AURORA | City council again delayed an indefinite moratorium on data centers, although the pause will not apply to the contentious Trident project, which is considering other locations.
On Monday, a split council rejected the opportunity to vote on an indefinite moratorium, despite more than 50 people who signed up to speak in favor of the data center pauses.
Council members Rob Andrews, Francoise Bergan, Curtis Gardner, Stephanie Hancock and Angela Lawson voted against allowing the council to reconsider the moratorium, while Mayor Mike Coffman and council members Alison Coombs, Gianina Horton, Alli Jackson, Ruben Medina and Amy Wiles supported the moratorium.
Due to meeting procedure protocol, the council needed seven votes to discuss and vote on reconsidering a moratorium.
The proposal was a pause on accepting data center applications until the city has implemented new regulations, but does not provide a specific timeline. It is the latest version of a moratorium after the council rejected a six-month pause in August.
Following Monday’s vote, Coffman said he plans to bring the reconsideration back to council at the Nov. 9 meeting. Since the council voted against the reconsideration, members did not discuss the proposal.
Council’s reconsideration is largely driven by the swell of public backlash against the planned Trident data center, which has applied to build near the Windler and Green Valley Ranch neighborhoods, including a senior housing community.
City officials said the moratorium will not impact the Trident data center at its current location or any future location because the city has already accepted its application for development.
Before the meeting, Vantage Data Centers, which is developing the Trident facility, requested the council pause new regulations for 90-days while the company looks for alternative locations. No other locations have been identified yet.
“In the spirit of being a constructive partner and working collaboratively, Vantage is going to evaluate the technical and operational feasibility of locating the data center on sites further from residentially zoned parcels, where appropriate opportunities may exist,” Matthew Clark, senior manager of public policy for Vantage, said in the letter.
In its letter, Vantage says new regulations, like the moratorium, could “hinder our efforts and lead to a negative outcome for both the residents of Aurora and Vantage.”
Vantage previously said the company is working with Xcel Energy and the city to evaluate other locations to see if they meet the technical, energy and operational requirements needed for the facility.
“At the same time, we continue to advance the current site, which is appropriately zoned for data center use and remains under review through the city’s established development process. No decision has been made to relocate the project,” Mark Freeman, vice president for global marketing at Vantage, said in a statement. “We remain committed to listening to the community and collaborating with local leaders and our partners as we evaluate the best path forward.”
At the meeting on Monday, dozens of residents of Windler and Green Valley Ranch communities attended the meeting to support the moratorium and erupted in shouts of “Shame” after the vote.
“We needed this moratorium and you all failed us,” Gary Zimmerman said, while his neighbors cheered in agreement.
Beyond the moratorium, the council unanimously gave final approval to change which zoning data centers can build in to prohibit the facilities from the mixed use office-industrial areas. The change doesn’t impact Trident.
Council discusses residential distance buffer
At the study session before the regular meeting, council moved forward a residential buffer that bans data centers within 750 feet of homes and makes them a conditional use between 750 feet and a half-mile away from homes.
As a conditional use, data centers looking to build within the specified range will be required to have public hearings and approval is dependent on meeting certain requirements.
The proposal, put forward by Wiles, would allow data centers as a use by right if they were located in approved zoning and more than a half-mile from houses. As a use by right, data centers would go through an administrative approval process that does not typically require a public hearing.
Data centers would still be limited to certain zoning, including industrial and airport zoning, and the residential buffer would serve as an additional setback from residents.
The proposed setback distance is an increase from previous council conversations that focused on a 350-foot residential buffer. The new regulations also include a requirement for data centers to conduct noise modeling studies.
Wiles’ suggestion was contentious among some council members, with Gardner, Bergan, Lawson and Hancock questioning how the buffer distance was calculated and whether the changes would impact Vantage’s ability to relocate. Vantage requested the city council pause new regulations for 90-days.
City Attorney Pete Schulte said the buffer wouldn’t apply to existing applications and the city would consider any new location as an amended application, not a new one, so the regulations still wouldn’t apply to a different site.
City Manager Jason Batchelor said the new regulations wouldn’t apply to several existing data centers, including JP Morgan Chase, QTS, Trident and data centers included in master plans.
Additionally, the earliest the proposed residential buffer could be implemented would be in February, after Vantage’s 90-day request, Wiles said.
Bergan said she agreed that 350 feet is not far enough from homes, but she added that Trident’s site is an anomaly and she thinks Vantage is being a good neighbor so she hesitates to add barriers for them to move sites.
“If we put obstacles in the way for Vantage to not find a good site in the time they’re trying to get it done then they will build where they have the right by use,” Bergan said.
Gardner said that even with assurances from the city, he worried that Vantage would see the impending regulations as creating risk because of uncertainty. He said that disregarding the potential for litigation is a “dereliction of duty.”
Bergan and Gardner also emphasized that they felt the 750-feet to half-mile distance to be arbitrary, although Wiles said the number came from researching other municipalities’ policies.
However, a majority of council supported the proposal, including Coffman, who said it’s imperative for the city to prevent future similar situations.
“If Trident goes forward there and we don’t have good regulations — and I think this is good what Councilmember Wiles put forward— then we will have more Tridents,” Coffman said.
Bergan, Gardner, Hancock and Lawson objected to the proposal, but Andrews, Coffman, Coombs, Horton, Jackson and Wiles voted to send the buffer to the Planning and Zoning Committee.
In addition to the buffer and moratorium, Coffman proposed a prohibition on future tax incentives for data centers, which was supported by council members at the Management and Finance committee meeting on Thursday.
The prohibition would end the practice of remitting sales or use tax back to data centers in exchange for jobs, though it would not apply to existing agreements.
The city has already committed to four incentive agreements, with a maximum total rebate of about $83 million. One of the incentive agreements is for the Trident data center, which could receive up to $39 million in tax rebates.