Proposed marijuana business heading for public hearing

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Plans for a proposed marijuana-processing business on Marrowstone Island are heading to a public hearing instead of being approved outright. A hearing date has not yet been set.

“We’ve been compiling all the comments we’ve received,” said David Greetham, planning manager for Jefferson County Department of Community Development. “We want the community’s input.”

A date and time of the upcoming public hearing, which would be in front of a hearings examiner and not Jefferson County commissioners or the county’s planning commission, have yet to be determined.

Greetham pledged that all of those who submitted comments with contact information would be notified about those details once they’re determined.

“This would go before the land use hearing examiner and definitely not the planning commission,” Greetham said.

Kevin Coker, who is on the county’s planning commission, is listed as a representative for the project applicant, Austin Smith, who owns Olympus Gardens.

Greetham believes the earliest possible date for such a public hearing would be in June, but he emphasized that even this estimate has not yet been set in stone.

Residents of Marrowstone Island voiced their displeasure at the prospect of a marijuana-processing business setting up shop in their community to the Jefferson County commissioners May 1. Many of them cited the size of the project, expressing their concerns that it is not in keeping with the size of the island.

Smith is seeking a Type 3 permit for the production of, and a cottage-industry permit for the processing of, recreational marijuana. The production and processing would be take place within a 10,080-square-foot, 23-foot-tall building at 9272 Flagler Road, about a mile from Fort Flagler State Park. The land is zoned rural residential.

As of May 1, assistant planner Patrick Hopper said of the roughly 50 comments he had received, most had been opposed to the marijuana processor, with a number of people saying it is too large of a project for Marrowstone. Another concern voiced was the lack of time for public comment.