AURORA | City lawmakers on Monday opposed a data center moratorium but moved forward with new regulations prohibiting excessive water and requiring operators to mitigate potential residential impacts.
The Aurora City Council voted 7-4 to approve a resolution to create data center specific regulations, and opposed another more broad resolution that would have included a pause on data center development. Councilmembers Alison Coombs, Alli Jackson, Ruben Medina and Amy Wiles opposed the resolution.
The resolution identifies two specific regulations: a prohibition on the use of evaporative cooling, which is a type of cooling system data centers use that can be water-intensive, and requires setback and buffers for data centers in certain areas that are near residences.
It also leaves the door open for other regulations, as recommended by the city manager. The city manager has 35 days to bring back recommended changes.
The regulations would apply to future data center developments and not to data centers in the development process. At a June town hall meeting, the city said there were five data centers in the development process and nine already established.
Councilmember Curtis Gardner, who sponsored the resolution, said the regulations balance addressing concerns and allowing businesses to operate.
“I’m looking forward to coming up with some appropriate safeguards, both for residents and businesses that operate within the city,” Gardner said.
The resolution was proposed as an alternative option to one sponsored by Councilmember Amy Wiles. Wiles’ resolution was opposed by Councilmembers Rob Andrews, Françoise Bergan, Gardner, Stephanie Hancock and Angela Lawson. Mayor Mike Coffman was the tie-breaking vote.
Coffman said his decision to support the narrower regulations came down to the 30-day timeline. Wiles’ resolution included an indefinite pause on new development applications for data centers. A separate plan for a six-month moratorium for data centers was removed from the agenda at the beginning of the meeting.
While Wiles’ resolution also prohibited closed loop cooling, it also introduced land-use regulations to restrict where data centers can be located and requirements to mitigate adverse neighborhood impacts by requiring things like setbacks, buffers and special or conditional use permits.
Wiles emphasized her resolution was not anti-business, but pro-community and aimed to incentivize responsible business. Wiles said the goal was to locate data centers in appropriate places and encourage reasonable regulations.
“Asking data centers to be good community partners should not be too much to ask,” Wiles said. “It’s simply an ask to get things right before we get too far down the road.”
Some council members who opposed Wiles’ regulations noted that data centers are significant contributors to the city’s revenue and emphasized that they don’t want to drive business away. City Manager Jason Batchelor said data centers have generated more than $24 million in revenue.
Public commenters supported Wiles’ broader regulations. They raised concerns about the demand data centers have on water and electricity, as well as potential negative effects on residential areas and the environment. They supported stricter zoning to limit where data centers can locate and requirements for impact mitigation, such as landscaping buffers and setbacks.
Commenters specifically said they appreciated the six-month moratorium so that the city can research what regulations will best protect resources and neighborhoods.
The city has nine established data centers and has some regulations for data centers in place.
Data centers are restricted in location to areas that are zoned industrial, airport districts or mixed-use office-industrial. Data centers can be built in certain mixed-use zoning restrictions under the conditional use process, which has additional requirements for public hearings and city council gets the ultimate decision.
Water use for data centers is governed by the city’s large water user guide. For noise pollution, the city’s unified development code restricts the noise level at data centers to the same level as other businesses, with different allowances based on zoning and time.