ESCANABA — A proposed rezoning of the parcels along the North 30th Street corridor that would allow retail marijuana establishments to locate in the area took a step towards adoption Thursday — but not without strong objections from one Escanaba city council member.

Currently, the area in question is zoned F – Light Manufacturing, despite primarily being home to businesses that would better fit the definition of a commercial district. The proposed zoning change would shift the area to the E – Commercial zoning classification, bringing the zoning in line with what is actually located in the area and bringing it into compliance with the city’s master plan, which designates the land for use as a general business district.

Generally speaking, matching zoning designations to land uses and the city’s future land use map in its master plan is considered good zoning, as doing so reduces the number of nonconforming uses and the need for special use permits and variances. However, the cause for the change being considered by the city was the request of a single property owner that wanted a open a retail marijuana business — something prohibited in a light manufacturing district and controversial among both residents and their representatives on the council.

“To rezone 20 percent of the city to cater to the industry, literally months after we decided on using the downtown district, in my opinion is wrong. It seems foolish,” said Council Member Ron Beauchamp.

The city has not designated the downtown area as the only place where retail marijuana establishments could be located, despite a push from Council Member Karen Moore to use a zoning technique known as an “overlay district” to specify specific areas for the businesses. Instead, despite much of the discussion at the time revolving around making the downtown area an acceptable location for retail marijuana, the city tied various types of marijuana establishments to the city’s existing zoning.

As a result, if the zoning of a property changes to one that allows a specific type of marijuana business, that type of business would be allowed on the property assuming the necessary permits are acquired from the city.

While Beauchamp balked at the idea of the city rezoning the entirety of the area to commercial to cater to a single property owner and industry, it was noted by Tyler DuBord and the Zoning Administrator Tyler Anthony that there was little available land for light manufacturing businesses to locate in the area.

“There really isn’t anything over there that fits the spirit of a light manufacturing district,” Anthony told the council. “In fact, it looks like the district was sort of changed in a backwards way. Instead of changing the district, they just changed the uses allowed in that district to the point where it was essentially a commercial district in the first place. It’s a really messy, backwards way of zoning.”

The council voted 4-1 to consider Thursday’s meeting the first reading of the proposed ordinance changing the zoning district and to set the second reading, public hearing, and a vote on the ordinance’s adoption for the Jan. 5, 2023 meeting. Beauchamp was the lone dissenting vote.