Somerset Planning Board takes up selectmen's data center moratorium request on Nov. 17

SOMERSET Somerset's Planning Board will discuss Tuesday, Nov. 17, the selectmen's request that it hold a public hearing on a draft zoning bylaw that would put a temporary moratorium on data centers, the step that has to come before town meeting can vote on one.

The board meets at 6 p.m. in the first floor Hearing Room at Town Hall, 140 Wood St. Its agenda, stamped by the town clerk Nov. 10, lists under administrative items a discussion of the "10.29.26 Board of Selectmen request to consider holding a public hearing relating to a draft Zoning Bylaw to potentially establish a temporary moratorium on data centers." The hearing itself is not on Tuesday's agenda.

The selectmen voted at their Oct. 28 meeting to send the draft bylaw to the Planning Board with directions to "immediately issue notice for a public hearing," SC360 reported from the Somerset Access Television recording. The motion was recommended by town counsel at KP Law, and it passed on a voice vote.

Why the selectmen want a pause

Selectmen Chairman Allen Smith told his board that under the town's current zoning a data center would likely fit under wholesale business or storage, a use allowed by right in an industrial zone, and he recalled a zoning board chairman's point that a use allowed by right is almost impossible for the Zoning Board of Appeals to turn down. A moratorium, he said, "is pressing the pause button to slow things down to give us time as a community to be able to look at changing our zoning bylaws, so that they address this emerging technology." He said he was not proposing a total ban like Taunton's.

Selectman Todd Costa said data centers "do tax local infrastructure" and that the town should not repeat the mistakes it made with Brayton Point and with battery storage, while Selectman Joseph Bednarik said the town has surplus water and "quite the substation grid in town from National Grid" and called a data center "a sizable taxable project," adding that he was not against one. The length of the pause would be written into the bylaw that goes to town meeting, where voters could change it, Smith said.

What state law requires

Under Chapter 40A, Section 5 of state law, the hearing must be held within 65 days after the selectmen submit a proposed zoning bylaw to the planning board, with notice published in a newspaper in each of two weeks in a row, the first at least 14 days before the hearing, and posted at Town Hall for at least 14 days. The Planning Board agenda dates the selectmen's request Oct. 29.

The notice date carries weight, because under Section 6 of the same law a zoning change that town meeting later adopts applies to building and special permits issued after the first published notice of the planning board's hearing. A permit issued before that notice is generally not covered, as long as the work starts within the time the law sets, up to 12 months for a building permit and three years for a special permit or site plan approval, and continues to completion.

Two house lots off Park Avenue

Also Tuesday, the board takes up an approval not required plan to divide the vacant field behind 1600 G.A.R. Highway, at the rear of Park Avenue, into two buildable lots, and holds a public hearing on a stormwater permit application from Jamie Emerson for roadway improvements on Park Avenue to create two new single-family homes, according to the agenda.

Next door in Dighton

Dighton's Planning Board takes up data centers the next night, and its revised agenda for Wednesday, Nov. 18, at 7 p.m. lists a proposed data center bylaw from Brett Zografos for review and possible action, along with a draft 2026 housing production plan from the Southeastern Regional Planning and Economic Development District.

How to watch and weigh in

The meeting is open to the public, and the agenda says it is being recorded. Somerset Access Television posts town meetings on its YouTube channel. Public comment on the moratorium itself would come at the hearing, once the board sets a date and publishes notice.

Label: Reported by us, from the town's posted records.