The Chicopee City Council discusses a proposed ordinance amendment for renewable energy and battery storage systems at its Sept. 15 meeting.
Photo credit: ChicopeeTV
CHICOPEE — The City Council and subcommittees are seeking to define and potentially regulate renewable energy storage, battery energy storage and data centers within the city.
A preliminary conversation began on Aug. 4, when the City Council discussed a proposed amendment to a city ordinance that would define renewable energy storage and battery energy storage. The amendment was referred to the Planning Department, Zoning Subcommittee and Ordinance Subcommittee for separate public hearings.
City Council President Frank Laflamme proposed the amendment, which looks to provide safeguards and regulations for those facilities.
The Ordinance Committee met on Sept. 14 to discuss the ordinance, but during the Sept. 15 City Council meeting, City Councilor Bill Courchense said the ordinance still has a few more steps before it gets back to the full body.
City Councilor Mary Beth Pniak-Costello said, “This is a big, big deal to have an ordinance with guardrails in the city of Chicopee dealing with renewable energy.”
At the same meeting on Aug. 4, the City Council discussed a data center ordinance amendment proposed by Courchense.
The amendment, which includes regulations on data centers, was referred to the Planning Department, Engineering, Zoning Subcommittee and then Ordinance for final approval before it can be submitted to the attorney general’s office for consideration.
The amendment delineates what a data center is, where it can be built throughout the city and the different sizes of data centers. For example, the proposed ordinance states that tier-1 low-impact data centers require a special permit from the City Council and can be built only in industrial districts.
Additionally, the proposed ordinance requires that data centers do not place an “undue burden” on municipal services, including fire, police, public works, water, sewer and electric systems.
Courchense said the amendment was a rough draft and included areas that the Planning Department may want to change. He acknowledged that it mixes different ordinances based on research.
Courchense said he tried to do his best “to help us legislate this to a point that it meets our needs and not the state’s needs.”
City Councilor Sam Shumsky said he opposed the order and listed many reasons for his dissatisfaction.
“I understand that in the future there are going to be some regulations, but I would rather have the experts up in the Planning Department office do this so that we could adopt anything that’s legally vetted,” he said.
Laflamme said he, Courchense and Planning Director Lee Pouliot have discussed the proposed ordinance amendment. Laflamme said Pouliot has no problem discussing the rough draft with the Planning Department and determining what should be in the amendment.
The ordinance will go to the Planning Department and Zoning Subcommittee before a public hearing with the Ordinance Subcommittee.
Being that this is a new process, City Councilor Joel McAulife also said the City Council should take its time drafting regulations.
He stated that he is not necessarily against data centers. “If we’re going to have the artificial intelligence revolution that Chicopee is not going to stop, then there’s going to need to be data centers to do these things.”
Since the Aug. 4 meeting, Gov. Maura Healey signed an executive order giving communities a voice and protecting them against irresponsible data center development and higher energy bills.
According to mass.gov, under Healey’s executive order, state permitting agencies will not advance the project if a data center doesn’t have local approval. Healey also directed state agencies to require data centers to comply with her comprehensive Data Center Framework, including bringing their own clean energy supply, protecting water resources and engaging transparently with the surrounding communities.
Courchesne said that he proposed this ordinance because someone needed to get the ball rolling.
“We listen to constituents, we look at the future, we see what’s going on, and we protect ourselves but also encourage people to come and do business with us,” he explained. “Every single word in this ordinance is approved by the attorney general because every single ordinance I pulled this from is an attorney general-approved ordinance.”
City Councilor Joe Pasternak, who has worked within the energy field for 40 years, including at Chicopee Electric Light, said the topic has been discussed for over a year and he has read plenty of stories on data centers.
“This is going to be the wave of the future,” he stated. “I feel very sad about some of the communities local to us that have made very rash and very quick decisions. We have to be so careful. This could be something that could help Chicopee, but we should be guided; we should be purposeful, and we should most certainly be watchful of anything that might be an adverse or a negativity towards our neighborhoods, our constituents.”
