Denver approves one-year pause on new data centers

In February, Mayor Mike Johnston proposed the moratorium on new data centers in the city. The council had to vote on the ordinance for it to take effect. 

Monday’s vote followed a lengthy public comment. 

Since Denver currently has no permitting requirements and what council members referred to as “limited regulations” for data centers, officials hope the moratorium will give them enough time to decide what the future of data centers in Denver could look like. 

Council members Paul Kashmann and Darrell Watson co-sponsored the measure, which aims to create working groups to study things like noise, air quality, construction impacts, zoning, building, and energy codes, to name a few.

Community members also voiced their concerns during the public comment period; some called the moratorium a good first step in establishing regulations, and many highlighted environmental and health risks, as well as the impact these data centers have on Denver neighborhoods. Some even called for an outright ban on data centers.

“I hugely regret that we didn’t do this sooner,” said Council member Sarah Parady, according to Denverite.

Data center construction near residential areas is very unpopular. Protesters in Virginia, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and other states earlier this year stopped the development of data centers, according to NPR. A small town Wisconsin mayor faced a recall vote for approving a new data center.

And as NPR found, the push against data centers is something that Democrats and Republicans find themselves agreeing on. But in Colorado's state legislature, lawmakers abandoned plans that would have added environmental regulations to data centers in the state. 

Denver City Council didn’t rule out a ban on data centers in the future; that’s part of the conversation they hope to discuss in the year to come with the moratorium. It’s also possible that the moratorium could extend past a year if the council decides to amend the measure in the future. 

A lot of community members brought up the CoreSite data center being built in the Elyria-Swansea neighborhood. Council member Stacie Gilmore even questioned if its construction could be stopped. But assistant city attorney Adam Hernandez said there could be legal issues in stopping it due to the level of construction and approvals that were already in place.

Before Monday’s council meeting, community leaders and environmental advocates with GES Coalition spoke at a press conference about the moratorium. GES stands for Globeville and Elyria-Swansea, two Denver neighborhoods in one of the most-polluted zip codes in the country.

Data centers are resource intensive, requiring a tremendous amount of water and electricity. New research also found that they can create “heat islands,” raising the temperature of the land around them by more than 15 degrees.

“A moratorium only matters if it produces binding protections before the next approval, expansion, permit, or utility agreement,” read a statement from the GES Coalition. “Denver has one year. That year must not become a lobbyist waiting room. It must become a public law-writing process that protects people before corporations write Denver’s future for us.”