Athol voters head to Memorial Hall Monday night to decide whether the town should freeze all new data center development for a full year while officials study what the industry could mean for local water, power and taxes. Article 9 on the warrant for the Nov. 9 Special Town Meeting asks residents to approve a temporary moratorium on the use, construction, development, expansion or conversion of land or structures for data centers in Athol.
The measure has already cleared every town body that has reviewed it. According to the Athol Daily News, both the Select Board and the Finance and Warrant Advisory Committee have given Article 9 their unanimous support, and the Board of Planning and Community Development voted unanimously on Oct. 7 to endorse its passage. If approved, the town would not accept, process or approve any application to construct, convert or establish a data center for the duration of the moratorium, and officials would also be barred from granting special permits, site plan approvals or any other zoning or land use approvals tied to the facilities.
Where the Proposal Came From
Planning and Development Director Eric Smith said the issue first came to him through a town official. “the issue of a moratorium was first brought to my attention by Select Board member Marc Maxwell,” Smith said, per the same account. Smith said data centers can raise concerns about their impact on the town's water supply, energy use and infrastructure, concerns that mirror worries raised in communities across the state as the industry expands.
Maxwell, for his part, has framed the pause as a matter of fiscal protection rather than outright opposition. He said he wants Athol to develop zoning plans and conduct a review that would make sure the taxpayers won't incur any costs from the power usage and the water usage tied to any future facility. Maxwell has also said constituents he's spoken with appear to support either a moratorium or some kind of planning process, and he's noted that a well-sited data center imposing no charges on townspeople could actually benefit the tax base.
What the Moratorium Would Actually Do
During the one-year pause, the Board of Planning and Community Development would evaluate the impact of a data center on municipal infrastructure, electrical demand, water usage and wastewater capacity, along with environment, noise and public health. The stated goal is to give the board time to develop and propose zoning regulations governing data centers before any project could move forward in town.
David Small has said the year would give Athol time to decide what kinds of data centers it would even allow, and to establish siting criteria along with water and setback requirements. Small has also said the pause would give both town and state officials time to properly assess the approval process, rather than having Athol act under pressure from a pending proposal.
A Statewide Pattern Playing Out Town by Town
Athol is not an outlier. MassLive found more than 30 Massachusetts communities that have either enacted a data center moratorium or outright ban, or were discussing doing so in the near future, with 18 communities having fully enacted or approved such a measure as of Oct. 15. At least 17 other communities were actively discussing or considering similar restrictions, the outlet reported.
Some of those debates have unfolded even without a specific project on the table. In Holyoke, the city council voted 9-4 in June to approve a ban on new data centers after residents pushed for one, MassLive reported. In Southbridge, residents urged the town council to adopt a moratorium even though no data center proposals were actually being discussed at the time, according to the outlet.
The pattern is also visible closer to Athol's size and region. Somerset's Board of Selectmen asked the town administrator on Oct. 28 to draft a temporary data center moratorium and send it to the Planning Board for a public hearing, the Herald News reported, with selectmen floating one- or two-year terms without settling on a specific length. The Herald News noted that Taunton and New Bedford have recently adopted their own proactive data center moratoriums.
A New State Mandate on Local Consent
Athol's debate is also shaped by action from the governor's office. The Athol Daily News reports that Gov. Maura Healey signed an executive order on Sept. 8 stating that no new data center can be built without the explicit support of the city or town where it is to be constructed. The same order directs the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection to develop protocols requiring data center projects with peak electricity demand exceeding 25 megawatts to protect water quality and quantity, including by demonstrating compliance with applicable state water, wastewater and stormwater requirements, according to the order published on Mass.gov.
Athol's Special Town Meeting gets underway at 7 p.m. Monday in Memorial Hall at Town Hall, where voters will have the final say on whether the town joins the growing list of Massachusetts communities hitting pause on data centers before any facility is ever proposed within its borders.
