HATFIELD — A request from a marijuana manufacturer that the town not collect annual impact fees from the business is being turned down by Hatfield officials.
The Select Board this week rejected a request, made in January by the founders of Treeworks Massachusetts, that Hatfield follow the lead of Northampton in no longer taking in this money if the business was having no measurable impact on town services.
After examining the circumstances, and noting no impact fee money has yet come to town coffers, the board opted against the action.
“I am not inclined to waive or reduce the fee currently, this year,” said board member Brian Moriarty, adding that the topic could be revisited.
In January 2021, former Northampton Mayor David Narkewicz announced that the city would stop collecting impact fees, though that decision came after more than $3 million had already been taken in from its cannabis companies.
The board argued that the five-year, 3% annual tax was part of the arrangement in a deal to open in town. Treeworks has been in a building on Routes 5 and 10 since May 2020.
“It was a known fee, it’s not something we hit a business with unbeknownst to them,” Moriarty said.
Board Chairwoman Diana Szynal said the town has been accommodating to marijuana start-up businesses and that the state gave all cities and towns the opportunity to have the revenue source as a way to encourage being hosts.
Board member Edmund Jaworski, too, said that the arrangement with Treeworks was negotiated in good faith.
The board, though, didn’t find that any town services had been affected by Treeworks.
Still, in doing research into other communities, Town Administrator Marlene Michonski said that both Hadley, where dispensaries The Heirloom Collective and Hadleaf will be operating, and Sunderland, where Gracious Greens recently inked a host community agreement, are continuing to collect impact fees.
Moriarty said the state might have given the impact fee a different name. “The reality is it’s a doing-business-in-a-community fee,” Moriarty said.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.
