On the agenda: Belchertown minutes — data center (Sep 22)

Belchertown Planning Board
Minutes — Tuesday

—

September 22, 2026

This meeting was held in-person

https://global.gotomeeting.com/join/17353894
Members Present:
Plante - Alternate

D. Beaudette,

Mike Hofler, Elizabeth

ey

at town hall and virtually at

1

Pols, Bjorn Markeson,

D

\ 0)

AL

Len Bilodeau, Mark

Members Remote:
Staff Present: Doug Albertson, Town Planner
Staff Absent: Jacqueline Fredenburgh, Technical Assistant
Audience Present: Andrey Korchevskiy, Woodland Lane
Audience Remote:

7:00 P.M. D. Beaudette

opened the meeting and read the agenda into the record.

Continued Discussion — Woodland Lane
Andrey Korchevskiy is here. He is fixing both basins; his engineer checked everything.

He has

completely redone the rear basin. The front basin is in process. Construction dust went into basins
and into bottom of basins and clogged the bottoms. This has been dredged out and the catch basins

and manholes cleaned. He replaced the bottoms with new title 5 sand and mulch. His engineer will
report by memo.

Discussion

— Data

Center Policy

We should get ahead of the industry. What are other towns doing? We need to have a definition,
perhaps

defined

by power demand.

We can have a lower electricity consumption

limit. We will see

what other towns have done. Commercial data center. D. Albertson to research other towns. We
should have a proposal

for May town meeting. We'll discuss

this more at the next meeting.

ANR — Barrett Street and No. Liberty Street, Map 276, Lot 15 — Applicant Melanie Spellman, plan
dated September
9, 2026, to create (2) lots, for lot identification
plan purposes
shown as Lot 2A

and Lot 2B, no remaining

land.

The Board discussed the plan. This plan separates an existing house from a larger parcel. The larger
one has its frontage on Barrett Street and will have a driveway right-of-way to North Liberty Street.

MOTION: E. Pols to endorse

the ANR

SECOND: L. Bilodeau

discussion: none

VOTE: 5-0-0

Additions

with Consent

of the Members:

will be reflected

in the members

report below.

Member Reports:
D. Beaudette:
discussing

Another variance request for chickens in the Village Residential zone. He has been

the topic with the agricultural commission.

M. Hofler: Remember the fireworks Thursday evening. There will be food trucks, etc. at the Chestnut
Hill school.

Thursday

at 6 pm.

E. Pols: none
B. Markeson: none
L Bilodeau: none
M. Plante: none

Minutes of September

9, 2026

- next meeting

There are bills: Turley Publications

$184.20 - endorsed

Town Planner Report
Economic Development
Last week Lieutenant Governor Driscoll was here with Aaron Saunders
the Tadgell building and made our pitch for investment in Belchertown.

and Jake Oliveira. We toured
The Lieutenant Governor

appeared to be favorable.

Lake Wallace
The Lake Wallace Fest is October 3. It was successful last year, so it might be bigger and better this
year.

A meeting with Kestrel Land Trust and EDIC will happen in a couple weeks to work out the details of
the conservation restriction, now that the parcel boundaries are set. That CR will cover the Lake
Wallace/Foley Field parcel and the abutting Gingras Woods parcel. The main thing to establish is what
level of restriction will be on Foley Field, as that will need to be separate from the conservation land.

Town Meeting
The warrant article for the Industrial zone change has been submitted.

Reminder of two public events —
Energy
The clean energy siting forum will be in town hall Wednesday
Other towns are invited, so it could be crowded.

September

23, 6:00 PM - 7:30 PM.

Water

The Massachusetts Water Resources Commission is to hold a public hearing on their proposal of an
inter-basin transfer of 20,000,000 gallons of water per day from Quabbin to Wachusett Reservoir.
Copies of the application are available for review at the Clapp Memorial Library. The He!
is to be
September

30 at 11:00 AM in the town hall auditorium.

It's also a hybrid.

MOTION: M. Hofler to adjourn the meeting.
SECOND:

B Markeson

discussion: none

VOTE: 5-0-0

Meeting

adjourned

at: 8:02 P.M.

Daniel Bea ip yy.

2

JS

Hofler

ElizabethAW!
P

Leonard Bilodeau