Blackstone voters to debate pot, solar articles
BLACKSTONE — Voters at a special town meeting on Feb. 26 will be asked to consider an article that beefs up town zoning bylaws for retail marijuana establishments, and another that proposes new solar energy ordinance restrictions, which some residents hope will put the brakes on new commercial solar photovoltaic facilities in town.
The town meeting begins at 7 p.m. in the Blackstone-Millville Regional High School Molony-Sullivan Auditorium, 175 Lincoln St. d Article 1 of the six-article warrant asks voters to amend zoning bylaws on medical marijuana facilities to address recreational marijuana. The town’s current marijuana r bylaw only regulates medical marijuana facilities.
The focus of the amendment will restrict the location of recreational and adult-use marijuana facilities to commercial and industrial districts within town and establish other d t specific special permit criteria and parameters those businesses must follow, including hours of operation and security measures. The bylaw does not limit the number of retail marijuana facilities that can come into town, only where they can be located.
If the article is approved, it would not affect the two proposals that have already come before the town for host community agreements. Gurpreet Kalra, proprietor of the Family Grocer convenience store on Main Street, has applied for a retail license from the state Cannabis Control Commission to operate a retail dispensary in 1,368-square feet on the second floor of the existing building at 202 Main St. That town is also being eyed by DDM Sales, Inc., which has notified the selectmen of its plan to put an adult-use retail cannabis dispensary in at 1 Lloyd St., the former Bell Liquors building located between the Millerville Men’s Club and Stop & Shop plaza.
Both of those proposals would be grandfathered should the zoning bylaw amendment pass at town meeting.
Article 2 will ask voters to amend the town ordinance on commercial ground-mounted solar photovoltaic facilities. According to the changes proposed, no special permit will be issued for a solar array facility if that facility results in more than 25 percent of the total land area under application for development. In other words, the total land area used for new commercial solar facilities must not exceed 25 percent of the site.
The article is in response to residents’ concerned about the large number of solar project applications proposed in town over the past year. In just the past several months alone, more than a half dozen applications have come before the Planning Board and Conservation Commission for solar projects proposed at 142 Blackstone St., 83 Federal St., 315 Blackstone St., 307 Blackstone St., and Milk Street. Three of those projects have officially been approved, while two are pending.
Several residents have appeared before the Planning Board and other town officials asking that the town revise the current ordinance to mimic the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources’ model zoning bylaw, which strongly discourages locations that result in significant loss of land and natural resources, including farm and forest land, and encourages rooftop siting, as well as locations in industrial and commercial districts, or on vacant, disturbed land.
Agencies like Mass Audubon, the Massachusetts Land Trust Coalition and The Nature Conservancy sent a letter to Massachusetts Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs Matthew Beaton in 2016 asking him to address growing concerns over state incentives for the construction of utility-scale solar electric generating facilities on farmland, protected open space, and forests.
“Over the past two decades our organizations have strongly supported solar energy as integral to meeting our state’s clean energy goals and addressing global climate change,” the letter to Beaton said. “More recently, we have seen acres of ecologically and socially valuable (but comparatively inexpensive) land converted to large ground -mounted solar arrays. Inappropriate siting of solar arrays can create conflicts with the Commonwealth’s established goals, policies and direct funding programs for natural and historic resource protection.”
The four other articles on the warrant will ask voters to appropriate:
• $3,160 to pay a prior year bill to Fuss & O’Neill for study-related work.
• $120,504 to pay a prior year bill payable to the City of Woonsocket Regional Waste Water for the flow bill.
• $12,000 to monitor flow and or inspect by camera and report findings of main sewer lines on various streets.
• $25,000 to pay vocational tuition and transportation.