Parking concerns remain for proposed medical marijuana site in Petoskey

PETOSKEY — Parking issues remain a primary concern as Petoskey officials continue to review the plans for a second medical marijuana facility within city limits.

Acme Alternative Health is looking to build a 1,030-square-foot provisioning center at 1111 Charlevoix Ave., a former gas station east of the county fairgrounds. As of last month, planning commission members were not ready to grant a special condition use permit to the developers, the primary prerequisite needed to begin construction.

The site, a former Blarney Castle gas station still owned by the company, presents a number of challenges for a proposed development, with two easements on either side of the property that limit the area a new project can work within. So far, that has left relatively few ideal arrangements for some of the requirements.

“There were some questions related to parking due to two easements on either side of the proposed building that go along with the plan,” city manager Rob Straebel said at a city council meeting this week. “More discussion will continue with the planning commission in February.”

The most recent public site plans place the parking lot across the driveway from the building, meaning visitors would have to walk across to enter the building. In a written review of those plans, city planner Amy Tweeten suggested that a preferable arrangement would be to move the building over and place the parking spaces adjacent to the building, but that would require that the building extend onto preexisting easements that are off limits without approval from the neighboring site owner.

Tweeten suggested that, if the parking area can’t be moved, the owner should at least place a crosswalk between the building and the parking area.

Planning commission members decided more work needed to be done, and that the documents submitted so far do not meet requirements to their satisfaction.

“I do think there’s a serious safety issue with the parking as it’s designed now, especially because it’s so close to the front drive — any cars pulling in wouldn’t have time to react,” planning commissioner Cynthia Robson said at the January planning commission meeting.

The next meeting will occur Feb. 18.

Last year, the city had 16 applicants vying for the three available marijuana provisioning center permits allotted under Petoskey’s 2018 marijuana ordinance. Among other zoning restrictions, the chosen sites cannot be any closer than 500 feet from one another.

Petoskey established a queue among those sites by ranking them based on a raffle drawing. The first chosen site — Ocean Capital at 215 W. Mitchell St. — had its special condition use permit approved at the end of October. The Acme Alternative Health site was not the next applicant chosen in the drawing, but actually ended up halfway down the list at spot nine. However, a vast number of the other applicants had their eyes on locations clumped within the same few blocks of the Mitchell Street corridor, and were knocked out of the running once the Ocean Capital plan moved forward.

Acme Alternative Health also uses the title Interlochen Alternative Health for its existing dispensary, and has used the title Petoskey Alternative Health at earlier points in the city permitting process. The company is owned by Stephen Ezell and his family, based in the Traverse City area.

“I think we’re just going to have to continue the discussion at the next meeting, and we look forward to that,” said Dusty Christensen, from Mansfield Land Use Consultants, who represented Ezell at the meeting.