This transcript appears to be a meeting of the **Hastings Planning Commission**. Based on the list of officials provided, the Chair is **Melanie Peters**, the staff member presenting the report is Community Development Director **John Hinzman**, and the commissioners mentioned (with some phonetic transcription variations) are **Rachel Swedin** (Vice Chair), **Missy McGrath**, and **John Moes**. [0:01] **Melanie Peters**: approved all right item number three is a public hearing special use permit cannabis retail sales for H tobacco 1310 Vermillion Street and John Hinzman with a staff report [0:18] **John Hinzman**: than thank you Mr chairman planning Commissioners tonight we have before us a special use permit request to for cannabis sales retail license at 1310 Vermillion Street for AG tobacco so this is the first license that we've had under this new cannabis uh law that we have established and I'll give a little bit of background on this uh you may know that back in 2023 the city council adopted a zoning code Amendment for cannabis businesses requiring a special use permit to be acquired for certain commercial zoning districts for the sale of cannabis produ so this can be done via a special use permit in the C3 and [1:03] **John Hinzman**: C4 districts in addition to that we also have a a a separate but similar uh regulation within city code under chapter 17 which is licensing now the licensing aspect is very similar to what we use for tobacco sales and other type of liquor sales throughout the city now tobacco and liquor sales are not part of the zoning code they don't need to get uh zoning approved approval to do that but with cannabis licensing products uh we did establish a provision for a special use permit in there so there are certain aspects of this under the licensing which have a more day-to-day regulatory effect where the special use permit is more of a a long-term uh hold for the property [1:50] **John Hinzman**: itself so with h tobacco which we are considering tonight this is the first one as I said that's moved forward fortunately we aired in the order in which we process this the city council back on April 1st issued a license to age tobacco for Canabis sales however the Planning Commission did not consider the special use permit so we will be taking this forward with your recommendation to the city council at their next meeting and ensure that everything is in place the way it should be now in the future we will do a better job and uh I've coordinated more closely with the city clerk to ensure that when licens things come forward for cannabis sales that they will C to Planning Commission first and then go to city [2:35] **John Hinzman**: council it's part of the Planning Commission review we will have all the licensing information in there as far as uh uh police checks background investigations all the other requirements that are necessary here so before you tonight is the application for cannabis sales there's there's two actions that we have for you one is to open up a public hearing uh there is a public hearing required as part of the special use permit requirement and then to consider a recommendation to the city council on issuance of the special use permit itself so this is the location on the screen as to where we're looking at 1310 Vermillion street is located on the west side of Vermillion just north of 14th Street it's surrounded by commercial development in all sides you've got a smok and Oak restaurant across the [3:21] **John Hinzman**: street you've got other various retail elements here midtone Center over here beer Financial on the south end of the of the development so it is surrounded completely by commercial development H tobacco has been operating out of that space since January 2023 I believe there was another tobacco entity that operated prior to that uh they have successfully passed three random compliance checks for tobacco and there's not been any violations of the tobacco license since that was issued in 2023 So within the special use permit provisions of the city code we have have certain performance standards which are similar to the licensing standards we also have in the code uh which talks about where it can operate who can buy [4:08] **John Hinzman**: it signage uh distribution and other entities that they will be obligated to follow in our analysis of that uh found that as that cannabis sales is allowed as a special use within the C3 District the operational license would be issued by city council uh they are also part of a licensing requirement for annual licensure so every year there will be a compliance check and background investigation to ensure that uh the operation is lawfully operating the other thing that they had to do prior to the lure was to go through a security plan check for the facility by the police chief uh who has conducted the investigation and has signed off on that [4:55] **John Hinzman**: one there's also a provision here that talks about prohibited acts it's about sale of to people under 21 what happens if sales occur the amount of THC level and so forth that would be allowed so we've included that as part of the license requirement which is a condition of approval for the special use permit and then we also have our general special use permit regulations we're obligated to take a look at certain performance aspects in the in the consideration of special use permits uh went through that with this property here for frankly a lot of this is is not applicable when we're talking about Ingress and egress and parking and refu and service areas uh everything is adequate as it sees right now uh the one [5:42] **John Hinzman**: thing I will note on this one which is different from the staff report that you received is the signage uh we did note that the property has a lot of signage on site and that that signage has not been uh proceeded by permits from the zoning department so I am recommending the addition of a condition number three which would be to obtain signed permit approval prior to lure on this one so I have talked to the applicant on this one he is aware of that and that's something that they'll need to follow through on so we are recommending approval of the special use permit with a couple of conditions uh maintaining the Cannabis products retail license per the city clerk's office adherence to city code 117 cannabis business and chapter 1557 [6:28] **John Hinzman**: cannabis businesses that they will have to follow those regulations and then also that addition today of obtaining s signed permit approval prior to lure so uh this is a public hearing I can stand for any questions at this time or you may open that up thank you [6:45] **Melanie Peters**: okay thanks John all right we will go ahead and open the public hearing anyone here wish to speak no anyone on Zoom nope nope nobody on zoom and nobody here wishes to speak we'll go ahead and close the public hearing and we will open it up to Commissioners for questions comments commissioner Swedin one question about just Su in general does this [7:16] **Rachel Swedin**: follow the property or does it follow the business [7:19] **John Hinzman**: this would follow the property on it so this would allow for cannabis retail sales however if the entity was to change they have to go through a new license with that individual [7:31] **Rachel Swedin**: okay um I think that's the only question I have thank you Mr chair [7:34] **Melanie Peters**: okay Commissioners any other questions commissioner Swedin? [7:56] **Rachel Swedin**: I was going to make a motion for approval uh make a pro motion for approval that uh we recommend the special use permit uh for cannabis retail sales H tobacco 1310 Vermillion Street with the [8:01] **Rachel Swedin**: two recommendations plus the third one that a sign permit approval uh has to be done before prior to license sure [8:05] **Melanie Peters**: all right motion to approve on the second [8:06] **Missy McGrath**: a second [8:08] **Melanie Peters**: okay commissioner McGrath second any new discussion Commissioners if not we'll take a vote all in favor say I [8:12] **Commissioners**: I I I [8:13] **Melanie Peters**: opposed and that motion carries [8:15] **John Hinzman**: okay and Commissioners that'll follow through to the city council meeting on May 6th all right all right and next up is other actions other business [8:32] **John Hinzman**: well we haven't met for a couple of weeks here but uh we will have a uh a meeting coming up on May 13th that's three weeks from now because of the fifth Monday got uh five or four items [8:47] **John Hinzman**: on the agenda already for that uh we're going to be having a public hearing to consider an amendment to the chicken ordinance to look at the number of chickens kept as well as ducks and quail whether those should be added or not so that'll be an ordinance amendment that we'll be considering also another special use permit for cannabis sales this at 1610 Vermillion Street we'll have the comprehensive plan amendment in resoning for mint development company for the land that's under contract at the southwest corner of pleasant and South Frontage Road where they're looking at putting the retail facility and then also a site plan for Rio Grand Express for a new Trucking building at 601 31st Street East in the industrial park so that's what I've got on the agenda so far for that meeting uh coming up on the 13th another thing that we're [9:34] **John Hinzman**: embarking on right now is our zoning code update the zoning code that we have right now is almost 30 years old there's a lot of things from my usage of it over the last 20 years that I would love to change and now was the time to consider doing it we're doing interviews for uh firms to help us with that over the next couple of days hope to have approval by Council uh shortly after that and then there'll be opport unities that will be bringing portions to the Planning Commission for review and consideration so this will be a longer term project that we'll be working with with the Planning Commission over the next year or so but it'll be nice to start embarking on that and I think that's all that I had [10:14] **Melanie Peters**: okay thanks John Commissioners anything else for tonight okay otherwise I'll accept a [10:20] **Melanie Peters**: motion to adjourn [10:21] **Rachel Swedin**: motion to adjourn [10:22] **Melanie Peters**: okay motion to adjourn by commissioner Swedin second okay commissioner Moes? [10:24] **John Moes**: oh sure I'll second [10:26] **Melanie Peters**: all right all in favor say I [10:28] **Commissioners**: I I [10:29] **Melanie Peters**: oppose we are adjourned it's all right had to do the official second