AURORA | City council will consider a six-month moratorium on new data centers at its Monday meeting so that the city can draft regulations for zoning, water use and other impacts.
Councilmember Amy Wiles is sponsoring a resolution and ordinance to pause data center development in the city while creating specific regulations to tackle some of the biggest concerns she’s heard from the community.
“One of my concerns is right now, while data centers are limited to certain areas of the city, some of those areas that they’re allowed in are right up against neighborhoods,” Wiles said. “I think that we need to make sure that we’re getting rid of any potential known adverse outcomes and trying to focus on what makes sense for long-term data center placement within our city.”
The six-month pause would apply to future data center developments and not to data centers currently in the development process. At a June town hall hosted by Wiles and city staff, the city said there were five data centers in the development process and nine already established.
Wiles said the two biggest concerns she hopes to address with regulations are keeping data centers from being built too close to homes and limiting facilities’ water use. Other potential regulations would focus on limiting noise and restricting the size of the facilities.
“I don’t know that we can answer all the questions definitively, but I do think that we could do our best to at least try and implement some safeguards and requirements to make the community more comfortable,” Wiles said.
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 land use regulations to restrict where data centers are located and mitigate adverse neighborhood impacts by requiring things like setbacks, buffers and special or conditional use permits.
It also leaves the door open for other regulations.
A second resolution sponsored by Gardner also includes a prohibition on the use of evaporative cooling, while seeking to require setbacks and landscape buffers for data centers in certain types of zoning. Gardner’s resolution does not include a moratorium.
Wiles based her moratorium plan on research she has done on best practices and looking at what other cities, including Aurora, Illinois, and Fairfax, Virginia, have implemented.
Wiles said she feels the six-month pause is long enough to allow the city to implement the new regulations while not being too restrictive. She said she preferred moving forward with new regulations in lieu of a total ban at this point in time.
“It seemed like a very fair, meet in the middle type of time frame for people that are completely against any sort of moratorium, and maybe somebody that wants a ban,” Wiles said.
Wiles said the issue is “fairly time-sensitive” so she brought it straight to council.
The city has nine data centers already established 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.
The council will vote on the resolution and ordinance at its Aug. 10 meeting.
Can’t say that I care much that data centers help, hinder or are inconsequential to any community. It seems in a capitalistic community they have every right as a business to be allowed.
What does bother me is that almost every time I read in the Sentinel Blog that new Councilperson, Amy Wiles is involved she states, ” she’s heard from the community”. How many in the community, I continue to wonder?
Then I wonder, Isn’t there more important matters in Aurora than restrictions on Data Centers? This person, in the community doesn’t understand all this political time spent on this matter. Maybe in six months, I will.
Mr. Moore – While concern for one’s constituents is admirable, it seems that Ms. Wiles is “cherry picking.” There are many ordinances currently on the books that are meant to protect the quality of life of residents that remain largely unenforced. Take noise restrictions for example. High powered sound systems using subwoofers regularly travel our roads shaking windows and rattling walls. This is highly disturbing but enforcement is nowhere to be found. How about shoveling sidewalks in the winter so people can walk safely. Also not enforced unless someone complains. Major auto repairs are prohibited on city streets, yet some go as far as to set up street auto repair shops; usually on weekends because city enforcememt doesn’t work on weekends. How about lack of current license plates and weeds 2 feet tall on properties. I could go on and on. If our representatives are concerned about the quality of life on Aurora, how about enforcing ordinances already on the books.
I’ll bet if one has questions, one can email the councilmember directly and get answers!!