HADLEY — Local cultivators and retailers of adult-use marijuana will have a series of rules they will be required to follow after annual Town Meeting overwhelmingly approved a new zoning bylaw Thursday.
Despite concerns from a handful of residents that the bylaw will limit the crops farmers can grow in their own fields, the Planning Board-crafted bylaw, with significant input from residents in North Hadley, was adopted by 190 votes to 18.
Voters also approved, with no discussion, a $17.45 million operating budget, an increase of just over 6 percent compared to the current year, with the most significant addition being a new human resources position, and a series of Department of public works-related spending, totaling $265,000, that will be the subject of a Proposition 2½ debt-exclusion override vote in June.
That spending includes $100,000 to clean and repair drainage ditches, which DPW Superintendent Chris Okafor said is a “down payment for a multi-year program”; $75,000 to purchase a skid steer loader; $30,000 to buy a hot box that will hold hot asphalt to fill potholes; and $60,000 for a mini-excavator.
Planning Board Chairman James Maksimoski said the marijuana bylaw mandates that all commercial growing be done indoors, inside structures that are dark to the sky, and that the total growing area be limited in size to 5,000 square feet per farmer.
The idea is to start small and regulate the new industry, and perhaps return to revise the bylaw to allow bigger growers and open growing, Maksimoski said.
Ken Carter of Gooseberry Lane said he worries about a “Wild West” situation without a bylaw. “All we’re asking is you give us the time to figure this out,” Carter said.
Daniel Dudkiewicz of Hockanum Road, though, said the bylaw is set up to promote corporate interests, rather than allowing small farmers to be part of the burgeoning business.
An amendment offered by Stephen Herbert of Shattuck Road to allow more substantial growing indoors was rejected by voters.
Residents agreed to use $210,000 in Community Preservation Act money to help Kestrel Land Trust put the Szala Farm property, 170 acres between Comins and Shattuck roads, in the state’s Agricultural Preservation Restriction program.
“This is a piece of property the town has been looking at and trying to acquire for years,” said Conservation Commission Chairwoman Paulette Kuzdeba.
Another $83,091 went toward similar preservation of the 38-acre Niedbala Farm on East Street.
Aside from the marijuana bylaw, the article that generated the most discussion was about whether to seek legislative approval to remove protection, under Article 97 of the state Constitution, for the ballfield on River Drive next to the North Hadley Village Hall. That is a building the town has been trying to sell since the fall Town Meeting in 2014 authorized putting it on the market.
Select Board member David J. Fill II said that sale is on hold until the ballfield’s protection ends, and Chairman Christian Stanley noted the town would have to invest money into renovating or tearing down the building if no buyer is found.
But residents by majority vote rejected removing the protection from the land. Ginger Goldsbury of River Drive said the ballfield is the only green space in the neighborhood, “Once it’s gone it’s gone, and it won’t come back again,” Goldsbury said,
William Dwyer of River Drive said that the ballfield is valuable because it borders Lake Warner, and suggested the best outcome might be demolishing the town-owned building, rather than selling it. “You won’t get a one-acre lakefront parcel back once it’s sold,” Dwyer said.
Other articles that passed included using an additional $185,000 from the CPA account for renovating Hopkins Academy’s playing fields, a project that Superintendent Anne McKenzie said could go out to bid this summer, and $32,000 from CPA that will go to the third phase of overhauling Zatyrka Park.
Voters also narrowly supported the lone petition article on the warrant, which endorses the effort in the state Legislature to examine whether the state flag’s imagery, including the depiction of an American Indian, should be changed.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.
