Millville selectmen approve host agreement with pot growers
MILLVILLE – The selectmen Monday unanimously voted to approve a host community agreement with Blackstone Valley Cultivators for a marijuana cultivation and manufacturing facility on Lincoln Street.
Under the agreement, the town would collect annual community impact fees of up to 3 percent of Blackstone Valley Cultivators’ revenue, which would net the town a minimum of $300,000 a year for five years with the potential of $650,000 by year three. The company has also agreed to donate an additional $10,000 for a community project or educational service of the town’s choosing.
To be licensed by the state, a marijuana establishment must execute a host community agreement with the municipality in which it intends to be located. A host community agreement allows municipalities to essentially set parameters on the operation of a marijuana business and establish an annual impact fee to the town to offset the risks of a marijuana business.
“This is not a panacea to our budget,” Town Administrator Jennifer M. Callahan told the selectmen. “This would be one-time revenue for a period of at least five years, but it would replenish the town’s reserves going forward. Despite all the things that have been going on with the budget and trying to reconcile what has been a 13-year progressive structural deficit, this board had the forethought to think about the next steps for generating revenue.”
The agreement, which is being reviewed by the town’s legal counsel, comes a week after the board met in executive session with company co-owners Lisa J. Cadan of Bristol and Cassandra Heneault of Glocester, who are proposing to operate a marijuana cultivation and manufacturing facility with a potential retail component on privately-owned property on Lincoln Street.
The board also held a separate meeting with Marty’s Fine Wines and Spirits on Buxton Street, which is considering applying for both licenses for retail sales and or cultivation, but is holding off on approving a host community agreement with that business pending more information on its business plan.
Callahan said Blackstone Valley Cultivators, which owns and operates a cultivation and manufacturing facility in Providence called Rhode Island Medical Marijuana Cultivation Company, came to the table with a detailed business plan already in place, adding the business could be up and running quickly pending license approval from the state.
The proposed cultivation and manufacturing facility in Millville would be located at 141 Lincoln St., which is a residential home set back fro the main road that the company is negotiating to purchase . The company’s business offices would be located inside the house and the cultivation and manufacturing operations would be housed in an existing 1,800-square-foot steel building in the back. If approved, the company would eventually construct a third 3,000-square-foot building for manufacturing and storage. The retail part of the business would operate from the home’s basement.
The company would employee six to eight people for the cultivation part of the business and between four and five on the retail end.
The business would be similar to Rhode Island Medical Marijuana Cultivation Company in Providence, a small, family-run, self-funded business in operation for just over a year that provides medical marijuana wholesale to two of the three compassion centers that operate in Rhode Island.
The host community agreement is a major step because it allows the applicant to take the next step and apply for a license from the state and then come back to the town and begin the process of obtaining a special permit from the Planning Board.
In April, Millville town voters approved a new marijuana bylaw and zoning requirements for marijuana retail sales and cultivation businesses. The bylaw encompasses both medical marijuana businesses and recre- ational marijuana businesses, neither of which the town had zoned for prior to the special town meeting.
The bylaw allows all uses - cultivation, medical use dispensaries, product manufacturers, recreational retailers, distribution facilities and product testing facilities - only in the town’s commercial business district and only by special permit.
The bylaw also limits the number of recreational marijuana retailers permitted in town, in accordance with state law.
Millville’s bylaw replaces both the moratoriums on medical marijuana, which expired in 2014, and the temporary moratorium on recreational marijuana that is set to expire on Dec. 31, with new language explaining in detail what is and what isn’t allowed should an applicant choose to set up shop in Millville.