By Haley ED Houseman

Exactly where and in what form a medical marijuana dispensary in Somerville will be realized is still largely undetermined, but headway is being made as city planners and administrators embrace the challenge of making the proposed facility a reality.

With medical marijuana now legal in Massachusetts, Somerville is examining its city ordinances to permit a possible site in the downtown area. While state ordinances call for a dispensary to be 500 ft. from facilities that serve children, in Somerville this would relegate the facilities to the to the fringe of commercial areas.

The goal of the city is to have such a facility integrated into the community, and to serve this end, the Board of Aldermen are hoping to draft an ordinance that accommodates all concerns. Aldermen and their constituents would like to see a facility in a business district, easily accessible to those who need it. Alderman Mark Niedergang is quick to point out that this is as medical facility, it’s necessary to those who are hoping for treatment, and should be viewed as such.

Aldermen have constructed a map of overlying concerns over the course of several meetings of the Committee on Land Use, which will take up the matter again on February 23 to iron out a few minor points that were raised at the last meeting on Feb 9. There have been several iterations of the ordinance as the city takes its time to figure out the best approach for Somerville, one that takes into account all the districts in the map, including locating any facility at least 200 feet from schools.

The goal of the Board is to assure a perception of the dispensary not as something illicit, but as fully integrated into the medical and commercial services in the area, no different from a clinic and more regulated than a pharmacy. “It is important that we put in place a clear, rational, common-sense framework for the siting of medical marijuana facilities as soon as possible. I am pleased with the approach taken by city planners to propose an overlay map that includes business centers and locations that are close to public transit, rather than out-of-the-way industrial areas,” says Alderman Lance Davis.

Massachusetts’ medical marijuana legislation was signed into law in 2013, but communities have been slow to open dispensaries as the necessary regulation has been put into place. But, according to Alderman Niedergang, over the course of the six months the ordinance has been in development, there has been a high level of interest in this project, and nearly no objection. “The Planning Department has had somewhere between 6 and 12 inquiries into opening dispensaries in the area,” he explains, “There’s been substantial interest in Somerville.” Other dispensaries nearby include one in Brookline, and other in Salem.

Niedergang also noted that a number of constituents have contacted him in support of a future dispensary in the city. In moving forward, the cities joins communities across the state and nation making plans to accommodate newly-legal medical marijuana in their states.