WILTON — After a lengthy discussion, the Wilton Board of Selectpersons voted on Tuesday, Dec. 19, to table a cannabis processing application for The HoneyComb Farm, located at 844 US Route 2. The Select Board’s reason for tabling the application stems from the validity of the application within Wilton’s active moratorium on cannabis applications.
Wilton currently has a moratorium on applications for adult use and medical cannabis establishments for a period of 180 days, and that includes facilities for cultivation, products manufacturing, testing and retails stores.
The Select Board voted in a split discussion of three to two, with Chairperson Tiffany Maiuri and Selectperson Phil Hilton opposed to tabling the application.
The application for The HoneyComb Farm is for processing cannabis on site. According to Code Enforcement Officer Gary Judkins, the owner hosted his processing facility at his residence and wishes to move the processing facility to his retail locations.
Judkins added the application was approved by the Planning Board in 2019 and the owner did not move forward on the application until this year. Town Manager Maria Greeley added that all the necessary abutters’ notices were done in 2019 as well.
Selectperson Keith Swett raised concerns over the application, stating that the current moratorium does not allow for expansion. However, Maiuri and Greeley asserted because all the formal applications were put through the Planning Board in 2019, the owner is immune to the moratorium.
“Everything had been met in 2019,” Greeley stated. “There has been no changes to what the Planning Board approved as of 2019. There’s no changes to his application as of 2019. We’re just here to move forward with it.”
Maiuri added, “We still would need to act upon [any application that was put in prior to the moratorium and approved by the Planning Board].”
Judkins elaborated to the Select Board that the owner had been approved for processing along with his retail application in November of 2019, but did not move forward with the processing application.
“The way it was explained to me on the moratorium,” Judkins stated, “anything that was in the process, and there’s three of them, is not part of the moratorium.”
Selectperson Mike Wells asked why the application never went to the next step, to which Judkins responded by saying that the owner was taking his next step, and that it had taken him four years to be able to make the next step.
“We have ordinances that do not spell out that there has to be a specific timeline for these processes to take place,” Maiuri stated. “Which is again one of the reasons that we have a moratorium in place, to allow for those in the ordinance committee to find gaps in places that we need to tighten up.”
Swett responded by stating a permitted use permit is only good for one year. “It’s not good forever if you don’t do it,” he said.
Maiuri responded by stating that while the application was approved, it never resulted in a permit and the ordinances do not specify how much time is allowed between approval of an application by the Planning Board and taking it to the Select Board.
“This permit doesn’t fall under the moratorium,” Maiuri said, “because the application was received, and approved by the Planning Board. Next step is to come here but there is nothing that I know of in our ordinance that says within a certain amount of time after Planning Board.”
Selectperson David Leavitt added that former town manager Perry Ellsworth stated there were three pending applications that would potentially be moving to the Select Board after the moratorium was in place. He added, however, Ellsworth did not specify the names of those businesses and upon checking the moratorium during the meeting, questioned the validity of the application within the language of the moratorium.
“It talks about municipal approval,” Leavitt stated. “I believe in this process, the municipal approval is that of the Select Board, and the Planning Board moves forward for municipal approval of the Select Board.”
Swett added if three businesses were going to be permitted during the moratorium, it should have been written in the moratorium and not a verbal confirmation.
With a vote of three to two, the application will sit while members of the select board review the the validity of the application within the legal confines of the cannabis moratorium.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
