Coming soon to the Hy-Grade Industrial park - a legal grow-op?
    As area municipalities, including Drumheller, review and overhaul their bylaws, one of the bylaw revisions is proposed land use for licensed medical marijuana facilities.
    Town of Drumheller Community Services Director Paul Salvatore said Drumheller’s by-law proposal would have the commercial facilities situated in medium industrial or restricted industrial districts.
    A Town of Drumheller map shows the bulk of the industrial area off Railway Avenue that makes up the Hy-Grade and Premier industrial parks zoned as medium industrial.
    Drumheller’s Municipal Planning Commission met January 22 to discuss a number of bylaw revisions, including the addition of licensed medical marijuana facilities.
    Salvatore said Palliser Regional Municipal Services conducted a review for the Town of Drumheller on how the zoning was handled in other municipalities,
    The revisions are being prompted in part by inquiries into medical grow-ops throughout different municipalities.
    “In the last few years we’ve had a couple of enquiries, but  this is true for almost every municipality in Alberta,” said Salvatore. He said the inquiries spurred the Town to get a jump on the zoning issue.
    “I think it was just recognizing that because that’s a federally regulated industry, and there was no reference to it in our land use bylaw. That, if we put it in there, if ever there was a situation where someone came to us with that type of thought in mind, then we would at least have thought through and done the planning work to designate where that could be located.”
    Kneehill, Wheatland and Starland counties are all dealing with the possibility of this industry sprouting in each of their areas.
    Wheatland County CAO Alan Parkin said the county amended their bylaw in spring 2014 to provide land use for the licensed medical marijuana facilities. In Wheatland’s case, they’ve designated West Highway 1 Area Structure Plan lands as locations for any facilities. Parkin estimates there are currently well under 20 medical marijuana producers in Wheatland that were licensed under the previous federal legislation allowing for personal production of medical marijuana.
    As of April 1, 2014, Health Canada has not been issuing the medical marijuana growing licenses to individual Canadians. And if someone holding a valid personal growing license moves, their license cannot move with them and becomes invalid.
    Kneehill County Reeve Bob Long said the county received one application for a medical grow-op in late spring/early summer 2014.
    “The application was incomplete from the Federal perspective, so it was turned down.”
    Long said Kneehill is currently amending the land usebylaw, which will include provision for locating the licensed medical marijuana facilities. He said the county’s in early days yet, having just finished a draft of the land use bylaw amendments, which then must goes out for  public consultation. He said he expects the county will have to address the issue.
    Both Long and Salvatore note the stringent requirements of Health Canada, including the high level of security, for those looking to open a commercial licensed medical marijuana facility.
    Reeve Barrie Hoover of Starland County said the county currently doesn’t have any of the facilities.
    He said the county is changing its land use bylaws and the issue is addressed in there, with the Palliser Regional Municipal Services working to finish the bylaw revisions and send them out for public consultation.
    Starland CAO Ross Rawlusyk said under the county’s proposed bylaw, land use for the medical grow-ops would be in a proposed Agricultural Intensive district, but only limited property currently being used for intensive agricultural operations would be zoned in that district.
    Rawlusyk said that makes it likely any new application, such as one for commerical medical marijuana growing, would requiry a pulic hearing to reclassify the appropriate district.
   He adds, to date, Starland County has had no interest in the commercial medical grow-op applications.
   People who had licenses to grow their own medical marijuana as of March 21, 2014 can continue to grow because of a court injunction issued by the Federal Court.
    The injunction was issued pending a constitutional challenge to Health Canada’s decision to eliminate personal medical marijuana growing and force users to get their supply from licensed commercial producers. The matter is still before the courts.
    There are an estimated 40,000 holders of personal medical marijuana production licenses currently in Canada.