Growing pains: New Tecumseth ponders interim control bylaw for cannabis operations

New Tecumseth may be putting a temporary freeze on applications related to the production and cultivation of cannabis in order to study the issue further and come up with a set of land-use policies.

At the Sept. 28 committee of the whole meeting, council voted in favour of passing an interim control bylaw for cannabis operations, but the decision still needs to be ratified at a special meeting set to take place Oct. 1.

Council voted on the recommendation after discussing the issue in camera.

Prior to the closed-door discussion, council heard from longtime area resident Mark Manning, who talked about his plan to build a small greenhouse on his 16-acre property to grow recreational cannabis.

He said the cost of going through the site-specific bylaw process to make it legal would be too expensive, noting it would cost around $20,000 in order to prepare the studies for the town.

“Throwing roadblocks in front of community members doesn’t help anyone,” he said.

Director of planning Bruce Hoppe said the intention of the interim bylaw is to “hive off” the cannabis issue from the zoning bylaw review that is currently underway and about three quarters of the way from being completed.

He said the cannabis review would take about a year to complete and the public would have an opportunity to provide input. Once the study is done it would come back to council with recommendations.

Ward boundary review a no go

The majority of council is not interested in revisiting a contentious issue that came up during the previous term of council.

A motion requested by Deputy Mayor Richard Norcross to have the town hire an outside consultant to conduct a review of the town’s ward system and reduce the number of councillors to an odd number was turned down in a 5-4 vote.

The last review, conducted in 2016/2017, was done by council and staff, not an outside consultant as some had requested. The 10-member council did not reduce the number of seats,

The review was conducted after residents launched a petition requesting the wards be evened out to accommodate growth, and for council to be reduced to an odd number of councillors to eliminate the possibility of tied votes.