Proposed pot farm site under Joliet stop-work order

The proposed East Side site for a cannabis farm is under a stop-work order issued a week before Joliet city hearings on the project.

The proposed cannabis farm suffered setbacks last week when both the Zoning Board of Appeals and the Plan Commission recommended against issuing permits, variances and zoning needed for the project.

Questions about work already done on the site were raised at the April 21 hearings.

Planning Director Jim Torri confirmed at the zoning board hearing that the city is trying to deal with construction activity that was done without obtaining necessary permits from the city.

“They did not have permits to do the work that they did,” Torri said then.

Torri, however, emphasized that the work on the site was unrelated to the proposed cannabis operation.

“We were working with them to try to correct the work that was done without permits, and then this new proposal came up,” Torri said.

The stop-work order, however, was issued April 14, when the city already had received the application for the cannabis facility and community opposition was brewing.

One opponent to the project spoke to the City Council at its April 5 meeting.

Sugar Creek residents have said they were trying to get information from the city about what was going on at the site since trees were cut down last summer.

Carla Alessio Policandriotis, the attorney for the the Alessio family that would develop the site for a separate firm to open the cannabis farm, has said trees were cut down and a fence was erected on the site used for storage of construction equipment. The site is on the edge of an industrial park and on the southeast corner of Manhattan Road, (Route 52 at that point) and Alessio Drive.

While the Alessios, who run a construction company and own the land, have said the site has been used for equipment storage for years, the April 14 stop-work order also states that equipment no longer should be stored on-site.

Construction equipment was on the site as recently as Thursday.

Residents have said the site was used to tear down a piece of machinery in the last few weeks. There is a pile of metal on the site.

The stop-work order notes that the city has received notice of grading and site development without a permit, “possible debris running off-site into Sugar Creek,” and storage of material and equipment.

“We have indicated to them that they need to stop work and bring the site into compliance,” said Public Works Director Greg Ruddy, who issued the stop-work order.

Ruddy said the Alessio family should next develop a plan for bringing the site into compliance. He deferred to city planning officials for what was needed for compliance.

Planning department officials did not return calls for comment. The Alessio family and its attorney could not be reached Friday.

While the proposed cannabis facility suffered setbacks at the zoning and planning meetings, the project is slated to go to the City Council for consideration May 17.