Story and photo by Doug Petrowski

The Mountlake Terrace City Council will consider an ordinance to allow medical marijuana collective gardens in the northwest corner of the city following the Planning Commission’s recommendation of a plan Monday night.

The City Council will study the ordinance at its work/study session on Wednesday, May 15. A public hearing on the proposal is slated to take place during the council’s regular meeting on Monday, May 20, with a council vote on the ordinance now scheduled to follow.

The Planning Commission recommended Option 2.B for council consideration. The proposal establishes regulations for cooperative grow operations in the city’s Light Industrial/Office Park (LI/OP) zoned area just east of the Interurban Trail north of about 224th Street Southwest to 212th Street Southwest. There are a number of areas within the LI/OP that would be restricted from hosting a collective garden, including areas within 500 feet of the Olympic View Ice Skating Rink, the Nock Point Archery Center, and the Interurban Trail.

There are approximately 30 privately-owned parcels that a cooperative grow operation could legally be established. With the proposed restriction of no two collective gardens being within 500 feet of each other, the most that could be established in the zone is two or three.

Other restrictions proposed by the city ordinance includes collective gardens serving no more than 10 qualifying patients at any time; gardens containing no more than 15 plants per patient, and no more than 45 total number of plants; gardens being located indoors with no plants visible by the general public nor signs indicting what is contained inside the building; and no more than one garden located on a single parcel nor in a single building.

Both the council’s May 15 work/study session and its regular meeting on May 20 will be held at Interim City Hall, 6100-219th St. S.W., Room 200. Both meetings begin at 7 p.m.