail stores would have a mandatory 100-foot setback from the property line, and a 25-foot vegetative buffer, according to the draft rules.

City zoning maps show the city’s commercial zoning is concentrated along the Parks Highway and the Big Lake Road intersection, though a single parcel zoned commercial located at the intersection of Kenlar Road and Big Lake Road is owned by the Big Lake Baptist Church, according to city zoning maps. The largest and most densely populated areas of the city are zoned single-family residential. Limited cultivation facilities would be allowed there under the proposed zoning rules.

Public comment at the meeting largely focused on the potential upside of commercial marijuana and the fact that Houston is the only remaining city in the borough where the marijuana business advocates imagined it could still flourish. Wasilla and Palmer have passed regulations banning commercial sales in their cities.

Bill Fikes is a long-time proponent of commercial marijuana, and said Houston could benefit.

“You guys are the ball game,” he said. “You’re the big dogs now, and I predict that a few years down the road this is going to show some amazing growth to your community.”

Fikes said he thinks Houston should strongly consider allowing some on-site consumption of marijuana products.

“I’d just like you to bear in mind, that if you’re going to provide cannabis to the community and those coming into the community for that purpose, please make sure you provide a place for them to use that cannabis,” he said.

State officials still have not yet determined whether on-site consumption at a retail facility could be allowed.

Marijuana cultivation, sales, and use could become a Mat-Su Borough calling card, said Tony Quse.

“This could be the Napa Valley for marijuana,” he said.

At the same time, Quse admitted that passions about the issue could run high.

“I’m a little bit torqued over because I’m passionate,” he told council members. “I never thought I’d see the day that I wouldn’t be considered a criminal.”

Not all testimony was quite so optimistic.

Chad Rice, a Houston High School teacher, said he would prefer marijuana use be limited to private homes, and he’d prefer the city council focus its efforts on building cross-country trails, among other things.

“Our focus needs to be on promoting health, and if you want to smoke marijuana, you can do it in your home,” he said.

Dalton Feidler, a member of the Volunteer Fire Department, told council members the marijuana grow next door could affect his quality of life.

“Our areas that we live in aren’t fenced off,” he said. “Where we are is very close to the Johnson’s yard, and if there’s a big grow operation in between the two of us that’s growing, that’s going to change how our kids play. The security alone from an operation like that is very important.”

Feidler said he’d prefer if the production and retail aspects of the business could be kept separate.

“I’d like to have the differences between the people making it, selling it, producing it and using it, I’d like all of that being separate and not all being done in the same place and definitely not in my backyard,” he said.

In a brief interview before the meeting, mayor Virgie Thompson said officials could potentially see a large upside to being the only city between Anchorage and Fairbanks with legal retails sales, and acknowledged that a borough ban — voters will decide whether to allow retail sales in the unincorporated areas of the borough, including Big Lake, Willow, Meadow Lakes and Sutton, on Oct. 8. Even so, they’re not rooting for the borough ban to pass, Thompson said.

“It would be nice if it didn’t so we could kind of spread it around,” she said.

The city was better positioned to deal with the upsides and any potential downsides than the borough because of its zoning authority, she said.

The city should use a cautious approach, said councilman Chris Johnson.

“On this issue, for lack of a better analogy, it’s like ‘What About Bob?’” he said. “It’s baby steps. It’s like a poker game. And no good poker player goes all in on their first hand.”

A public hearing on zoning regulations is set for 7 p.m. March 10 at the Houston Fire Station, 13965 Armstrong Road.

Contact reporter Brian O’Connor at 352-2270, brian.oconnor@frontiersman.com, or on Twitter @reporterbriano.