Hampden town councilors are seeking input on how to handle future data center proposals after opting against banning them outright.
At a workshop on Monday, four council members decided to not move a moratorium on data center developments to a future council meeting, but did ask for recommendations from the town’s planning board for what the town can do if a data center is later proposed.
Councilor Dennis Marble requested the discussion be part of Monday’s workshop to see if councilors, of which only four were present, or residents would want to look into a temporary ban on any data centers being developed while the town creates regulations for such projects. He said he didn’t come to the meeting with evidence for or against it, but wanted to hear people’s thoughts because other communities have recently taken similar measures.
“I’m not aware that there’s any existing proposal” for a data center, Marble said at the workshop. “I’m not aware of any reason this has to be on screech, but I think it’s a big enough topic that, personally, I think we should look into it.”
Councilor Walter Jakubas said residents had asked him to talk with other councilors about what would happen if a company proposed building a data center in the town.
The Hampden council’s discussion shows that Mainers are questioning how their communities could be affected by data centers while officials are uncertain of how to handle such a development. Some cities, including Bangor, have banned data centers to better study how the developments could affect the area’s water and energy resources.
No resident spoke about a possible ban during the workshop.
Much of the council’s discussion centered around how the process to approve or deny a proposed data center would look without a moratorium.
Rules for where a data center could be built would be in the town’s zoning regulations, but specifications for data centers have not been completed, Town Manager Paula Scott said.
“If we were not able to finish working on the zoning ordinance and we got an application for a data center, then I think we would try to immediately institute a moratorium,” Scott said.
The timing for enacting a pause on developments would need to be cleared by the town’s attorney to ensure a development wasn’t being illegally blocked, but Hampden went through a similar process with marijuana dispensaries that was upheld, Scott said.
Hampden’s laws could also limit how effective a ban would be.
Moratoriums are enacted for a set period of time, with many being for six months or a year. Hampden’s rules don’t allow for endless renewals of moratoriums, meaning a proposal could come after the final renewal and not be able to be stopped, Councilor Eric Jarvi said.
Finding a process that allows the town, possibly through the Planning Board, to have more agency in the approval of a data center could allow the council to deny ones that don’t fit Hampden’s needs while allowing ones that could be positive for the area, Jakubas said.
“I’m not sure all data centers are bad, but I would hope we’d have mechanisms in place in town so we could sit back and review a proposal, and if we didn’t like it we could deny it, without putting up a blanket moratorium,” Jakubas said.