Agenda - Planning Commission - 04/04/2013

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February 25, 2013 I Volume 7 1 Issue 4 Zoning Bulletin dispensaries because they're allowed under Proposition 215, the Compassionate Use Act, which legally allows doctors to prescribe marijuana to patients." The cities maintain that they have the authority to ban dispensaries under their zoning powers. Source: Daily News; www.dailynews.com CONNECTICUT A state task force, the Shoreline Preservation Task Force, which stud- ied the impact of damage from storms in shoreline communities, recently issued a report concluding that "towns along the shoreline need to adopt zoning laws accounting for rising sea levels." While the report does not offer specific regulations, it does provide "concepts and ideas that need to be fleshed out." Recommendations include: rules on where septic tanks can be located; streamlined state peiniits for seawalls and other coastal structures; increased financial help to towns, cities and nonprofit land conservation groups to acquire open space and watershed land rec- reation, tidal wetland preservation and habitat conservation; and requir- ing the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection to map vulnerable shoreline areas. Source: Greenwich Time; www.greenwichtime.com FLORIDA Lake Placid Town Council has asked that Highlands County legisla- tors "carry proposed legislation to Tallahassee allowing municipal councils to meet outside their jurisdiction with the county commission." Under current law, " [a] municipality has no authorization to exercise its legislative and governing powers' outside its borders... `and ha[s] no authority to hold meetings at which official business is conducted outside the municipal boundaries.' " Source: Highlands Today; http: / /www2.highlandstoday.com VIRGINIA State Delegates Ben Cline and Scott Lingamfelter have each proposed a bill that "would prevent the state, and local governments, from adopt- ing policies that `restrict private property rights without due process,' especially if they can be traced to the U.N.'s "Agenda 21." Agenda 21 calls for "sustainable development." Cline's bill, HB 2223, for example, provides that: "The Commonwealth and its political subdivisions shall not adopt or implement policy recommendations that deliberately or inadvertently infringe upon or restrict private property rights without due process, as may be required by policy recommendations originating in, or traceable to, Agenda 21." Source: The News & Advance; www.newsadvance.com 12 © 2013 Thomson Reuters