The Kenton County Planning Commission recommended a zoning change for a medical cannabis cultivation facility off Dixie Highway in Erlanger this week, sending final zoning approval to the city.
The vote to recommend came Tuesday night during a special meeting of the planning commission, which had been rescheduled due to the typical meeting time’s proximity to Independence Day.
The property in question spans about 1.26 acres and is reachable off Dixie Highway via a private access road called Burley Drive just south of the railroad; the building itself is behind a Speedway.
The property is owned by Jerome Henke, founder and president of Henke Industrial. The building is still listed as Henke Industrial’s rigging and dispatch center on the company’s website, although documents presented on Tuesday indicate this is no longer its primary use.
The building on the land occupies just over 19,000 square feet and contains two loading docks and a mezzanine on a single floor. Site plans submitted to county planners prior to the meeting indicate plans for 34 off-street parking spaces and a new fence, likely to remain in compliance with Kentucky law, which restricts access to cultivation facilities to workers employed there.
The cultivator is listed as Flower Power 5390, LLC. The business got its license after another medical cannabis business, Bluegrass, LLC, transferred its license to Flower Power in May, according to the Kentucky Office of Medical Cannabis. The building’s size puts it in the state’s Tier 1 cultivator category, the smallest category.
Daniel Woodward, representing the cultivator, told the planning commission the company had not started doing business yet. He also stated that “we’ve not moved forward yet with construction.”
Exact timelines for construction and the start date for the cultivator’s operation were not discussed at the meeting.
Erlanger passed an ordinance regulating the zoning of medical cannabis businesses in September. The building was zoned as a community commercial property prior to Tuesday’s vote, and the cultivator had received a special allowance to operate a medical cannabis business on the site from the Erlanger Board of Adjustment in May. After that, the business sought a change to industrial zoning in the hopes of avoiding compliance issues in the future.
“The proposed [change] will prevent potential difficulties associated with running a non-conforming business,” said Cody Sheets, associated planner with Kenton County Planning and Development Services, “such as a restriction on expansion and certain restrictions on structural alterations.”
Sheets and the other county planners recommended the zoning, albeit with some conditions related to landscaping and other changes to the building that would bring it into line with the city’s existing standards for industrial zones. Henke, who attended the meeting, said he would agree to the conditions.
Statements from City of Erlanger staff members indicate the city was pleased to have the business in the city.
“We do feel like this is going to be an improvement to the property and bring additional revenue to the city,” said Erlanger Economic Development Director Mark Collier.