The Ypsilanti Township board approved the first reading Wednesday of a zoning ordinance that will regulate where medical marijuana dispensaries and nurseries operate in the township.

The board discussed how to best zone the dispensaries at a previous meeting with Joe Lawson, the township planning and development coordinator, and assistant township attorney Angela King, who drafted the ordinance.

The board discussed how to best zone the dispensaries at a previous meeting with Joe Lawson, the township planning and development coordinator, and assistant township attorney Angela King, who drafted the ordinance.

The discussion centered on how to keep dispensaries easily accessible to ailing patients while finding a place most suitable to the township. 

Ypsilanti Township Supervisor Brenda Stumbo said zoning the dispensaries as industrial-commercial was too restrictive, but the board didn't feel they should be in commercial zones either. She also said the board wants to distance any kind of operation from residential zones.

“I think the first time around there was a lot of questions and it was regarding the zoning district,” she said Wednesday. “They should be accessible to the people who need them … one of the biggest issues to me is not to have dispensaries in or near residential developments and I think we achieved that with the first reading."

Lawson previously said he thought the dispensaries and nurseries should be located in the light industrial areas primarily in the eastern third of the township along Rawsonville Road with other commercial nurseries. Ultimately, that was the logic that drove where to zone them in the new ordinance.

King defined nurseries in the township’s ordinance as places where a marijuana plant is grown, processed and packaged. A dispensary is where a patient can come pick up the drug from the caregiver. Both are likely to remain under the same roof.

Dispensaries and nurseries in the township are also subjected to several special conditions. They must remain 1,000 feet away from schools, child-care facilities, residential zones, public libraries or places of worship.

They are also limited to 72 plants, which is the maximum the Michigan Marijuana Act allows one caregiver to grow for up to five patients and him or herself. The township included that provision to prevent larger cooperatives with caregivers from operating under one roof.

The township is also prohibiting smoking at the dispensary to curb the development of a social atmosphere.

Stumbo said she is pleased with the direction the ordinance is headed, but said there is another reading following the next planning commission meeting, so there could be some tweaks.

“We want to respect the law that the people approved and we want to help people who have the need for medical marijuana,” Stumbo said. “They have to be accessible and they have to be regulated, and I think that’s what we’re doing.”

Tom Perkins is a freelance writer for AnnArbor.com. Reach the news desk at news@annarbor.com or 734-623-2530.