Council gave first reading on June 27 to a site-specific amendment to the land use bylaw adding "medical marijuana facility" as a permitted use to 5807 47 Ave.
That property is currently used by Olds Softgels, which has informed the town it intends to possess cannabis oil, extract it from dried marijuana, encapsulate it and sell it under the provisions of the MMPR (Marihuana for Medical Purposes Regulations).
Like the proposed Sundial medical marijuana facility, Olds Softgels would need a federal licence to carry out its plans.
"They have to go through that process but the endgame is different. Softgels, they want to get into the business of providing the marijuana oil. So it's not as though they're going to be growing and distributing. They're going to be getting their product and encapsulating it," said chief administrative officer Norm McInnis.
Council scheduled a public hearing date for Aug. 22 at 7 p.m.
The motion passed with Coun. Rudy Durieux voting against it. Coun. Mary Jane Harper was absent.
McInnis doesn't expect serious consequences for Olds should the Municipal Government Act (MGA) be changed to exempt urban farm buildings from taxation.
"Not a big effect. It would be annexation areas or areas that fall under farming in our land use bylaw, which are very few," McInnis said.
"What we're working on with Mountain View County in our inter-municipal agreement is, we're not going to talk about annexation at all anymore. We're going to look at how we grow and prosper together and not look at changing boundaries every time we have growth potential."
The MGA is the legislation that outlines how municipalities are to operate, including planning, governance and taxation. The Alberta government has posted proposed changes to the law online.
Currently, farm buildings in rural municipalities are completely exempt from municipal property taxes. That's not the case in urban ones, where they are assessed at 50 per cent of market value and taxed at the non-residential rate.
The change would have farm buildings completely exempt in urban municipalities as well.
An example of property that would be exempt in the new legislation would be a residence located on annexed land north of the town office.
"But in the annexation agreement that we have, there's a period of time where we have to honour the assessment tax regime of Mountain View County anyway," McInnis said.
The changes wouldn't impact the taxation of the medical marijuana facility in the southeast industrial area either, he added.
"There may be a component of agriculture but because we've got that land zoned as light industrial, we're pretty intent that it's assessed as an industrial operation. Haven't got total confirmation from our assessor on what that would look like, but we're thinking there won't be a big component that's assessed as agriculture."
The Modernized Municipal Government Act received first reading in the Alberta legislature on May 31.
"It's not as though they're going to be growing and distributing. They're going to be getting their product and encapsulating it."NORM MCINNISCHIEF ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICERTOWN OF OLDS
