He says within 500 acres of the property there are no homes, no schools, and no other buildings other than their own. The lake is more than 600 meters away and he says the brown garage cannot be seen from either the lake or the road.

“The plan is, by year three or year four, everything moves,” he said. “This is the start of the business for us.”

He says, if the plan is approved by Health Canada, the family will be moving up to the property. If the business grows he would relocating it to another facility. He says this will be about $5 million.

“If phase one is approved than the likelihood is that phase two would be too,” he said.

He says phase two will bring a significant contribution to the municipality generating payroll in excess of $1 million annually with $20- to $30,000 in hydro consumption, and $1- $1,200 daily going to the post office.

“There are plus sides to this, not just the taxes and the payroll and the jobs,” he said.

He says phase three would be comparable to other facilities, such as the one in Tweed and cannot be located on their property.

Ferchat says he hopes, if they get to the relocation stage, it will still be in Magnetawan and could employ 75 to 80 people.

He says he knows traffic is a concern expressed by area residents for the first two phases. He says only staff and the family will travel to the facility.

“Consumers don’t come,” he said. “We grow, we bottle, we package and we ship out.”

They predict about 20 orders a day. He says every one or two days a secured van would leave the site and go straight to the post office for Canada Post to deliver.

He says there will also be very tight controls over security. There has to be a narcotics level security vault for storage that is 8-inches thick concrete, steel reinforced with a bank-vault door.

“There’s three biometric steel doors to get into anywhere where the plants are,” he said. “It is a very secure facility.”

Ferchat says they would be the least attractive place for criminals with their 24/7 security cameras, three levels of biometric doors and a vault.

He says air quality control also is a big part of Health Canada’s strict guidelines and every room and exhaust ventilation must have carbon filters so the only thing leaving the building will be oxygen and says there will be no smell. He says Health Canada also regulates the disposal of the waste plant after they harvest the bud, which is what is sold. They will either have to apply for a permit for an incinerator on site or ship the waste plant to a Health Canada approved facility for destruction.

He says as part of the Health Canada approval process they do not have to a conduct hydro geological study. There were concerns over the facility’s septic, primarily due to the proximity to the lake and a pond on the property.

He says Health Canada does prohibit the use of any herbicides or pesticides in the grow operation and is tested before it is sold for things such as heavy metals, e-coli and mould.

Mayor Sam Dunnett suggested that a couple of wells be added through an engineering study for attenuation of wastewater and have those wells tested annually, as is done at the landfill.

Ferchat says it was a suggestion that will be adopted for the site if approved.

“People keep referring to this as industrial, but this is farming. You may not like completely what we’re farming but we’re talking about a farm. This is farming,” he said. “We’re not processing it in any way. We are forbidden by law to process.”

He says they are limited to growing, harvesting, drying and shipping and unable to, by law, to synthesize, concentrate or put the product into a baked good and all of the farming must be done indoors in the secured, windowless facility.

Concerns were raised at the meeting that a grow operation will devalue area properties, increase a criminal element and create challenges for local OPP.

Staff Sgt. Stacey Whaley, detachment commander for the Almaguin Highlands OPP, was in attendance at the meeting. He stated he was aware of the application and was interested in hearing what Ferchat had to say.

The residents also questioned where they needed to turn to stop the application from being approved.

Mayor Sam Dunnett says he believes Ferchat is a good corporate citizen and has no objection to a pharmaceutical company moving into the municipality, however the onus lies with the Federal government and Health Canada and is not in the jurisdiction of the municipality and does not have to comply with local zoning.

Resident Kay Tod says she has tried contacting Health Canada and Parry Sound/Muskoka MP Tony Clement and “nobody is listening” and says she doesn’t know where the local cottage association is going to go moving forward.