HOLYOKE, Mass. (WGGB/WSHM) - The Holyoke City Council voted Tuesday night to pass an ordinance that would ban data centers following a proposed $200 million data center dividing the city.

The ordinance passed nine to four and it will ban data centers from every zoning district in the city.

The proposed center would have been on Water Street. Developers previously said that the project would bring new investment to a long-vacant industrial property and would support local utility revenue.

However, for residents like Christine Futia, the stakes were personal.

“It is a place that sits by itself with no windows. It winds, it vibrates, and it creates a desert for other uses,” she said.

Futia was nearly one of 430 residents who signed a petition opposing the project within days of it becoming public.

Holyoke already has a data center. Futia says it’s a nonprofit run by a consortium of universities, using the city’s green energy. She draws a sharp line between that facility and this one.

“This is cutting-edge academic research, not a for-profit, high-intensity AI data center,” she said. “A very different thing.”

The city council’s ordinance committee recommended defining “data center” as a specific land use and banning them from every zoning district citywide.

The council has spoken, but the fight might not be over yet. Western Mass News reached out to representatives for the data center development.

In a statement, they said they will engage constructively with whatever guidelines the city sets.

“Honestly, we see the Council’s decision as an opportunity,” they said. “By setting a clear size threshold, the city has told us the scale it’s comfortable with -- and that’s genuinely useful. It lets us design something to fit Holyoke, rather than ask Holyoke to fit us.”

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