WINNIPEG -- Some Winnipeg city councillors say they're getting an earful from residents about homegrown medicinal marijuana, and they want Health Canada’s help.

"The issue here was, hey this is like a commercial operation, this is like an ag operation here, you know within a block of a K to 8 school, this can't be right," said councillor Brian Mayes, who is the chair of Property and Development.

Last year, councillor Ross Eadie asked the city to look at ways it could limit the number of plants someone could grow in their home for medical purposes and push larger medicinal grow ops to industrial areas, because of noise and odour concerns.

“It's unreasonable access if you're offending and causing problems for your neighbours,” said Eadie.

The city says under federal rules there is no limit on the number of medical pot plants someone can grow, but Health Canada says an individual can possess a maximum of 150 dried or 300 fresh grams of marijuana depending on a doctor’s recommendation.

On top of that, four registrations to grow can be tied to one location and that has the potential for hundreds of plants in one home.

Eadie says he's received complaints from multiple neighbourhoods across the city.

“They're sick and tired of living next door to these houses that have two to 300 plants," said Eadie.

Following up on Eadie's request, the city's administration says it can't act alone, this falls under federal jurisdiction.

“In essence, it's both a right to privacy and a right to health care that really governs and trumps land use planning," said John Kiernan, director of Planning & Property.

The city's property committee passed a motion to raise the issue with Health Canada, to limit residential medicinal grow operations.

"We do need to reach out to them and get some more control here so we don't have these sorts of complaints pouring in about homes with enormous amounts of plants," said Mayes.

But Eadie believes the city can do this without Ottawa’s permission and he's not convinced talking to Health Canada will help.

“It's useless, it's going to be a waste of time, it makes it look like they're doing something but they're not doing anything,” said Eadie.