Ferguson worried pot plants will push out cash crops

A burgeoning pot-growing industry stands to steamroll prime farmland in Hamilton if the city isn’t prepared to fend it off, Coun. Lloyd Ferguson warns.

"This scares the living daylights out of me," the Ancaster councillor said during Tuesday’s planning committee meeting.

Ferguson, who’s not on the committee, attended to ask planning staff whether the official plan and zoning regulations barred such entrepreneurs from setting up operations larger than 2,000 square metres. He said one applicant wants to set up a 200-acre facility in concrete bunkers on Greenbelt land, undercutting the purpose of the agricultural and wooded buffer zone. Ferguson said "there’s a clear difference" between growing cucumbers and cultivating marijuana for sale.

Chief planner Steve Robichaud said staff has no intention to amend the bylaw to allow medical or recreational marijuana "megafacilities" to set up large operations on agricultural land.

However, "internally," the planning division is trying to "better understand" how expected regulations from upper levels of government regarding marijuana production will affect municipal policy.

Coun. Brenda Johnson said large grow-ops suck electricity, dry up wells and pose security concerns in the countryside while Coun. Judi Partridge called them "industrial operations" that should be in urban areas.

Coun. Matthew Green agreed the potential for Hamilton’s rural tracts to be overrun by big pot farms looms, but he said the city should also try to snag its piece of the industry’s economic benefits.

"This is going to be huge and this is going to be the largest cash crop the city has seen for a very long time."