By Sara Withee
(Sept. 22, 2026) – The Ayer Planning Board voted 5-0 on Tuesday to recommend a temporary data center moratorium to Special Town Meeting on Oct. 26, 2026. The moratorium would expire in May 2028. The goal is to give the Planning Board time to review the town’s zoning regulations and the potential impacts to infrastructure, water and electricity.
At a public hearing Tuesday night, the board voted to recommend a new section be added to the zoning bylaw, “Moratorium on Data Centers” and to also add a definition for data centers to the zoning bylaw. But first, the Planning Board decided to change the definition provided by town counsel, removing the last line, as shown in the next paragraph:
DATA CENTER: a facility, campus of facilities, or array of interconnected facilities primarily used to operate, manage, or maintain computers, servers, networking equipment, or other hardware and software systems for the purpose of processing, storing, retrieving, or transmitting data, whose activities will place strain on existing utilities, which may include, but not be limited to, water and electricity usage (The Planning Board removed the bolded section).
The board removed this after one member said this was editorializing. Another Planning Board member shared most of the comments and had concerns about the town entering into a moratorium. At one point, he said data centers are not currently allowed in Ayer’s zoning; they are not in the zoning table.
The Land Use Director/Planner said this could still come up because one could potentially describe a data center as a warehouse with interior storage.
“It would come to us and we would turn it down,” the Planning Board member said.
“We don’t need to get there,” the Land Use Director/Planner responded.
Across Massachusetts
Data centers are getting a closer look in communities across Massachusetts, on both the local and state level.
Data centers are facilities set up to operate computers, servers and networking equipment to process, store and transmit data. While data centers may be large, these don’t necessarily have to be. Data centers can have high electricity needs and in turn, facilities may require large amounts of water for cooling. Equipment can also emit noise and dust pollution.
On the state level, Gov. Maura Healey signed an executive order on Sept. 8th, blocking state agencies from issuing permits to large data center projects unless the developer has received community approval. The order focuses on data centers with peak electricity demand exceeding 25 megawatts.
Lowell Data Center
In March, the Lowell City Council enacted a 360-day moratorium, holding on new construction and development of data centers. This was to give the city time to review its zoning regulations and potential impacts.
The impacts of one data center have already been tremendous in Lowell. In April, Lowell residents filed a lawsuit against the data center and the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (Mass DEP), claiming the data center had been “disrupting daily life for residents with air pollution, industrial noise, dust, odor, traffic, and other impacts.” The lawsuit argued residents had been denied due process during permitting.
In August, a Middlesex Superior Court judge ruled the company had to pause construction of infrastructure which was not yet in operation, giving residents a chance to be heard on their claims. We also published another article this week, called “Focus on Both Data Centers and Environmental Justice Communities in Lowell.”
Other Communities
A number of Massachusetts communities have been considering how to address data center concerns in recent months. Some have passed zoning measures or temporary moratoriums similar to the one Ayer will consider.
More recently in September, the Greenfield City Council adopted a one-year moratorium on new data centers, giving the Planning Board time to review the city’s zoning regulations and potential impacts on the community, public safety and natural resources (Source: Greenfield Recorder).
Meanwhile, the Leominster City Council will continue a public hearing into a proposed moratorium – temporary one-year – in late September, according to a public notice posted on the city’s website.