The Denver City Council approved a one-year moratorium on new data center construction Monday as the city prepares to study regulations it may impose for the facilities.
In the coming weeks, the council plans to convene a group of community advocates and experts to make recommendations on what those regulations should be.
Data centers are buildings where tech companies, including giants such as Amazon and Netflix, store their servers and storage systems. The centers make everyday services like email, online banking, telehealth, streaming services and artificial intelligence language models possible for Denverites. They can also suck up massive amounts of water and energy.
The facilities have become a hot-button issue across the country as communities push back against construction in their areas. Neighbors of the centers complain that they create constant noise, pollute the air with diesel generators and exacerbate water shortages.
On Tuesday, the Jefferson County commissioners imposed a moratorium on new data centers there, specifically freezing any new applications for rezoning or development of the high-tech facilities for 10 months.
In Denver, dozens of residents signed up to speak Monday night during the public hearing portion of the City Council meeting. Many of them came from northern Denver, where neighbors have expressed frustration about a new CoreSite data center there. A community group from the Globeville and Elyria-Swansea Neighborhoods, located near CoreSite, hosted a press conference ahead of the meeting.
“This is an important first step,” Alfonso Espino said. “But we want to ensure … that we will make this moratorium mean something.”
There are 50 data centers in Denver, said Councilwoman Serena Gonzales-Gutierrez, one of the sponsors of the moratorium.
About half of them — at least in terms of square footage — are in the council’s District 10, which includes central neighborhoods like Golden Triangle, Union Station and Congress Park, said Councilman Chris Hinds, who represents that district.
The Denver pause on data centers won’t impact those that already exist or are under construction. If the council imposes new regulations, they could impact expansions, like one that CoreSite has said it plans to build on its campus.
The working group will include three council members, two representatives from utility companies, two union representatives, one industry representative, three people from advocacy groups, seven community members, one subject matter expert and seven ex officio members from Denver city departments. The council hasn’t yet announced the names of the people who will be in the group.
The group will study issues including zoning, energy use, cooling systems and renewable energy, according to a presentation.
The ordinance sponsors, council members Paul Kashmann, Darrell Watson and Gonzales-Gutierrez, are in the process of hiring a facilitator for that group’s work.
During council comments, Kashmann responded to a resident who said they opposed the moratorium because it could discourage businesses from coming to Denver.
“The message that should get out is: Regardless of the industry, Denver is definitely no longer open for unregulated businesses that — should that lack of regulation continue — present a real and significant threat to the health and welfare of the community,” Kashmann said.
The vote was unanimous, even though some council members criticized the idea of creating a task force rather than taking immediate action.
“This whole task force thing (that) I’ve seen over and over again with the administration hasn’t ever worked out,” Councilwoman Flor Alvidrez said. “So I have concerns, but the least we can do is make sure that no more are being built right now.”
Jefferson County’s moratorium does not apply to land in the county that is already zoned for data centers. Commissioner Rachel Zenzinger said in a statement Tuesday that the county has to evaluate how data centers will interact with the environment, the county’s water supply and “our community’s overall health.”
Commissioner Andy Kerr said the rules Jefferson County will hammer out over the next 10 months will look at data centers’ impacts on land, water and energy use.
In April, Weld County also updated its land-use code to address future data centers. The county commissioners passed rules that require the industry to show it has secured an adequate power and water supply before building a data center.
