What started as a group of about half a dozen North Douglas residents unhappy about the city\u2019s zoning rules for future marijuana establishments has grown into a movement 100-people strong.<\/p>\n
The group has captured the attention of city officials, but it\u2019s too early to tell whether its call to reverse the Assembly\u2019s zoning decision \u2014 allowing limited commercial marijuana cultivation in D1 and Rural Reserve zones \u2014 will be answered.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think what you\u2019ve got here is an upwelling of voice that says we don\u2019t want you to change the zoning that was put in place to protect the integrity of residential zones,\u201d said Kaja Brix.<\/p>\n
Brix is a member of the original group, and her organizing efforts have helped attract new supporters, but she was not alone.<\/p>\n
On Feb. 21, Brix and several of her North Douglas neighbors started circulating a petition calling for the Assembly to amend the city\u2019s Table of Permissible Uses, which dictates how people can use their property in each zone. Whether a homeowner wants to open a daycare business or, in this case, a marijuana farm, the desired use must be compatible with the TPU.<\/p>\n
Back in November, the Assembly decided that it would allow limited commercial grow operations in D1 and Rural Reserve Zones so long as they are outside the urban service boundary.<\/p>\n
The Nov. 9 decision allowed for small marijuana farms of less than 500 square feet \u2014 a little larger than a single-car garage \u2014 to operate in these zones, both of which also allow for residential use and contain neighborhoods. In order to operate, however, any such business would need a conditional use permit.<\/p>\n
\u201cGiven our limited land base and our high land costs in Juneau, to make this possible allowing cultivation outside the urban service boundary is probably the wisest course,\u201d said Assembly member Jesse Kiehl, who also chaired the city\u2019s Marijuana Policy Committee, at the Assembly\u2019s Nov. 9 meeting.<\/p>\n
Kiehl wasn\u2019t alone in his thinking, but he wasn\u2019t unopposed either. Mayor Mary Becker, then just an Assembly member, moved to prohibit commercial grow operations from all D1 zones. Her motion failed with a 4\u20134 vote, and the matter fell out of the public eye until the first conditional use permit for a limited grow operation on North Douglas came up for public hearing last month.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe agree that the residential use and the industrial use do not mix,\u201d North Douglas resident Merry Ellefson told the Empire in a phone interview Monday afternoon. Brix and Fred Hiltner, another North Douglas resident who helped start the petition, were also on the line.<\/p>\n
This was not the first time Ellefson, Brix and Hiltner have spoken out against allowing commercial cultivation in D1 zones. Along with a handful of others, they have testified at every Assembly and Planning Commission meeting since Feb. 8.<\/p>\n
Thanks to their petition \u2014 which now has 100 signatures, spreading only by \u201cword of email,\u201d according to Ellefson \u2014 the group is throwing around a little more weight, enough to bring the zoning discussion back to the Assembly chambers.<\/p>\n
Kiehl, chair of the Assembly Committee of the Whole, has put the issue on the agenda for the next Assembly work session set for March 14.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s good government to shut down the discussion, so we\u2019ll talk about it March 14,\u201d Kiehl said via phone Monday, adding that he doesn\u2019t know what will come of the discussion. \u201cWe have two new members of the Assembly who didn\u2019t have the opportunity to participate in the first zoning decision, and we\u2019ve had folks who, even though the Assembly held more public hearings than usual, didn\u2019t know this was happening.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brix, Ellefson and Hiltner have already presented their petition to the Assembly, but they have since added a few new names to it, including Joe Orsi, who lives beyond the urban service boundary just past the Auke Recreation Area.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy concern is that commercial cultivation of marijuana isn\u2019t compatible with residential areas, even though they\u2019re low-density residential areas,\u201d Orsi said in a phone interview Monday.<\/p>\n
Orsi operates his business, an organic produce farm, out of his yard. He grows produce ranging \u201cfrom apples to zucchinis\u201d under a high-tunnel greenhouse a little larger 1,000 square feet. He then sells his crops to the Juneau Farmers\u2019 Market.<\/p>\n
But he is worried that if commercial marijuana cultivation is allowed in residential zones, like the one in which he lives, people might think that he is growing more than just produce in his greenhouse.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t like the idea of people looking for something that\u2019s not there,\u201d he said, explaining that his greenhouse could make him the target of people looking for marijuana.<\/p>\n
Orsi is not the only person from outside of North Douglas to sign the petition. Only 14 of the 100 signatures on the petition are North Douglas residents. However, about 60 of the signatures come from people living outside the urban service boundary. The petition represents 73 different households. Anybody looking to sign the petition can do so by sending an email to JuneauD1petition@gmail.com.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes in the last moment, the best ideas come forward, and the more ideas the better,\u201d Ellefson said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
What started as a group of about half a dozen North Douglas residents unhappy about the city\u2019s zoning rules for future marijuana establishments has grown into a movement 100-people strong. The group has captured the attention of city officials, but it\u2019s too early to tell whether its call to reverse the Assembly\u2019s zoning decision \u2014 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[75],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-8645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8645\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8645"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=8645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}