By Brandon T. Bisceglia
The Orange Town Plan & Zoning Commission at its Jan. 3 meeting gave a tentative green light for a cannabis dispensary on the Boston Post Road – provided the applicant complies with a number of stipulations.
Southern Connecticut Wellness & Healing and parent company Green Thumb Industries had been before the commission since the middle of 2022 to get approval to move their existing operation from Milford to the location of a former bank at 175 Boston Post Rd. in Orange.
The town had placed a moratorium on pot dispensaries in 2021, shortly after the state legalized the sale of recreational marijuana. Green Thumb successfully convinced the commission to adopt a narrowly-crafted regulation change that would essentially allow one dispensary in town via special permit, limited to the area along the Boston Post Road where the company would like to relocate.
Once the regulations had been changed, the company had to come back to the TPZC for approval for their specific business. At that point, it met with vociferous opposition from many residents – especially those in the neighborhood. Over several meetings, members of the public spoke out passionately, both for and against the plan.
A group of those who opposed the plan even filed intervening petitions on environmental grounds, arguing that the dispensary would contribute to things like increased air pollution.
By the Jan. 3 meeting, the public hearings had been closed and all that was left was for the TPZC to determine among themselves how to handle it.
They began by dispensing with the interveners’ petitions. TPZC Chair Oscar Parente pointed out that some of these, such as the air quality claims, were outside the commission’s jurisdiction.
“There’s points they raised that we can’t deal with anyway, even if we were so inclined,” he said.
Beyond that, he said, the allegations had not been demonstrated with expert evidence. The commission members unanimously agreed and voted to deny the petitions.
The commission was much more split over the decision to approve Green Thumb’s site plan, though.
Commissioner Kevin Cornell – who had opposed the original regulation to allow a dispensary in town at all – said that he had come around on some of the changes that Green Thumb had made to allay concerns by the neighbors. He particularly noted that closing off an entrance onto the dead-end Lindy Street where many of the opposing residents live and rerouting traffic onto the Boston Post Road was a major concession.
Commissioner Thomas Torrenti, who was one of the two “no” votes, said he was much more concerned that there would not be enough room for cars coming into the facility from the Boston Post Road to queue up without spilling out onto the busy route.
“All I did was simple arithmetic, and the numbers are so whacked out, there’s no logic to it,” he said.
“You may be right,” Parente responded, “but there is a process. The applicant’s traffic engineer put it through the process and drew conclusions. And then our engineer – the one that was working for us – basically reached the same conclusions.”
For Vice Chair Judy Smith, the biggest issue was that closing the Lindy Street exit would lead to a cascade of site plan changes, which she didn’t feel comfortable approving sight-unseen.
Town Attorney Vincent Marino tried to assure Smith that any modifications would stand or fall based on the signoffs of other department heads – as they normally do prior to a site plan approval.
At one point near the end of the meeting, Smith interrupted Marino as he tried to describe a potential way the process with the town engineer would work.
“I would be more comfortable, and I appreciate your advice and guidance, but really the five of us should be discussing this,” Smith said, referring to the five-member commission. She would be the other “no” vote.
Cornell, on the other hand, said that he saw that Green Thumb had conscientiously met all the relevant standards set in town regulations and couldn’t find a defensible reason to deny their application.
“You just list them out and check them out. I hate to sound like a mechanic, but if I get to the end and that rear entrance is closed and I’ve checked all the boxes, I have to say yes.”
Cornell made the motion to approve the site plan that passed. Among other conditions, the decision requires that rear access to Lindy Street be closed, that the relevant department heads approve the modified plans, that the applicant confirm the accuracy of the dimensions of the new plan, that they provide a dumpster enclosure and a maintenance schedule for site drainage.