When the owners of an energy company wanted to build a 700-megawatt, natural-gas-fired electric generating facility in Bellingham, Massachusetts, on land not zoned for such use under local zoning by-laws, it made a deal with the town. The town would rezone the land and issue all necessary permits, and the company would give the town $8 million to defray the town’s anticipated share of the cost of a new high school.
It sounded like a deal made in heaven. While the town meeting, the local legislative body, had previously rejected the rezoning, a town-appointed task force recommended industrial development on the property as a way to increase the town’s tax base. The task force specifically recommended rezoning the parcel from suburban and agricultural use to industrial use and noted that the subject land was a viable setting for an industrial operation since it was adjacent to other industrial land and was separated from residential areas by wetlands and, the town needed a new high
