Updates from City Hall: Data Centers
Summary: The City Council passed a six-month moratorium on data centers, opened the chapters to begin creating legislation, and approved a staff direction to research impacts that data centers could have on our economy, environment, infrastructure, and utilities.
Background: As I wrote a few weeks ago, lobbyists are in City Hall pushing local government to roll out the red carpet for data centers.
Council Members Chowdhury and Chavez brought forward a six-month moratorium to give the City Council time to study the impacts of data centers and write regulations. Vice President Osman brought forward exemptions to this moratorium for data centers under 350 square feet within downtown, which passed.
People all over the country are telling horror stories of what data centers promised, and what they delivered. There are stories of data centers illegally stealing millions of gallons of water beyond what they were authorized to use. Data centers are driving up utility rates and creating noise pollution. These realities are why I supported the moratorium and co-authored a legislative motion with Council Member Chowdhury and Council Vice President Osman requesting an analysis on data centers, and their impacts on the environment, jobs, energy grids, commercial and residential development, and on tax bases.
Studying these impacts are essential especially when many cities across the country have become cautionary tales of what happens to those that rolled out red carpets for data centers:
- This past Tuesday, the LA Times published a story called “A surge in Nevada data center construction threatens the electricity supply for 49,000 Californians” about how data center expansion in one state is likely to cause electricity rates to go up for the nearby towns just over the border.
- A data center in Georgia set up two unauthorized water pipes and drained 30 million gallons of water, far beyond the amount they were allowed. Regulators only stepped in when residents noticed that the water pressure in their homes was extremely low. The data center had to pay back the utility company for the stolen water – but you can’t get the water back once it’s been used.
- A group of residents in Texas is suing a big tech company for a data center alleging “constant noise and low-frequency hum from the site have contributed to numerous health issues for nearby residents, including cardiac problems, tinnitus, permanent hearing loss, and insomnia.”
Big tech is not trying to put data centers into every city, suburb, and rural area across the country to serve us, they are building them for profit. Data centers are fundamentally extractive. Even a “small” or “medium sized” data center is tens of thousands of square footage that could be used for transit-oriented development, housing, public art, green space, or local businesses that build community wealth.
The local government’s job is to protect our city from these extractive and exploitative forces. It is our responsibility to make sure that our neighborhoods continue to become more affordable, walkable, and sustainable. We must make sure that our residents have clean water and reliable power. We must champion the creation of healthy workplaces, and living wage jobs. Data centers impact all of that. This is why it’s sensible for city leaders to take a hard pause and make sure we approach the expansion of data centers across our city with the intention, thoughtfulness, and caution it warrants.
It’s important for the public to be aware that in the next several months, there will be lots of conversations about data centers and persuasion campaigns requesting that we abandon all of our concerns and regulatory actions. Big tech companies know that the public is rightfully distrustful of their data centers, hence a recent Gallup Poll that found 7 in 10 Americans oppose these centers. Many of these Trump aligned big tech companies have a documented history of successfully using their money to stop elected officials from passing regulation.
In fact, we’re already seeing that happen locally. Data center lobbyists have been working hard at persuading elected officials at the state and city level to advance extremely weak regulations or none at all. Unfortunately, their influence has found modest success at City Hall. These lobbyists effectively persuaded some council members to weaken the moratorium by getting a Downtown exemption and shortened the moratorium from one year to six months. However, this six month moratorium does provide our city with a needed interim protection that will provide city leaders the time to develop a comprehensive regulation package that will center the wellbeing of our residents and city and not that of big tech’s shareholders. Ward 2, specifically stands to benefit from this moratorium and regulatory efforts as there are data centers potentially coming to Prospect Park.
I want to urge residents to keep an eye on this discussion because there are literally data center lobbyists walking around City Hall trying to weaken our moratorium and any future regulations. There are going to be big decisions about this in the next year that will fundamentally shape decades of our infrastructure, economy, water, and utilities. I anticipate that as we continue to receive more information and hear more from residents about their questions, concerns and priorities, we very well may need more than six months to develop regulations that we feel confident will fully protect our residents from corporate extraction and exploitation.
Key votes: City Council voted 8-5 in support of a six-month moratorium on data centers, with an exemption for data centers under 350,000 square feet downtown. Council Members Rainville, Vetaw, Warren, Shaffer, and Palmisano voted in opposition to the moratorium. Council Members Shaffer, Payne, Rainville, Vetaw, Warren, Osman, Whiting, Chowdhury, and Palmisano opened the chapter to write regulations for data centers. Council voted unanimously to approve a staff direction that Member Chowdhury, Vice President Osman and I authored to learn more about impacts that data centers could have on our economy, environment, infrastructure, and utilities.
Via constituent newsletter, May 22, 2026
One of the defund the police morons. No thanks