The Maple Valley Planning Commission voted to not recommend the proposed ordinance to ban collective gardens at its June 6 meeting.
The commission voted 4-3 after a vote to support recommending the ordinance failed, according to planning commission member Ryan Ryals.
Brennan Taylor, the chairman for the Planning Commission, stated in a telephone interview this vote merely means that the commission is against the proposed ban.
“The Planning Commission’s choices were to approve that draft recommendation or not approve,” he said. “And so that’s the option to not approve that doesn’t necessarily mean allow it, because to allow it has implications that go beyond what the focus of the meeting was.”
The vote, he said, does not imply that the commission is recommending an approval for collective garden zoning.
“If you’re going to allow collective gardens you’re going to have to zone for those facilities and currently in city code it’s not there,” Taylor said.
The Maple Valley City Council voted at its May 16 meeting to allow city staff to write a proposal for the ordinance. Numerous city officials have stated the need for a ban due to conflict between state and federal law.
Taylor said it’s the same reason he voted to approve recommending the ordinance, even though he believes medical marijuana should be reclassified to a Schedule II drug.
“It would certainly make it easier if they recognized the benefits it has on a federal law,” he said. “If federal law would change it would be simpler.”
Taylor stated further that even if the commission had voted to approve the draft he intended to insert a sentence that would advise the council to “keep an open mind in the event that the state and federal government resolve the conflict.”
“It is clearly an important issue and a lot of passion and important potentially medical benefit that this drug provides,” he said. “I didn’t want to let that go without being said.”
Ryals wrote in an email interview that he voted against a recommendation for the ordinance because he felt like there were other options to consider.
During the meeting, Ryals said, he offered to work for the city for $1 a year to sign and issue any permits pertaining to collective gardens in order to protect the other city officials from legal risks.
“I think the state legislature made it clear that they intended for collective gardens to exist, and that cities should not outright prohibit them,” he wrote. “Fearing federal prosecutions of state officials, Governor Gregoire vetoed parts of the law that confused city governments on zoning issues, but we have several tools available to us besides an outright prohibition.”
Community Development Director Ty Peterson said in a telephone interview the City Council has several options available.
One would be to go along with the Planning Commission’s recommendation and choose not to ban collective gardens, or the council could ignore the recommendation and pass the ordinance.
If the council chose not to, however, then it could either approve zoning for collective gardens, or simply not pass any ordinance at all.
Peterson stated that aside from the conflict between state and federal law, a regulatory ordinance of some kind is necessary to avoid potential disputes in the future over zoning definitions.
“If you fail to regulate (collective gardens) at all you’re suggesting that’s a use that could occur anywhere,” he said. “There’s nothing in our code called a collective garden. We don’t define it. There’s nothing in our code that defines sandwich shop (either), but we decided it’s just a restaurant. So the question is: Does a medical cannabis collective garden just fall under a medical clinic or some other similar use like a pharmacy? That’s a decision we haven’t arrived at. The problem is failure to regulate it at all…. I guess my concern is that there could be a lot of unintended consequences.”
The Planning Commission’s recommendations will be provided to the City Council at the June 11 meeting.
The soonest the council would vote on the ordinance would be June 25.
