On the evening of May 27, the Nottingham Planning Board's regular meeting had to be moved out of town hall and into the gym at Nottingham School because the room the town normally uses couldn't hold the crowd. Protesters gathered outside. A petition that had passed 14,700 signatures two days earlier climbed past 25,000 by the time people took their seats. And then, hours before anyone spoke, the thing everyone had shown up to weigh in on was withdrawn.
If you've heard bits of this story secondhand, at the transfer station, on Front Porch Forum, from a neighbor who was actually in that gym, you've probably heard the loud part. What's easy to miss is that the loud part happened around a proposal that was never formally filed, and that the vote residents actually need to watch for still hasn't been scheduled.
A Meeting That Was Never a Public Hearing
The item on the May 27 agenda was labeled a conceptual consultation. That's a specific, low-stakes step in New Hampshire's land use process, an informal conversation where a developer floats an idea and the planning board reacts, with no binding decision attached. It's not a public hearing with sworn testimony. It's closer to a first date.
Seacoast entrepreneur Thomas Moulton wanted to talk with the board about converting a vacant warehouse in the Nottingham Business Park into a data center. He hadn't filed a site plan application. He told NHPR he felt blindsided by how fast the opposition organized before he'd had a chance to explain what he had in mind, including what he described as a meaningful bump in local tax revenue. He withdrew that afternoon, citing the backlash, and told Seacoastonline he might revisit the idea later.
So the meeting that drew a protest, a petition with tens of thousands of signatures, and enough attention to make national outlets never actually happened as planned. What Nottingham experienced in May was closer to a fire drill than a fire. The infrastructure for a real fight, subcommittees, moratorium drafts, a possible town-wide vote, only got built afterward.
The 150 Acres Everyone Keeps Coming Back To
The site Moulton had in mind sits off Route 4 in the Nottingham Business Park, at 145 Old Turnpike Road. The parcel runs about 150 acres, with roughly 80 of those considered usable for development. It's already zoned for commercial and industrial use, which is exactly why a developer can circle back to it without needing the town to rezone anything first.
This isn't the first time that land has drawn a controversial industrial proposal. In the early 2000s, a company called USA Springs pitched the same site for a water bottling operation. That project generated its own significant fight among residents before collapsing entirely, never built. Two decades later, a different resource, power and cooling water instead of spring water, and the same parcel is back in the same conversation.
That repetition says something the petition count doesn't. The site keeps attracting proposals because the zoning already allows it, not because there's anything unusual about this particular parcel beyond its location on a state highway with existing infrastructure. Until the zoning changes, the door stays open to whoever walks through it next.
Kristen Lamb, who serves on Nottingham's conservation committee, put the town's stance plainly at one of the planning board meetings that followed the withdrawal.
"We have a history of prioritizing our natural history, our natural resources and water quality."
That history is real. The Strafford Regional Planning Commission, which handles planning services for the town under contract, notes that Nottingham was the first municipality in the United States to require recycling. The instinct to push back on a large industrial use isn't new behavior for this town. It's consistent with decades of how Nottingham has voted on similar questions.
What the Planning Board Actually Voted to Do
After the withdrawal, the planning board didn't drop the subject. At a special meeting on June 3, members voted to form a subcommittee focused specifically on zoning ordinances and performance standards for data centers, and they signaled intent to draft a temporary moratorium. That draft then went to the town's legal counsel for review, which is a required step before a moratorium can move toward a vote.
On July 1, the board held a public hearing and voted unanimously to advance a 12-month moratorium on data center construction in town. Planning board chair Drew Stevens described the pace as unusual for a volunteer board, but necessary given the circumstances.
"We all live here and we all don't want it to get ruined."
That vote matters, but it isn't the finish line. A planning board recommendation is not the same as an enacted town ordinance.
The One Vote Still Missing
Under New Hampshire law, a temporary moratorium like this one has to clear a specific sequence: planning board recommendation, a public hearing, then action by the town's legislative body, which in Nottingham's case means a special town meeting where registered voters decide directly.
As of the most recent public reporting in mid-July, two things were still open. The select board had not yet set a date for that special town meeting. And separately, the Portsmouth Herald reported that Moulton was considering reintroducing his original concept.
Put those two facts together and the practical reality is this: no ban on data center construction is currently in effect in Nottingham. The planning board has recommended one. Voters haven't had the chance to say yes or no. Until they do, the zoning that already permits industrial use at 145 Old Turnpike Road remains exactly what it was in May.
- The select board has to schedule and warn a special town meeting.
- Nottingham voters have to approve the moratorium at that meeting for it to take effect.
Neither of those steps had happened as of the most recent coverage.
Why Canterbury Already Has Its Ban and Nottingham Doesn't
A useful comparison comes from Canterbury, another New Hampshire town that took up the same question. Canterbury voters acted back in March, well before Nottingham's controversy broke into statewide news, passing a zoning amendment marking data centers "Not Allowed" in every zone in town. The vote wasn't close: 322 in favor, 63 opposed, decided at their annual town meeting.
Canterbury had the advantage of timing. Their vote landed on the regular March town meeting warrant, the once-a-year moment when NH towns handle zoning changes as a matter of course. Nottingham's controversy erupted in May, after that window had already closed for the year, which is part of why the town is now working through the slower, more deliberate process of a temporary moratorium and a special meeting rather than a single up-or-down vote on permanent zoning.
At the state level, the legislature spent much of 2026 debating whether towns should keep this kind of local control at all. A bill that would have let data centers be built by right in industrial zones, stripping towns of the ability to impose their own restrictions, was tabled by a lopsided 304-11 House vote in May and never came back to life before the legislative session ended. That outcome, whatever your view of data centers themselves, preserved Nottingham's authority to decide this locally rather than having Concord decide it for them.
What to Watch For This Fall
Stevens has said the zoning subcommittee will keep working through the summer, aiming to bring recommended zoning changes to the board ahead of what he called zoning season, with a vote likely landing at the town's annual meeting next spring. That's a longer runway than the moratorium itself, which is meant to buy the town time rather than settle the question permanently.
In the meantime, the most reliable way to track where things actually stand is the town's own channels rather than secondhand summaries. Nottingham publishes a bimonthly Community Newsletter that goes to every household, and planning board agendas and minutes are posted directly on the town's website as meetings are scheduled. Given how much of this story has moved through informal conversations, withdrawn applications, and meetings whose outcomes shifted the same week they happened, that's the version worth checking before repeating whatever version you heard last.
Nottingham's data center fight didn't end in May. It paused, the way the USA Springs fight paused for a while before it collapsed for good. The difference this time is that the outcome depends on a vote that hasn't been scheduled yet, on land that's been zoned for exactly this kind of use the whole time.
The BRP Group keeps a close eye on what's actually shaping daily life in Nottingham and the towns around it, not just what's listed for sale in them. If you want a straight, locally grounded read on how something like this affects the town you live in, let's connect.
