The data center ordinance that started in February as an outright ban on the Everett Docklands came out of the City Council’s Legislative Affairs Committee on Monday, June 8, as a two-tier permit system, with the committee recommending it as amended hours before the full council enrolled it 7-3.
Planning and development director Matt Lattanzi walked the committee through the version the planning board sent back. A “computer room,” the kind any office building has, is defined and left alone. A small data center is 20,000 square feet or less and 5 megawatts or less; exceed either and it is a large data center, which “is still outright prohibited.” Small centers need a planning board special permit with findings on water, noise, electricity and local job creation, plus submissions “both upfront and then also on a monitoring basis.” Each proposal would get at least one public hearing with abutters within 300 feet notified, and because the Docklands is a master-planned district, “this use is the only use in that district that would require a second special permit relative to the specific site,” chief development officer Monica Lamboy said.
Lamboy then presented amendments worked out with Council President Stephanie Smith. Cooling must be a closed loop using “only water or non chemical coolant.” If potable water is used, data centers “shall pay current City of Everett water rates or provide water from another source,” and annual top-off water may not exceed one gallon per square foot of the facility. Diesel generators are “not allowed at all”; the planning board wanted battery only, but “we’re concerned that technology doesn’t exist today,” so the rule is battery first, natural gas only after the battery is used “to the fullest extent possible.” Jobs: at least one Everett job for every 500 square feet of data center, replacing a vaguer 1,000-foot standard. Councilor Katy Rogers asked whether it is restrictive enough. City Solicitor Jaclyn Munson: “This ordinance is very narrowly targeted to regulate what it’s intended to regulate.” Chair Michael Marchese asked where a second water source would come from; Lamboy said trucked or non-potable water, and the point of the rate language is that they pay “the same rate that any other water user” pays. Councilor Stephanie Martins summed up the case: data centers “produce 24/7 noise,” can strain water and power bills, and “it doesn’t really add jobs other than just the construction.” Burley noted the committee needed the actual text, which Lamboy had, and the vote was favorable action as amended.
Two appointments
Kristin Foote, nominated as director of elections for three years, said she has ten years of municipal experience including presidential elections, overrides, recounts and redistricting, and wants a “frictionless voter experience” with attention to “multilingual or ADA issues.” “I’m so excited that we finally have a person again,” Martins said. Thomas Abruzzese of Peirce Avenue, a retired Department of Correction attorney of 35 years and a former school committee member, was recommended to a five-year zoning board term. “I like the idea that someone thinks I’m gonna be around five years from now,” he said. Rogers urged the board to keep an alternate so quorum problems stop delaying projects; Abruzzese said his school committee attendance was “over 95 percent.” Marchese said he and Burley have known Abruzzese “for probably 60 years or more.”
