BEVERLY, MA — Beverly moved a step closer to becoming the latest Massachusetts city to enact a full or temporary zoning ban on data center development after the Planning Board and City Council voted unanimously to support a one-year moratorium on the controversial land use.
The City Council held a public forum on Monday on Mayor Mike Cahill's proposal to delay any development for one year, so that the city can research the impact of data centers and craft comprehensive criteria for potentially allowing them, or ban them altogether.
The City Council Committee on Legal Affairs, and later the full City Council, voted unanimously to support the moratorium later that meeting.
The vote was a "first passage" of the moratorium, with a second and final vote to pass the one-year ban set for Nov. 23.
Salem became the first North Shore city to ban data centers this fall amid a dispute over a proposed infrastructure facility at the redeveloped Shetland Park.
Lowell, Plymouth and Stoneham are among the other Bay State cities that have moved to at least press pause on the facilities in recent months.
"This is a process that we can do in order to craft better regulations," Planning Director Darlene Wynne said. "Data centers have been a hot topic in many other states right now. ... For the most part, people have been putting in moratoriums to get a handle on: What are the impacts of these types of uses on our community?
"How do we assess those? And what types of reviews will we want to require? What types of mitigation might we want to look at? Just really, generally, understanding the impacts of potential data centers of varying sizes.
"Then, therefore, do we want to allow them? What scale do we want to allow them at? And which locations do we want to allow them at?"
Wynne said there may be some smaller IT infrastructure facilities that some might consider data centers already operating in the city, and that this ordinance would be more apt to look to define what a larger data center is for permitting procedures.
Gov. Maura Healey this fall issued an executive order that all data center development within a community must first receive local approval before state permits are issued, and that they may include "community benefits agreements" — essentially commitments on behalf of the developer to give back funding and other contributions to cities and towns to offset land, utility, and resource use.
Wynne said the currently discussed moratorium would expire at the end of November 2027 but could be extended, if necessary.
"I felt like asking for more time would be too much, and it's a good deadline," she said. "But if something else comes up, as it often does, then we can ask for an extension."
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