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Cannabis expansion good to go

19-acre production facility in Simcoe

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A cannabis producer has received the green light for a major expansion in the north end of Simcoe.

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Tuesday, Norfolk council folded five residential properties on Park Road into the general industrial zone. Council also tailored the parking requirement on the 19 acres in question to the needs of the growing business.

“The lands contain(ed) five residential dwellings, an existing cannabis-production and processing facility, and a number of accessory structures,” principal planner Mat Vaughan said in his report to the county’s public hearings committee.

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“The surrounding land uses are all industrial and commercial. The eight parcels that are subject to this application will be merged and become part of the parcel known as 11 Grigg Drive.”

The applicant is FIGR Norfolk Inc. Goldleaf Pharm Inc. is a subsidiary of FIGR. Goldleaf’s address is listed as 11 Grigg Dr.

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Tuesday’s move was reported in 2018. In August of last year, Norfolk’s economic development department announced that Goldleaf purchased 20-acres of mixed-use land in the area of Grigg Drive and Park Road.

Many will remember this as the vicinity of the former Freeman-Brooks auction barn on Park Road. Save for the former auction facility, residential and farm buildings between Grigg Drive and the south side of the Toyotetsu auto parts plant have been demolished.

“Goldleaf Pharm is advancing through focused expansion in order to meet the needs of Canadians as we prepare for the legalization of recreational cannabis in Canada,” Larry Huszczo, co-founder of Goldleaf Pharm, said in the county newsletter last year.

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“The additional 20-acres of land will give us more production space with the ability to grow our current footprint to more than 700,000 square feet.”

There was no opposition to the FIGR application. Council took only a few minutes to transact the request.

Council granted a reduction in parking from the 1,035 spaces normally required on an industrial parcel this size to 587 spaces.

“The subject lands are immediately adjacent to a developed industrial and commercial area,” Vaughan says in his report. “As such, the proposed zoning to a general industrial zone would match the character and industrial nature of the surroundings.”

MSonnenberg@postmedia.com

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