Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
By ZACHARY MARANO
Ironwood — After a public hearing at their regular meeting on Thursday, the Ironwood Planning Commission recommended the adoption of a new zoning ordinance and zoning map to the city commission.
Director of Community Development Tom Bergman said that the biggest change was the incorporation of new concepts on how to implement retail marijuana establishments, including the number of licenses that the city will reward to applicants.
Bergman also said that the new ordinance has major changes in how the city will address non-conforming structures such as oversized garages, which he identified as a “big” issue for the city, and allows for alternative housing structures such as tiny homes and accessory dwelling units.
“It also adds some additional features in terms of what people can do on their property in terms of alternative housing structures … which creates more housing opportunities in our community, where we’re looking at some really extreme housing conditions that we’ve never seen before in the city of Ironwood,” Bergman said.
Bergman said that the best way to view the changes is to download the draft online, which can be found on cityofironwood.org home page beneath “Proposed Zoning Ordinance.” He said that hyperlinks in the document help readers navigate the document. For example, users can click on a word to jump to its entry in the “definitions” section.
“We’ll still be working to try to make sure all those links and buttons work, but that doesn’t really affect the functionality of the ordinance in terms of what the main use is,” Bergman said.
Bergman reminded the commission that zoning ordinances tend to change. He said that the city commission may approve the document only to find out that some sections may not work as intended, in which case they will propose more changes.
Bergman said that the new zoning ordinance is key part of the certification process for Ironwood to become a Redevelopment Ready Community. According to the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, “Redevelopment Ready Communities attract and retain businesses, offer superior customer service and have a streamlined development approval process making pertinent information available around-the-clock for anyone to view.”
The Ironwood City Commission will discuss and consider approving the zoning ordinance at their regular meeting at 5:30 p.m. on Monday in the Ironwood Memorial Building.
The planning commission approved an updated site plan and conditional use permit for QPS Holdings, a company that wants to apply for a retail marijuana establishment license if the city approves the addition of new licenses. Following input from the planning commission in June, the owners of QPS Holdings revised their site plan to include additional parking spaces, fencing and right-hand-turn-only exit lanes. The commission only approved the site plan and CUP, so QPS Holdings will not move forward with constructing a new establishment at this time.
The planning commission also approved a site plan revision and extension for Free World Farms grow and process marijuana establishment on the condition that they remain in compliance with all previous site plan approvals, conditional use approvals and all local and state environmental regulations.
