YPSILANTI, MI – Ypsilanti has one of the highest number of marijuana dispensaries per capita in the state, according to city planner Joshua Burns.
City leaders are responding by advancing zoning changes to further restricting the potential for more dispensary developments, the latest in a series of efforts to limit cannabis retailers amid concerns that Ypsilanti is becoming “weed city.”
There are currently 13 dispensaries in Ypsilanti, according to Burns. He said that if the city had an amount proportional to Ann Arbor, there would be just three dispensaries.
The regulations will shrink the amount of available locations for potential marijuana retailers but do not set a hard cap on the number of businesses, said Andy Aamodt, a planning consultant working with the city’s planning commission, at Ypsilanti City Council’s Tuesday, April 2 meeting.
Among other measures, the changes close a loophole exempting marijuana microbusinesses, a state category geared toward small-batch retailers, from buffering rules, which restrict distance between businesses in certain areas.
The zoning ordinance will not eliminate any existing businesses, but would decrease the number of potential incoming businesses to about four. Without the measures, between eight to over a dozen locations could remain available to potential businesses, Aamodt said.
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