Auburn’s leaders appear ready to be done and over with controversies public and private that have followed in the wake of the current ban on marijuana businesses.

A pending ordinance unveiled at the end of Monday’s City Council study session allows for marijuana businesses already in operation to continue.

And it provides for Green Solutions Place to move from its controversial site next to the entrance to the Forest Ridge subdivision at 2801 Auburn Way S., to an industrial area in the city of Auburn.

Council members first talked about the ordinance behind closed doors in the context of potential and pending litigation, and then City Attorney Dan Heid commented on it in public.

“This would solve some of the issues and the controversy and involved in litigation,” Heid said.

Deputy Mayor Largo Wales said the ordinance is going to be on the agenda for possible action at the Aug. 1 City Council meeting.

Heid said one of the changes that came out of recent discussions of the marijuana issue is that the ordinance sets a 90,000-square-foot total building space maximum throughout the entire city for marijuana producers and processors, down from the present 100,000 square feet, and sets the lower limit at least 4,000 square feet.

It also bans butane-and-hydrocarbon-solvent-type operations of some of the processors.

“We anticipate this should solve the Green Solutions issue without a question, but it would also solve litigation threatened in connection with one of the producers and processors because of similar issues,” Heid said.

According to the ordinance, the maximum number of licensed marijuana retailers allowed to operate in Auburn cannot exceed two, “provided that a marijuana retailer licensed by the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board may be allowed to operate within the city even if it constitutes more than two businesses if the business was engaged in lawfully licensed business at a time when the city did not have a moratorium or a ban prohibiting such activity,” when the business applied for its permits and approvals when no moratorium was in effect, and the business is at a City-approved place.

Here’s how things got to be where they are:

In November of 2012, Washington voters approved Initiative 502, legalizing the possession of specified quantities of marijuana, and authorizing the processing, production and retail sales of recreational marijuana.

On Sept. 2, 2014, the City Council approved an ordinance establishing processes and protocols for sales, processing and production of marijuana in Auburn.

While Auburn doesn’t issue business licenses for retail marijuana stores, it does issue building permits to ensure that all businesses meet local and state requirements.

At the time the state’s original I-520 marijuana businesses were being processed, the WLCB’s allocation for the City of Auburn was two stores. Those two exist today as the Stash Box at 3108 A St. SE. and the Evergreen Market at 402 16th St. NE.

But late last year, the WLCB changed its rules to allow additional retail marijuana outlets in Auburn. While the board stressed it had no plans to allow any more than four, members made clear they could do that, Heid said.

City leaders found a big difference between tolerating two stores and conceivably more.

While the City was trying to get its concerns across to the board, Heid said, Green Solutions’ application was working its way through the system.

To buy itself time to study what the new rules would mean in Auburn, the City Council on Jan. 4 set a one-year moratorium on additional marijuana-related businesses and uses, and the City Attorney’s Office began evaluating the applicability and effect of the City’s moratorium on pending applications, including that of Green Solutions.

Later, the City passed an ordinance lifting the Jan. 4 moratorium and banning all marijuana processing and production, retail outlets and sales of marijuana in the city.

Heid said at the time of the passage of the ban that the two stores then existing could be grandfathered in as pre-existing, non conforming uses – an option the City did not believe applied to Green Solutions Place.

What the City was arguing, in part, was that Green Solutions, being next to a residential neighborhood, close to the Muckleshoot Transit Center, and close to a playground violated Auburn’s zoning code.

Green Solutions’ counter argument – no, that is not really a transit center … and that’s not a publicly-funded playground.

“We are saying that it really is a transit center, and the statute doesn’t say it has to be a publicly-funded playground; the statute says any playground. So there’s a little bit of a difference of opinion there,” Heid said.

Also in its defense, Green Solutions argued that it had submitted a complete building permit last December, prior to the City’s enactment of its moratorium or the later ordinance that lifted it in favor of a total ban, and that it had engaged in preparatory actions before the City took either action.

A Superior Court Judge in May granted the City of Auburn’s motion for a preliminary injunction against Green Solutions Place.