A client recently engaged Chicago Cityscape’s zoning partner MAP Strategies to create custom-designed maps of the medical marijuana districts in Illinois. I had never heard of such a thing, so before we took on the job I had to do a little research.
Illinois has 43 medical cannabis districts, which limit the number of medical cannabis dispensaries and cultivation centers in each district. There are 55 licensed dispensaries and 22 licensed cultivation centers and the state is not authorizing additional ones. The pilot program ends July 1, 2020.
It would have been easy to make the maps if such boundaries already existed. The districts are defined and regulated by the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (IDFPR), which only described their boundaries.
Since no map existed, I had to create them. Thankfully the districts are pretty simple: Each district outside Cook County consists of a group of counties, and each district in Cook County is a group of townships. Chicago no longer uses townships for any administrative or political function, but their boundaries are still used by the Cook County Assessor.
This client got their custom-designed maps last week, and a copy of the GIS data. Now, Chicago Cityscape members can see the boundaries, too. (Cityscape Pro members can also download a copy.)
Like with all of our maps, when you look up an address, the resulting Address Snapshot lists all of the containing boundaries, including legislative districts, police districts, certain incentives areas, and ZIP codes. Now the Address Snapshot report lists which Illinois medical cannabis district it’s in.
And, if you’re looking at one of the Chicago medical cannabis districts, you can also overlay the Chicago zoning map to find the zones which allow medical cannabis dispensaries.
What new maps would you like to see?
Pro tip: If you have a map you’ve already drawn in another program (Google Earth, for example) we can load that into our system as a Personal Place that’s private to you or public for anyone with the link. Email us, info@chicagocityscape.com.