GREENFIELD — Three companies have submitted license applications to the state Cannabis Control Commission (CCC) for Tier 11 outdoor cultivation operations at 446 Country Club Road, proposals that would exceed the local limit of three Tier 1 operations on any given parcel allowed by the city’s zoning bylaws.

Tier 11, or the largest size possible for a cultivation site in Massachusetts, allows for 100,000 square feet of canopy, according to the commission. Tier 1, meanwhile, allows up to 5,000 square feet of canopy.

A review of all license applications before the CCC confirmed three separate applications have been submitted for 446 Country Club Road, though the details of those applications were not available.

Attempts to reach a representative for the applicants were unsuccessful. All three companies are represented by The Mensing Group LLC, a cannabis advisory firm, according to city records. As of May, former Mayor William Martin was acting as a consultant to the three groups interested in the location.

Planning Director Eric Twarog, who clarified the applicants have not yet submitted local applications for review by the Conservation Commission or Zoning Board of Appeals, said the city was recently asked to fill out a municipal response form to confirm whether the proposed establishments met local zoning requirements.

“We had to say no, it did not meet local zoning,” he said, citing the recent zoning amendments approved by city officials.

In July, City Council approved an amendment to zoning bylaws to reimpose the Tier 1 limit, with a limit of three Tier 1 operations allowed on any given parcel. The amendment followed months of outcry from residents across the city, particularly those who lived in the neighborhood of the proposed outdoor grow facility.

“They submitted their municipal response to the city after the zoning change was made,” Twarog noted.

Prior to the zoning change, the Planning Board had endorsed an Approval Not Required Plan for the roughly 20-acre parcel on Country Club Road. Three groups — Country Club Ventures, Fibonacci Farms and Greenfield Farms — had signed host community agreements with the city.

An ANR allows the owner of land on a public road to subdivide the property without going through the subdivision process, Twarog previously explained. This is because the property “does not show a division of land.”

It also protects the land from future changes to the acceptable use of it, meaning if the acceptable use of the land changes, the property would be grandfathered in. The land is characterized as rural/residential.

However, the ANR does not appear to protect the land from any zoning changes that might occur, which would include any restrictions placed on the size of the cultivation project, according to attorney Jesse Belcher-Timme of Doherty, Wallace Pillsbury & Murphy.

In a letter to Mayor Roxann Wedegartner dated July 6, 2022, Belcher-Timme explained that the ANR freeze is “narrow” concerning the protection it offers.

“Since the proposed zoning amendment at issue here would still allow use of the property in question for cannabis cultivation, it cannot constitute a ‘total ... prohibition’ of a category of use,” he wrote in his opinion to the mayor.

It seems “incredibly unlikely” that a court would be convinced the proposed reduction would be treated as a “virtual prohibition,” Belcher-Timme concluded.

The application, Twarog said, “is in the CCC’s hands at this time.”

“If it’s challenged — the city’s zoning amendment — then the courts will have to decide whether the city went too far limiting it from a Tier 11 to Tier 1,” Twarog said.

Reporter Mary Byrne can be reached at mbyrne@recorder.com or 413-930-4429. Twitter: @MaryEByrne.

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