SUTTON, Mass. — Residents filled a Sutton Select Board meeting Tuesday night to oppose a proposed data center campus at the Unified packaging site. Several urged the board to end the process before it started, and some in the audience chanted "kill it."

The board took no vote on the proposal. Officials stressed that the project is at its earliest stage. Board members said they share many of the residents' concerns and that the town should write a zoning bylaw covering data centers before going further.

"This is not a project, it's a done deal, this is far from it," the board's chair said as the meeting opened. "This is at the very, very beginning of the process."

What's proposed

The town manager presented a proposal the town received from Unified Global Packaging Group and the Kraft Group, and said the presentation was not a recommendation. The board was not being asked to approve anything, the town manager said.

According to the presentation, the first phase would be two buildings of about 250,000 square feet each, each rated at 90 megawatts, that could open in 2029. The developer's schedule adds two buildings a year starting in 2030, for 10 buildings by 2033.

The developer values each first-phase building at $675 million in real property, plus about $1 billion per building in equipment such as servers and racks. That puts the first phase at about $3.35 billion, according to the presentation. All property in Sutton is currently assessed at about $2.85 billion.

The town's own estimate uses lower values than the developer's, and the town manager said every figure is preliminary. It projects about $10.4 million a year in property taxes once the first phase is fully assessed in fiscal 2031, and just under $28 million a year at full build-out in 2035. Under those estimates, the first phase alone would cut the average single-family tax bill by about $2,300 in fiscal 2031.

The town manager said that under an executive order the governor signed in September, state agencies won't advance permits for a project like this without local approval and a community benefits agreement. Developers also must pay the full cost of grid upgrades. Noise is not addressed in the state's framework, the town manager said, and would depend on a local bylaw and the benefits agreement.

Sutton's zoning bylaws don't clearly address data centers, according to the presentation, and adopting one would take a two-thirds vote at town meeting. The town manager laid out a timeline of negotiating a benefits agreement over the winter and publishing draft terms in the spring. Any agreement would depend on town meeting approval, and the peer review would be paid for by the developer.

Residents push back

A resident who said she is a retired physician called for a moratorium on data center development in Sutton. She cited the risk of heat, noise, water and air pollution, and higher electricity costs.

Another resident said that, if built as proposed, the campus would rank among the largest data centers in the country. She questioned whether the town could hire enough legal and technical expertise to avoid being outmatched in negotiations with the developers.

One speaker said residents moved to Sutton for land, dark skies and a sense of community. If the town goes ahead, he said, any protections on water, noise and light should be enforceable by the town itself rather than through lawsuits that can take years.

Others asked the board to stop the process that night.

Board members voice skepticism

One board member said they live six houses from the site. "At this point in the process, we need to know more," the member said, adding that any bylaw needs "teeth" and that the developer should pay for peer review and legal costs. The member also called for protections if the facility is ever abandoned, and for a minimum taxable value.

Another member said the town is moving in the wrong order. She said Sutton's bylaw allows only the uses it lists, so a data center isn't currently allowed. In her view, the community should first decide what it wants, including whether to adopt a moratorium or a cap on size, before negotiating with a developer. She said the largest data center now in Massachusetts is 30 megawatts, compared with the 900 megawatts proposed here.

"Right now I think we have we have got the cart before the horse," she said.

A third member raised concerns about low-frequency noise and water use, and doubted the town has the in-house engineering expertise to evaluate the project.

The chair said the board has "a really strong dose of skepticism and concern about this project," and that the town's finances should not drive the decision. "This is a long-term generational impact," the chair said.

Another board member told residents that if the town keeps such projects out, "we're all willing and have to be willing to pay more." That drew objections from the audience.

What's next

The board agreed that work on a zoning bylaw should start first, beginning with the Planning Board. Members also called for public hearings and information on the project's water, noise and other operating effects. The town manager said the town will hold public information sessions in the coming months. Residents can send questions and comments to [email protected].