HALLOWELL — Despite getting its conditional use application approved last week, it will be awhile before Specialty Agriculture gets its indoor marijuana cultivation facility up and running on Pinnacle Drive.

Hallowell Code Enforcement Officer Doug Ide said Monday the business now has to obtain a provisional license from the state. Once the city confirms the standards of the provisional license, Specialty Agriculture can receive a permanent license from the state. Then it will need to get a regular business license through the city.

Ide said he will also need to issue a building and plumbing permit, and do inspections during construction.

“They have approval for the use,” he said. “They just don’t have approval for the work they’re planning on and they don’t have their state license yet.”

Ide said that while the 20,950-square-foot building is structurally sound, it needs quite a bit of work, including repairs to the roof and exterior. The facility will include electronic surveillance cameras and outdoor security lighting, and the marijuana will be grown in sealed pods that eliminate nearly all odors that could result from the operation.

The conditional use application was approved by the Hallowell Planning Board last week.

Judy Feinstein, Hallowell Planning Board vice chairperson, asked for clarification about potential odors around the building.

Zanita Fenton, who co-owns Specialty Agriculture with Akinyele Adams, said the pods are closed grow environments that will be sealed and contained in the building. The pods are designed to address every step of the growth process, including environmental and odor concerns.

Fenton said the business will start with either four or five pods, but with the building containing approximately 18,000 usable square feet, they plan to eventually expand. She said the pods, which are approximately 230-square-feet each, are considered to be the best method of odor control, and that the transfer itself will take place in a sealed warehouse.

“The odor that will emanate will be, if at all, highly minimal, even during the drying process,” Fenton said, “which is one part of the growing, and it’s a small part.”

Residents Steve and Janet Butterfield, whose home is about 350 feet away from the proposed facility, questioned several aspects of the proposal.

“First of all we’ve lived here for a little over 38 years now, and we moved into Hallowell because it was a nice quiet neighborhood,” said Steve Butterfield, “but it’s been kind of exploding with businesses now, which has us a little concerned about adding yet another one.”

Feinstein also asked if Fenton could address traffic concerns.

Fenton said once the plants are fully grown, they will be moved to another pod for drying into the final product. Once the plant is sorted into sellable components, it will be shipped to various retailers. She said a typical grow cycle is roughly three months, and that they hope to stagger this with different plants, resulting in transport occurring roughly once a month.

“There will be some additional traffic, but you’re not going to see loads going back and forth,” Fenton said. “And frankly, for a smart business operation like I expect ours to be, a lot of that traffic, especially the transport of the product, will be at night.”

“Which is right outside our bedroom window,” said Janet Butterfield.

Fenton said they could reschedule transports to occur during the day and traffic at the warehouse will likely have less of an impact than when the warehouse had previously been in use.

The plants will be condensed before shipping. As a result, Fenton said that they could even use a large SUV for transport, adding that the largest vehicle they would consider would be about the size of an icebox truck.

Steve Butterfield said he already sees an abundance of traffic around his house and in his neighborhood.

“We already have a propane facility out here that has large semi-sized trucks that are in and out. We have a motorcycle shop right on the other side of Central Street, and that has a high amount of traffic, especially when they block both sides of the street for a two day period,” he said. “There’s also a school of dance up the street that’s constantly parking on both sides of the street, knocking it down to one lane in the middle. That’s kind of unreasonable, and now you’re going to potentially add this?”

Later in the meeting Feinstein said she felt Fenton had sufficiently addressed potential traffic concerns.

“Ms. Fenton has said several times that traffic will be minimal. The fact that that area of Central Street occasionally gets crowded because of other events is not relevant to this application, and it’s nothing that the Planning Board can do anything about,” Feinstein said. “I just think that the speculation is unfair. She’s already said if nighttime traffic appears to be an issue, they can make sure they don’t schedule pick-ups in the middle of the night. I think we need to pay attention to what she’s telling us.”

Feinstein and board member Lisa Rigoulot sympathized with the Butterfields’ traffic concerns, and said they also live in high traffic neighborhoods. Rigoulot said she often has to deal with people parking on her lawn and blocking access, and Feinstein said she lives on an alternative route for heavy trucks, and has even asked the police to monitor it because it’s a 25-mile-per-hour zone where children live.

“We moved into this neighborhood because it was a small, residential, quiet neighborhood,” Janet said. “We no longer have that luxury, because so many businesses have been allowed to come in here.”

She asked if the business would be receiving any tax benefits.

“It’s not within a TIF district and that certainly hasn’t been requested at all,” said Ide. “There will be property taxes and personal property taxes paid depending on the assessed value.”

The board unanimously approved the conditional use application, which would specifically be for growing in the pods. If Speciality Agriculture chooses to grow in a different way, Ide said they would have to return to the planning board with an amended application.

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