Board discusses moratorium on data centers and local rules for battery storage
Summary
Planning staff recommended research and a possible moratorium on data centers while the board discussed local bylaws for battery storage (noise, safety, emergency plans), noting larger installations fall under state oversight and that batteries for solar arrays cannot be banned outright.
Planning staff reported land-use committee discussion about whether to propose a moratorium on data centers to give the town time to research potential impacts and to consider whether to ban, restrict or create a bylaw for data-center siting. Staff said the moratorium would follow normal zoning-change procedures (Select Board, Planning Board, town meeting) and that no town nearby has enacted such a moratorium yet.
On battery storage, staff said state clean-energy permitting prohibits outright bans; instead, the town should draft a bylaw regulating siting, noise mitigation, emergency plans and fire-department coordination. "We cannot ban battery storage because it's part of the clean energy...we would need to create a bylaw specifically for that," Danny said. Residents raised concerns about noise, water and fire safety; staff clarified the discussion focused on larger, solar-array–scale lithium-battery systems rather than small consumer batteries.
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