Town Meeting voted to authorize the Select Board to negotiate and enter into a tax-increment financing (TIF) agreement with Saint‑Gobain for an expansion of the company’s Northborough research campus. The motion passed by majority vote after a presentation from town staff and remarks from Todd DeNoia, vice president for innovation and R&D at Saint‑Gobain North America.

Nut graf: The vote authorized the Select Board to negotiate TIF terms (none had been finalized at the time of the meeting). Town Meeting’s action was a local endorsement to allow staff and the board to bargain a TIF agreement that would apply only to incremental taxes generated by new construction and not to the company’s existing assessed value.

Town officials and Saint‑Gobain representatives described the proposal as a multi‑year capital program that would renovate and expand approximately 80,000 square feet of R&D space on the existing campus and could create roughly 60 new higher‑paying research and engineering positions over time. Town Administrator Stephanie and Saint‑Gobain’s Todd DeNoia said the corporation competes globally for capital allocations; local incentives such as a negotiated TIF would be one factor in the company’s internal decision to invest in Northborough.

Questions from Town Meeting focused on term length, performance benchmarks, accountability if promised jobs or improvements do not materialize, and whether the Select Board would return negotiated terms to Town Meeting for approval. Select Board chair Mitch Cohen said the town would retain the current tax on the existing property value and only consider a temporary abatement on the increment; Cohen said typical TIFs are negotiated to include benchmarks and are rarely longer than 10–20 years, and he committed to involving town financial committees in the negotiation process.

Appropriations Committee indicated conceptual support but said it had not had sufficient information to formally endorse detailed terms prior to negotiations. After discussion, Town Meeting approved the Select Board’s authority to negotiate and execute a TIF application and agreement.

What comes next: The Select Board and town staff will negotiate a TIF plan that will specify the percent of the incremental tax to be abated, the period of abatement, performance conditions (for example, job creation or capital investment thresholds), and claw-back language. Any negotiated agreement would be expected to include performance benchmarks; the select board indicated it would present the proposed agreement to the town and committees before final execution where appropriate.

Sources: Town Administrator presentation, remarks by Saint‑Gobain VP Todd DeNoia, Town Meeting transcript.