On May 5, the Planning Board asked Town Meeting to approve a Zoning Bylaw amendment to ban most types of Data Centers from town, and the amendment was overwhelmingly and resoundingly approved! This is the first bylaw of its kind in the Commonwealth, and Mansfield should be proud to be a leader in the charge to prohibit these resource-intensive facilities.

Mark first brought this idea to the Planning Board in January, after realizing that the way the existing Bylaws are written could allow Data Centers to be built as Warehouse or Office uses. The Planning Director, Sarah Raposa, gathered example bylaws from towns across the country and sought input from other Town Planners across the state, and the board began discussions of the pros and cons of allowing Data Centers to come to our town. Based on the voiced concerns around power consumption and impacts on the water supply, the Board invited the heads of Mansfield Electric and the Water Department to come and give their thoughts on the subject. The information they shared was immensely valuable, and Sarah and Mark worked to compile a draft bylaw, taking into account Mark’s professional experience working with Data Centers in his IT career.

The Data Center Bylaw prohibits all but the smallest of Data Centers from being built in Mansfield. The only exception is for “edge” or “micro” Data Centers using less than 2 megawatts. These uses are not what you’d typically consider a Data Center, and this is more of an exception for internet providers or the like who need local infrastructure, or offices with larger server rooms, and even these would be subject to rigorous scrutiny by the Planning Board through the Special Permit process, as well as regular monitoring and review of compliance with the strict performance standards laid out in the Bylaw.

We specifically classified Data Centers according to their power usage, rather than floor area. This was a strategic choice, because as technology evolves, computers get smaller while power usage increases. Scoping this to floor area would require updating the bylaw every few years to keep up with these changes in density, while pinning it to power usage ensures that this bylaw is not made obsolete by newer technology. Additionally, we chose 2MW as our limit due to the capacity of our municipal electric department; currently, the overall capacity is about 50MW, with about 2MW of headroom at the moment.

The Planning Board proactively addressed a gap in our Zoning to prevent Data Centers from coming into town and taking advantage of the electric grid and water supply our town has spent so much time and money developing into some of the best in the Commonwealth. Our inexpensive electric and water rates would make Mansfield a prime location for a Data Center, and we wanted to get ahead of what so many communities across the country have had to deal with.

Thank you to the Town Meeting body for approving Article 23 to keep Data Centers out of Mansfield!

_{The full text of the Zoning Bylaw can be found here.}

_{More information can be found on the Planning Board website here.}