Thornton and Commerce City this week became the latest Colorado communities to halt new data center development, following similar moratoriums passed recently in Denver, Jefferson County and Larimer County.
Commerce City’s moratorium, passed by the City Council on Monday on a 7-1 vote, prevents the city from accepting any new applications for data centers for the next six months as it figures out rules and regulations for the controversial facilities.
Thornton passed a one-year timeout on Tuesday night on a 5-3 vote. Its pause applies to any data center larger than 50,000 square feet.
The moratorium in each city went into effect immediately.
The recent proliferation of data centers across the country has local leaders and residents worried about their water and power consumption, which can be substantial as the facilities crunch the data that keeps modern digital life flowing on people’s smartphones and computer screens.
Recent warnings about the potentially disastrous impacts of artificial intelligence, which requires prodigious computing power housed inside data centers, have made communities even more nervous about the facilities.
Thornton interim city attorney Jessica Whitney told the council Tuesday that the city has one data center in operation but no pending applications before the city.
Aurora, Colorado’s third-largest city, took a different tack with data centers than its Adams County neighbors, rejecting a moratorium in August. Instead, it’s moving forward with a series of regulations it will vote on over the next few months.
Several Front Range cities and counties , including Loveland last week. Its City Council adopted a one-year moratorium on consideration of new large-scale data centers to give the city time to develop regulations.
