Last week, the Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission (“CCC” or the “Commission”) released new resources for navigating the rocky waters of community impact fees (“CIFs”) and host community agreements (“HCAs”). This announcement likely comes in response to the ruminating and yearning for additional guidance by operators and municipalities following the CCC’s release of new regulations and host community agreement template last year. See our prior blog post, “CCC’s Model HCA & Approval Process,” for more information on those regulations and HCA template.
This new release details several new resources available to cannabis businesses and their host communities in Massachusetts. Kimberly Roy, the Commissioner and Chapter 180 Working Group HCA Co-Chair stated, “[t]hese guidance documents are meant to serve as compliance tools to help clarify and streamline the new processes. As we approach the one-year mark in March of the new HCA requirements, the Commission continues to exercise its statutorily given authority to review and approve Host Community Agreements to ensure these contracts are compliant with current law.”
Some of these resources provided by the CCC include:
- A form invoice that host communities could use in charging annual community impact fees permitted under Massachusetts law.
- A guidance document on community impact fees and tangible “dos and don’ts” of practices that are permitted and prohibited in the view of the Commission. The guidance document also shines some light on the CCC’s new regulations relating to host community agreements and covers topics including: payments of CIFs, dispute resolution processes, responsibilities of operators, and CIF certification procedures by the Commission.
- A sample Host Community Cannabis Business Application Standard Evaluation Form to assist municipalities in evaluating equity metrics of an operator applying for a host community agreement with the hosting community.
Blank Rome’s cannabis team can assist cannabis operators in understanding and interpreting the Commission’s new guidance resources, as well as help assess the best processes and strategies that can be used to navigate the host community agreement and CIF process in light of this guidance.
We will continue to closely monitor the CCC’s discussion of their current regulations as they relate to host community agreements and CIFs and any subsequent releases of recourses or information from the Commission.
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