By David Fleet
Editor
Groveland Twp.- On Monday night the township board of trustees agreed to move forward with possible changes in ordinances regarding marijuana growing in the township. Bob DePalma, township supervisor said the need for the ordinance follows calls from people questioning if marijuana can be grown in the township.
“The answer we’ve given them is whatever the state allows you to do,” said DePalma.
In November of 2018, voters in Michigan passed Proposal 1, the Michigan Taxation and Regulation of Marijuana Act, to legalize recreational cannabis. In 2008, the state passed the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act. According to state law, a caregiver may have up to five patients registered and can grow up to 12 plants for each of them. If the caregiver is a patient and has five patients, they can grow up to 72 cannabis marijuana plants.
However, while the state provides limits, marijuana growers in the township are allegedly going beyond what is legal.

“We have a lot of people coming out (to Groveland) and buying a house, they don’t live in or putting a barn up with 350 amps of (electrical) service,” he said. “That’s a lot of electricity. We think there’s some illegal, commercial type growth going on. Those tend to be the ones that create the complaints from the residents (live) nearby.”
DePalma added that unlike the large legal commercial grow operations with multiple HEPA (high-efficiency particulate absorbing) filters that reduce the smell created by growing marijuana plants, these small operators are not doing it the same way.
“We are not sure if they are licensed since they did not come to us,” he said.
In an attempt to curb the growing concerns in the township, the board will utilize the marijuana growing ordinances of Orion Township, where recently DePalma along with township trustees visited a commercial grow facility. Opened in 2018, the Orion Township facility 163 Premier Drive, is located under the umbrella of the Oakland Business Park and is being billed as a one-of-a-kind development that can potentially create hundreds of jobs in the cannabis industry. In recent township meetings, discussions have started regarding a proposal that would allow marijuana grow facilities in specific zoned industrial areas of the community. The business would provide significant revenues for the township without marijuana retail outlets or increases in taxes for residents, added DePalma.
The revision of marijuana ordinances is needed to take aim at the alleged illegal growing in the township.
“Other communities have taken steps that does not hamper the person growing it for themselves,” said DePalma. “It does not hamper those that are growing for five registered caregivers, but (focuses on) those in between there and the big Class C growers where potential problems come in, it makes it more difficult for them to do this illegally.”
“We are not trying to hide this,” he said. “We’d like significant revenue not out of the taxpayers, and how to curtail run away growing of this stuff on nonresidential.”