TAUNTON — Boston-based Greater Goods LLC is asking Taunton City Council to approve a special permit for a proposed marijuana cultivation and manufacturing site in Myles Standish Industrial Park.

Greater Good’s legal consultant James A. Valeriani said the planned facility would be located in the former National Weather Service office at 445 Myles Standish Boulevard.

“It’s a perfect location for Greater Goods and they are excited about filling the vacancy in the park," he said on May 10. “We believe it will benefit the park and the community.”

Valeriani said facility workers would plant cannabis in a 5,000-square-foot area of the 11,498-square-foot site.

“They will take the products that they grow and manufacture them into consumer products to sell to retail corporations,” he said.

The site plan does not include retail shops to sell cannabis products.

City Council held a public hearing on April 26 to review Greater Good’s proposal and councilors agreed on May 10 to continue the hearing until May 24

Concerns raised about cannabis odor

Valeriani said he requested the hearing be continued because Taunton Development Corp., a non-profit firm that manages Myles Standish Industrial Park, raised concerns about potential cannabis odor emissions from the proposed site.

“We want to work with them on the concerns they raised,” he said.

Taunton Development Corp. President Louis M. Ricciardi said his colleagues fear a marijuana cultivation and manufacturing facility would emit an unpleasant odor in the industrial park.

“If you go down Mozzone Boulevard and stand in the parking lot at TGI [Friday's], or near Marshalls, or any other area you smell marijuana being grown and cultivated,” he said during the April 24 hearing.

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These shops are located near Commonwealth Alternative Care which grows cannabis plants and manufactures marijuana products for medical and retail use.

Valeriani said Ricciardi’s concerns “are typical.”

Odor control plans outlined

“We have an odor control plan that is reliable,” he said.

Greater Goods President Jordan Shaw said the facility’s goal is not to release air from cannabis rooms that receive carbon dioxide emissions.

“We’d be losing money and CO2 if we let any air escape,” he said during the hearing. “That being said we have to have a release system that releases air in an emergency situation.”

Shaw said Taunton’s building code requires the facility to have a device that releases air from cannabis cultivation rooms if the carbon dioxide level rises above 2,500 parts per million.

“When that is done, there are carbon filters that help relieve the odor,” he said. “It’s rare that something like that would happen. We will have air filtration systems installed from the ceilings in the cultivation rooms.”

Shaw said an intake fan would be installed “that takes air into the building, rather than exhausting air outward.”

“With those three components aligned, we don’t expect much odor released," he said. “We are less than 5,000 square feet for cannabis space, compared to other operations. We’d emit very minimal odor.”

Shaw said his company is working with “a couple of different consultants,” to design an effective odor mitigation system.

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“We are putting a lot of knowledgeable heads together to get the design to where it is today,” he said.

Mayor Shaunna O’Connell said she wants “a peer review” of the odor mitigation system by a consultant.

Valeriani said Greater Goods is willing to finance the hiring of a peer review engineer that would be chosen by city officials.

“We are willing to hire a peer review engineer,… to review our system before and after it goes into operation and if you want to do it during the first two years of the site’s operation,” he said during the meeting.

This article originally appeared on The Taunton Daily Gazette: Greater Goods Taunton cannabis facility raises odor concerns