GREENFIELD — The Zoning Board of Appeals voted last week to give Greenerside Holdings LLC a 12-month extension on its existing permit to construct a marijuana retail and cultivation facility on Laurel Street.
Isaac Fleisher, an attorney representing Greenerside Holdings, told the board on Thursday, Sept. 10, that the company was seeking an extension to allow more time to determine how it wishes to proceed with development and whether it should move forward with plans to construct two buildings on the site, or whether the permit could be amended to allow construction of just one building.
According to Fleisher, recent soil testing revealed that bedrock at the site was deeper than expected, and the company would like to explore adding a basement to one of the buildings, rather than constructing two separate buildings. However, due to delays in receiving a building permit and state Cannabis Control Commission approval, the company is running out of time before its special permit expires on Oct. 16. An extension would allow the company to better consider the different options.
“They’ve gone through a long process of getting their building permit, getting their state license, getting architecture approved by the Cannabis Control Commission, and along the way they did soil testing of the site. It revealed that the bedrock was a lot deeper than expected,” Fleischer said, noting that the original proposal was for two buildings: one for retail and one for cultivation. “About six months ago, they made a decision based on the soil testing to condense the project into a single building.”
The property at 180 Laurel St., the former Bendix property, was previously used as an industrial site for metalworking. It was sold by the city to Greenerside Holdings LLC in 2021 for $365,000. The proposal to construct a 30,000-square-foot cultivation facility and a 2,000-square-foot retail store was approved by the ZBA in 2023.
Condensing the project would be cheaper for the company, Fleischer said, as well as allow for a smaller building footprint and more greenery.
ZBA Chair David Singer asked why the board should extend the permit, given that the original permit allowed a retail use that is not permitted in that particular zoning district.
“Unbeknownst to you, it sounds like the approval of the retail was a mistake by the Zoning Board [of Appeals], because it’s not allowed in the district,” Singer said. “You’re asking us to extend a permit that wasn’t issued properly. What jurisdiction do we have to do that?”
Fleisher argued that the statute of limitations for when someone could have filed an appeal on the permit has expired, and that the question before the board was not whether the permit was issued properly. The question the board was being tasked with answering, he said, was whether Greenerside Holdings had provided good cause for an extension of its permit, which he argued it had, as the company has been working actively toward construction and believes an extension would help make sure the project is in the best interest of both the company and the city.
“They can still lock it into place by commencing construction in a month,” Fleisher said of the company’s permit. “Which they are prepared to do. It’s just not in the best interest of the applicant, or really of the city, to rush into it.”
Greenerside Holdings co-owner Jaison Cramer said he wants to ensure the company has a sustainable business model that would support jobs in Greenfield, and if the retail part of the site was cut, it could impact its ability to operate. While the business does not want to lose the retail use, it does want to explore with the board the possibility of eliminating the smaller building and adding a basement to the larger building, which could save Greenerside Holdings approximately $400,000 in construction costs.
The company had originally requested a six-month extension; however, the ZBA agreed to not only extend the permit but also increase the length to 12 months. Board members said the extra time would provide wiggle room in case the architects that Greenerside Holdings is working with end up taking longer than expected to amend the site plan for review.
