CHICOPEE -- The Planning Board has approved a plan to change the zoning of a plot of land near the Springfield border, in part to allow a medical marijuana clinic to be located in the city.

The Planning Board voted 4-0 last week to change the zoning of a 3,270-square-foot parcel of land off East Main Street from residential to industrial. The property is owned by Eversource, but Thomas Murphy, lawyer for Mass Alternative Care Inc., which wants to locate a marijuana clinic and growing area there, applied for the zone change.

"This is one of the first spot zones we have had an opportunity to address," City Planner Lee Pouliot told the Planning Board.

The city recently created a GIS map of the city's zoning and discovered a number of so-called spot zones, or parcels of property that were zoned differently than most of the land surrounding them. In this case the residential land is surrounded by industrial property, he said.

The property has no buildings on it and is located under high-tension power lines, Pouliot said.

"There is no reasonable expectation that anyone would ever develop this for residential," he said. Eversource did not object to the zone change.

The zoning came to the forefront when Mass Alternative Care, of Springfield, submitted plans to build a medical marijuana in the former Chicopee Engineering Associates building at 1247 East Main St.

The city's medical marijuana ordinances require marijuana clinics to be located on commercial or industrial land and at least 300 feet from a residential zone. The building is located on industrial property but the Eversource parcel was too close to it to meet the ordinance requirements.

The zone change must still be approved by the City Council before Mass Alternative Care is allowed to locate on the property.

The City Council already voted in April to grant a special permit to allow Mass Alternative Care Inc. to open a dispensary and cultivation facility on East Main Street.

In addition to receiving real estate taxes on the property, Chicopee will also receive a host agreement payment that will be a minimum of $50,000 a year and will increase depending on the earnings of the company.

City councilors said the extensive security plan the company submitted helped convince them to approve the special permit.

Mass Alternative Care Inc., which changed its name from Baystate Compassion Center Inc., is headquartered at 1 Monarch Place, Suite 1900, Springfield. Its officers are President Kevin Collins of Springfield, Treasurer David Spannaus of Brookfield, Connecticut, Clerk Heather Andresen of Longmeadow, Director Ronald Paasch of Northampton, and Director Nicholas Tamborring of Fairfield, Connecticut, according to Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin's office.