Voters gathered in the Lee High School auditorium signed off on a $23 million operating budget for fiscal year 2025, up about a million dollars over the previous year’s spending.
Lee residents also passed amendments to town zoning bylaws that will tighten up regulation of the marijuana industry.
Select board member Gordon Bailey told the assemblage that he lived next door to Lee’s only outdoor cannabis cultivation facility.
“I can't tell you how many complaints I get, phone calls to me, and how much my wife and I smell this, this odor," he said. "And one reason I wanted to- And there's two reasons actually why I wanted to revisit this. Number one is, I don't want to impose the smell that they don't seem to be able to regulate even though they're indoors and they say they can on any other neighborhood in the town. I just don't think it would be- I don't think it would be right of me to sit here and know that something like this was going to happen in another neighborhood.”
The bylaw amendments will cap cannabis cultivation in Lee to just one, with non-cultivator marijuana establishments limited to 11- down from 14.
“When this first came about, the cannabis commission had a number of rules and regulations which have been substantially changed," said Bailey. "The town could enter into host agreements and get money from the cultivators to offset some of the impacts we may have in the community- And not like Great Barrington, we've actually said every year what are, how we feel it's been impacted. So, I don't feel we’re open for any kind of reimbursement requests because we everyone's agreed that there have been impacts.”
In a commonwealth wide trend, two cannabis companies are suing Great Barrington for $6 million citing the town’s failure to document their impact on the community.
“But now, the cannabis commission changed all the rules," Bailey continued. "It's almost like a bait and switch at the state level, and all of that's gone. We can no longer enter into these kind of agreements, and as far as smell goes, if we were to allow it somewhere, our town doesn't even get to decide whether it's stinky or not. They actually send somebody out from Boston from the cannabis commission to decide whether it's too stinky.”
Odor from marijuana establishments was removed from a discrete category under the bylaw changes approved by voters.
“The odor is being changed to be consistent with the other odor bylaws because the state no longer allows the town to treat them any different as far as odor is concerned,” explained Town administrator Christopher Brittain.
Lee voters also approved a change to zoning bylaws around accessory dwelling units and short-term rentals.
“We have recently adopted an accessory dwelling unit bylaw, we have also recently adopted a short-term rental bylaw, and at our last meeting, there was some discussion about how those two would interact," said Planning board member Peter Bluhm. “The problem had to do with if you get an accessory dwelling unit either in your house, attached, or detached, sort of in the backyard, so to speak, when can you use either your main property or the ADU as a short-term rental?”
Bluhm explained to residents that the amendment would help the dueling bylaws coexist.
“We're proposing to change the first outcome and allow STR rentals where an ADU is part of the main building," he said. "In other words, what I call the mother-in-law apartment can be rented as a short-term rental. We don't think that will harm the availability of housing in Lee in a significant way.”
The move comes with stipulations around addressing the ongoing housing scarcity Berkshire County suffers.
“If the STR rental proposed is a main house and there's a separate ADU dwelling in the backyard, neither dwelling, neither of them could be rented for short-term rental," Bluhm said. "And we did this in order to protect the availability rental unit longer term rentals in town, believing that there's a shortage of long-term rentals.”
Lee will hold its annual town election on Monday.
