County denies proposed cannabis production facility over location concerns

County mayor Jim Wood shared those sentiments, adding there is no way to measure the smell from a cannabis production facility, and therefore impossible to enforce or control.

“In this particular case the business park had a lot of residents nearby and that’s not a normal thing in Red Deer County, it’s an anomaly,” says Wood. “I felt the uncertainty of the smell that may come from this particular facility may impede the ability of our local residents to enjoy their homes. I felt there was an option for the applicant to in fact locate in another location, so let’s just do business in a different place in Red Deer County.”

Sunny Sarpal, Vice President of Calgary-based Centcom Construction and Sevenz Consulting, says the Cannabis Haven Business Park would be close to a desired labour force.

“It would bring a lot of economic development and a lot of jobs to the community and that’s why we chose this location,” explains Sarpal. “It was meant for all industry professionals, whether you’re an educator, a researcher, whether you’re a bottler, a manufacturer or you were looking at just making proper edibles. This was a controlled facility to handle that controlled substance.”

Phase 1 of the proposal would consist of four buildings, each with a footprint of 46,774 square feet. It would also include a presentation centre, site security building, havenz pod and staff security unit, bringing the total building area to 190,184 square feet.

A ten foot security fence would also surround Phase 1 of the Cannabis Haven Business Park.

“In this type of development, it was a completely 360 degree enclosed box that allows no emissions,” explains Sarpal. “Yes, we cannot guarantee any emissions because that has not been done before but everything that we’re doing exceeds the specifications to reach the 98 per cent of what Denver and everybody has released in terms of emissions. So our opportunity was to provide those 98 per cent efficiencies to allow us to get to that next level.”

Sarpal says MPC’s decision is disappointing considering the other types of businesses already operating in Blindman Industrial park.

“Half the businesses there are in oil and gas,” exclaims Sarpal. “One of the biggest things which is extremely disappointing when we heard this today is that there was fracking a mile or kilometre away from this and that was able to go ahead and something like this is not.”

Sarpal says they are not interested in locating the business elsewhere in Red Deer County and plan to appeal the decision.

“This is the property that we’re going to be looking at,” declares Sarpal. “I think it meets all the different metrics in terms of the County and at the end of the day, a project like this can provide up to 3,000 jobs, provide a lot of economic development and provide a lot of opportunity. The amount of direct and indirect jobs that this would cause, we’re talking about a recreational residential development that they chose to be in a business service area, it’s an industrial park.”

County councilor Philip Massier was the lone member of MPC to vote in favour of the facility at its proposed location, saying the applicant has met the County’s conditions to operate in a business industrial park.

“In a business park there’s many different odours and I think the applicant took the means to reduce the odours to an acceptable level,” adds Massier. “It’s true that we didn’t want them near our residential areas and maybe it was an anomaly that we have residential acreages adjacent to an industrial park. I think all of MPC and council is in favour that these facilities have a place, its where should they be.”

by Sheldon Spackman

County denies proposed cannabis production facility over location concerns

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