NORTHAMPTON — As the city weighs whether to implement a year-long moratorium on the development of commercial data centers, the City Council voted unanimously on Thursday to form a 10-person committee tasked with studying the impacts a data center would have on the city.
The decision came as the proliferation of artificial intelligence data centers sparks concerns across the region, prompting municipalities such as Greenfield, Easthampton and Westfield to enact moratoriums. Meanwhile, Shutesbury and Holyoke have banned such developments.
The study committee will comprise up to three members of the City Council, two city department heads and up to five city residents with expertise or experience in data processing, environmental studies, or other professional fields related to the community impact of data centers.
The committee is expected to present its findings and recommendations to the council by April 1, 2027. In discussion of the resolution supporting the new committee, Ward 6 City Councilor Christopher Stratton said he hopes the committee will be able to differentiate modern high-energy-use data centers from smaller, less energy-consuming ones. He urged the council to hold a public hearing on a moratorium in mid-October to expedite action on the proposed moratorium.
” [To have] a quick moratorium, and then [to conduct] an extended study, that makes all the sense in the world,” Stratton said. “I will just say that I would really appreciate it if there was any way we could have a public hearing for [the moratorium proposal] in mid-October, because if we do that in late October, then we probably won’t have a council vote on it until Nov. 5.”
Environmental experts and researchers frequently point to data centers’ potential to use large amounts of energy, pollute nearby waterways, and release substantial heat, making the facilities a target of controversy in areas where they have been proposed.
For instance, large data centers can consume up to 5 million gallons of water in a single day, according to the Environmental and Energy Study Institute — a volume equivalent to the daily water usage of a town populated by 10,000 to 50,000 people.
“What’s been happening in a lot of cities and towns across the nation is some of these small businesses come in as LLCs [and] they kind of get under the radar,” Ward 1 Councilor Gwen Nabad, a co-sponsor of the proposed moratorium, previously said. “Once it starts, it has the potential to just sort of blow up.”
State Sen. Joanne Comerford, who attended Thursday night’s council meeting to present updates on legislative efforts geared toward supporting western Massachusetts cities and towns, spoke to Gov. Maura Healey’s support for local regulation on data centers.
The senator also noted that the Senate’s most recent version of the economic development bill put “a lot of protections” around how AI businesses and data centers can “come into the commonwealth.”
“I really want to applaud your [proposed] data center moratorium. I think it’s important,” Comerford said. ” [The governor] released a statewide framework on June 26 — she paused applications for data centers. She said data centers have to have their own renewable energy and clean water supply. [Healey] sets a lot of siting regulations, but recently she said ‘Unless a community says yes, we say no.'”
Those interested in applying to join the committee have until Oct. 15 to submit their applications to the city.
