GILL — The first of two Annual Town Meetings will be held on Monday, May 4, at 7 p.m., where voters will be asked to appropriate $3.78 million for a new roof at Gill Elementary School and adopt a series of bylaw amendments and additions, including a one-year moratorium on battery energy storage facilities and data centers.
The Town Meeting, to be held at Town Hall at 325 Main Road, continues Gill’s tradition of separating its financial and non-financial articles for voting. The first seven articles of a 21-article warrant will be voted on Monday, while the second part will resume on June 8.
New elementary school roof
While Gill is required to raise and appropriate $3.78 million for the replacement of the Gill Elementary School roof in Article 3, the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) has agreed to cover 77.74% of the total eligible project cost, leaving Gill with $830,716 to cover. Part of this will be for necessary upgrades so that the school is compliant with Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) regulations.
If this article passes, a debt-exclusion question will be included on the town election ballot on Monday, May 18, ensuring that the town and school district approve the project ahead of the MSBA deadline.
This is a replacement project Gill has been pursuing to be accepted into the MSBA Accelerated Repair Program since 2017. It was announced that this project was accepted into the program in October 2024. In December 2024, Special Town Meeting voters approved using $50,000 from the General Stabilization Fund toward funding a feasibility study and schematic design for the new roof.
This roof will be a standing seam metal roof with a greater lifespan compared to the current asphalt roof. Currently, the roof is experiencing delamination and granular loss, has broken or lost shingles, failing seams and a number of other defects.
Some of the ADA improvements include adding ramps for door access, interior doorway reconfigurations and revising access to the parking lot to and from the building, among others.
Gill Elementary School Roof Replacement Committee member Claire Chang said Wednesday that this is an important vote to demonstrate to the state that residents are supportive of this project. She described this project as a “great boon” for the town as more than half of the cost will be taken on by the state.
Chang also confirmed that if this project fails at either Town Meeting or at the town election, it gets “sent to the back of the queue” by the MSBA, and it could be another 10 to 15 years before it could be reinstated, leaving more time for the roof to deteriorate.
Bylaw amendments
Articles 4 through 7 will be the last articles voted on Monday, and these include revisions to the town bylaws.
Article 4 will be to update the definition of manufactured housing; Article 5 to allow accessory dwelling units (ADUs); Article 6 to incorporate updated floodplain regulations to be in compliance with Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) requirements; and Article 7 to adopt a one-year moratorium on the development of data centers or battery energy storage systems.
Regarding ADUs, changes include replacing the terms “accessory apartment” with “accessory dwelling unit (ADU),” replacing “mobile home” with “manufactured home,” and deleting the definitions of “accessory apartment” and “mobile home” and adding a definition of “manufactured home.” Additional ADU-related changes include adding a new section, Section 4, to establish the “purpose, definitions, regulations, and administration and enforcement relating to the establishment of ADUs to be built as-of-right in Gill.”
The two other changes include removing Section 15, Floodplain Regulations, and replacing it with new language that is in compliance with FEMA regulations; and adding a new section, Section 18, Building-Integrated Energy Storage Systems (BESS) and Data Centers, with an energy capacity greater than or equal to 50 kilowatts and less than 100 megawatts.
The full warrant can be viewed at gillmass.org/files/2026-0504_ATM_Warrant.pdf.
