MILAN, MI – The marijuana industry may soon have a home in Milan.
The city on Washtenaw County’s southern border became the latest to open its arms to cannabis businesses on Monday, Nov. 28, when city leaders voted unanimously to give their final stamp of approval to rules governing where and how dispensaries and other establishments can locate within city limits.
But for officials, it’s not just about having those local retailers, but the redevelopment potential they bring and the promise of an accompanying tax windfall.
“I don’t think anyone up on that council did all this hard work just to make sure there was a marijuana dispensary in the town of Milan,” said Milan City Council Member Jesse Nie, a member of a city subcommittee that spent months researching the industry.
“We’re doing this because (of) the money that is there to go back into the community and go back into our funds so that we can help repair things like our water treatment plant, our roads, our infrastructure, things like that.”
The local regulations passed on a second reading on Monday that allows for a maximum of two dispensaries within city limits, restricted primarily to commercial areas near the city’s U.S. 23 exits and the Milan Plaza on its western edge. The retailers, which could be combined medical and recreational marijuana centers, could also seek to locate downtown, but only as part of a mixed-use development, according to the ordinances and city zoning map.
Read more: Milan leaders give first OK to rules allowing 2 marijuana dispensaries in the city
Aside from marijuana storefronts, a handful of growing operations, processors and marijuana transporter and safety compliance facilities will also be permitted in industrially zoned areas of the city. All will have to go through a conditional use process involving review from the city planning commission and stick to buffering rules between schools, child care centers and some parks.
Milan officials opted to put a cap on the total number of local permits for each type of business and plan to run a competitive review process if they receive more interest than the quotas accommodate.
City Administrator Jim Lancaster said Monday he and his team were still developing the application, and he expected Milan would be ready to kick off a 30-day application window in early January. The local marijuana regulations require cannabis entrepreneurs to provide detailed business plans and report their experience in the industry, as well as criminal and financial histories, among other items.
The scoring rubrics that will be used to pick the permit holders incentivize businesses that want to develop vacant or blighted property, as well as those offering mixed-use proposals with other commercial or residential space.
Milan Mayor Ed Kolar and Council Member Mary Kerkes deserve credit for working with Lancaster and the city’s lawyers to include those measures, Nie said.
“We want to make sure that we’re working with companies and bringing in companies that not only are going to benefit some of the community that would use this product but would greatly benefit all of us with the tax roll and making sure we have extra funds to be able to put towards bigger projects,” he added.
If the experience of other local marijuana-friendly communities is any guide, Milan could be poised to add to city coffers via their share of taxes on marijuana sales and the tax benefits of new businesses in the city. The rules make Milan, hugging U.S. 23, one of the closest municipalities to Ohio, where recreational cannabis isn’t yet legal, to allow marijuana businesses.
The city had the benefit of not jumping into the complex and changing world of marijuana regulations immediately, Nie said, and officials worked with a legal team with several years of experience under their belts “to really craft something that would benefit the city and not open the floodgates, and all of the sudden we’re spending our valuable time trying to fix a system that we tried to push through just because we wanted it right away.”
That’s not to say implementing the rules won’t potentially come with challenges.
Nearby Saline also took its time before opening the door to the marijuana industry. But this year, officials there abruptly hit pause on taking marijuana business permit applications just weeks after they started, citing concerns that a rush of cannabis development would lead to oversaturation and taking time to tinker with their rules. Unlike Milan, Saline instituted no cap on the number of businesses, instead limiting the number through zoning restrictions.
Ypsilanti, meanwhile, this year eliminated a cap it had in place after a lawsuit challenged its review process, and officials there are also grappling with how to control the industry.
Milan officials took their time, conducting site visits and consulting with other communities before arriving at their local regulations, Nie said, adding he hopes they will stand as a model for other communities.
Though yet untested, the rules seem to be well-received. “(There’s) nothing but positivity right now from the community, which is good to hear,” Nie said.
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