Medical marijuana is one step closer to coming to Southaven.
The Southaven Board of Alderman on Tuesday approved a plan that zones portions north of Goodman Road around Baptist Memorial Hospital and south of Goodman Road around Airways Blvd. and Physician’s Lane into a sort of medical zone where medical marijuana dispensaries, testing facilities and research facilities could be located.
Mississippi became the 37th state to legalize medical marijuana in February and cities and counties across the state had until early May to vote on whether they wanted to allow certain medical marijuana-related businesses to operate in their communities. Southaven initially chose to opt-out of the new medical marijuana program, with a plan to opt back in once they could zone for any potential dispensaries to be located in one place.
The board gave its approval for the planning department to proceed with the rezoning process in August, following a heated exchange between Aldermen William Jerome and Mayor Darren Musselwhite when Jerome raised concerns over the number of dispensaries that could fit into this zone.
The planning commission unanimously passed the zoning plan last month. The zoning district is called CM, or Commercial Medical, and is about 488 acres. Southaven’s city planning director, Whitney Choat-Cook, stressed that this was not rezoning the area, but was instead an overlay zoning.
“Your existing zoning stands,” Choat-Cook said. “So whatever your zoning is presently, office, commercial, planned business, that stands in every use and every regulation stands. What this does is provide the overlay district on top of that to specifically allow for the dispensary use, the testing facilities and the research facilities.”
Southaven has still not opted into the state’s medical marijuana program and has not provided a date that they plan to do so.
“What we’re doing tonight is not an opt in,” Musselwhite said. “What this board decided to do is to opt out, as far as dispensaries and research facilities and testing, until we cleared this [zoning] up. So that’s what we’re doing tonight. But, still, that’s not a two-in-one action tonight. All we’re doing tonight is establishing the zone. And at a different time this board will make the decision to opt in if they chose to do so.”
Choat-Cook said the city has talked to quite a few medical marijuana businesses who might be interested in building or leasing in the newly zoned area, but that four stand out to her as legitimate possibilities if Southaven does opt in. All four are dispensaries.
“All speculative,” Choat-Cook said. “Until we opt in, we’ve made it very clear to everybody that even if this rezoning process cleared, we still have to formally opt in and until that happens my office is not issuing any zoning verification letters, we’re not allowing any to be forwarded to us, until that happens.”
Gina Butkovich covers DeSoto County, storytelling and general news. She can be reached at gina.butkovich@commercialappeal.com
