A Massachusetts political activist has filed a statewide ballot initiative that would force data-center developers to win approval from two-thirds of local voters before breaking ground, adding a potential ballot-box check to a fight that has already split cities and towns across the Commonwealth. Jim Fleming, who runs a company that helps organizers gather certified signatures for ballot questions, filed the petition after residents in affected communities began calling him about the issue, he said he had not previously considered.
The measure, formally called Initiative Petition 26-08, would require any data center project to secure a two-thirds vote of approval from local residents, along with a signed agreement with the local electric utility guaranteeing the project will not raise customers' electricity costs, according to Boston.com. The petition would also require developers to certify that a project's water needs can be met and to submit a drought contingency plan before local permitting agencies could sign off. Official state filings show the petition was formally submitted to the Secretary of the Commonwealth on August 11, per Mass.gov records, and it targets the November 2028 election as an indirect initiative.
Fleming, who owns JEF Associates, said the ballot initiative can still bring information about data centers to voters even if it never gathers enough signatures to qualify. He needs roughly 12,500 additional signatures to place the question on the 2028 ballot if the Legislature takes no action, and about 75,000 signatures by early December to move the measure to lawmakers in the first place. Once the state attorney general rules on the petition's constitutionality, expected by September 2, Fleming said he would begin collecting those signatures.
A Statewide Patchwork Of Local Rules
The petition lands amid a scattershot set of municipal responses to a data-center boom that has already reshaped zoning fights from Western Massachusetts to Boston's northern suburbs. According to research tracked by ComputeCompute.org, the state has more than 30 operational and proposed data-center facilities, and massive projects can require 100 megawatts or more of electricity — but Massachusetts still has no official statewide registry of these facilities, per the same report cited by Boston.com.
Individual communities have taken wildly different approaches. Southborough limits data centers to 50,000 square feet and requires special permits, while Everett caps facilities in its Docklands Innovation District at 20,000 square feet or 5 megawatts. Mansfield Town Meeting voters approved a bylaw in May capping electrical demand at 2 megawatts, according to Server Country. Malden imposed a one-year moratorium while it develops new zoning rules, and Holyoke's City Council voted 9-4 in June to ban new data centers using more than 12 megawatts of power, halting a proposed $200 million redevelopment there, as reported by WAMC.
Westfield's $4 Billion Flashpoint
Westfield's experience captures how quickly sentiment can turn. City leaders approved a $4 billion, 274-megawatt hyperscale data center campus proposed by Servistar Realties in 2021, tax breaks included — but after community concerns mounted over water and grid strain, the City Council voted unanimously in July for a one-year moratorium on additional data-center projects, according to the Cool Down. Hoodline previously covered public alarm over the Westfield project's potential impact on power bills and later reported on Governor Maura Healey's decision to freeze the state's sales tax exemption applications for data centers statewide.
That freeze, announced June 25, requires developers to fund all clean-energy and grid-infrastructure costs themselves and to prove their projects won't raise ratepayer electric bills before qualifying for tax breaks under the 2024 Mass Leads Act, according to the state's own announcement. On Beacon Hill, Representative Rodney Elliott of Lowell filed a separate bill, HD.5404, in December that would require Department of Public Utilities oversight to ensure data centers consuming 10 megawatts or more — not residential customers — bear the cost of grid upgrades. That bill remains in the House Rules Committee. A separate Senate amendment, SB3213, would impose clean-energy, water, environmental, and community requirements on large data centers.
Lowell's Legal Fight Over Diesel Generators
Lowell has become the site of the state's first legal challenge to a data-center expansion. Lowell residents filed suit against Markley Group over its 352,000-square-foot facility, and Massachusetts Superior Court Judge C. William Barrett ordered the company on August 10 to pause installation of four new backup diesel generators there, following the lawsuit brought with the Conservation Law Foundation, according to the Conservation Law Foundation. Hoodline reported on that ruling when it came down. The Lowell facility is the largest single data center in a state that, as of July, had 45 such facilities spread across nine regional markets, with Boston serving as the largest hub with 30 facilities, according to Accutech Communications.
Part Of A Wider National Trend
Massachusetts is not alone in confronting this backlash. New York Governor Kathy Hochul issued an executive order in July placing a one-year moratorium on new data centers consuming 50 megawatts or more, joining similar tax-incentive pauses enacted by governors in Nebraska, Ohio, and Illinois this year, according to Thomson Reuters. In Ohio, the state Ballot Board approved signature collection in April for a grassroots constitutional amendment that would ban data centers consuming over 25 megawatts per month — a measure that requires more than 413,000 signatures to qualify, per Farm Progress.
Fleming said he sees his petition as leverage rather than an end goal. He said greater transparency around data centers is beneficial for voters regardless of the outcome, and that he would prefer state lawmakers pass a significant law sooner rather than later. Under the state's process, the Legislature can pass the measure as written, propose a substitute, or take no action — in which case Fleming's group would need to gather the full signature threshold to put the question directly before voters in 2028. Fleming said he intends to continue the initiative effort until lawmakers pass what he considers a significant law addressing the issue.
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