Raleigh is considering a six-month moratorium on data centers
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The Raleigh City Council will vote next month on whether to enact a moratorium on any new data center applications in the city while it develops new rules for their construction.
Why it matters: Raleigh would join a wave of cities and counties placing moratoriums on new data center development across the state, as an increasing number of residents express concerns over the electricity costs, water usage, noise levels and visual aesthetics of data centers.
- Durham and Charlotte have added similar pauses.
Driving the news: Raleigh Mayor Janet Cowell told reporters that the City Council will consider a six-month moratorium while it asks staff to develop new standards for data centers.
- High land costs have largely kept Raleigh from attracting the large-scale data centers that have drawn opposition in rural areas.
- But an application for a 100,000-square-foot data center earlier this summer led the Raleigh City Council to consider the pause.
Zoom in: A vote could happen on Oct. 6, while staff works on updating the city's unified development ordinance.
- The rewrite would focus on rules around noise and vibration limits and how the data centers use water.
- Exact rules have not yet been drafted, but the UDO already has rules around data centers. But, Cowell said, the technology has changed so much that a rewrite is needed.
State of play: Cowell said there are eight data centers in the city at the moment — though they are mostly small-scale types under 10,000 square feet, according to a city spokesperson.
- She said she doesn't want to write rules that potentially infringe on the city's technology industry and plans to speak with N.C. State leadership about their needs around data centers.
What they're saying: "As an you know elected official, it's hard to even have a conversation about this because there's so much emotion" around data centers right now, Cowell said. "But I think we all felt like a pause gives us a chance to actually have a conversation, do the work and maybe lower the temperature."
- Cowell added she hopes the N.C. General Assembly can write more statewide rules around data centers.
- The most recent state budget eliminated some tax breaks for data centers.
- "It would be really great to have a cohesive statewide plan," she said. "Do we try to to use this as an opportunity to upgrade the entire electric grid? Or are we going to devolve into a bunch of data centers with private energy use that don't feed into a grid upgrade? Those are the sort of strategic decisions that I think the General Assembly could really help by working with cities and rural counties."