Making Progress on Data Centers
I am glad that the City Council is finally moving on zoning regulations for data center uses in our city limits, now sent to Planning Commission. Now, the public needs to focus on two things.
Future Data Centers - Planning Commission for the draft legislation on Data Centers, no official date for action to my knowledge, but I would continue to come to meetings. Specifically the September meetings for this issue.
The Current Data Centers - The Sept 22nd Zoning Hearing Board meeting for the appeal on Data Centers being a by-right warehousing and storage use. Come and show support or start preparing items which might help the resident prove their case. This is a judicial process, and so testimony will be sworn and possibly cross examined.
Here’s the frank reality, we aren’t allowed to ban data centers, legally, and I don’t think we should try to have that fight. Data centers as a use aren’t the problem, a lack of regulation is. We need more than promises. A promise to not use water is great, a requirement to not use water is better. A promise for clean air is great, a requirement for clean air is better. A promise to mitigate electricity grid impacts is great, a requirement to do so is better.
What we need are robust regulations on data centers, especially in this bubble. Like, if someone is going to make a $6 Billion dollar investment, they should be able to throw down the money to build something that is low-impact, maybe even an advantage to certain Lancaster issues like combined-sewer overflows, if they want water that is.
Here’s the deal, we need to continue to keep the pressure up on the coming data centers, and we have to be pragmatic. We can’t ban these centers as a use. We can mitigate their environmental impacts, ergo, the utility and air impacts. I can’t stop you from just wailing on them, but I strongly recommend finding solidarity around design-based restrictions. One for me, is only allowing water-cooling if it uses stormwater runoff. Another for me, is making sure the sound is not able to be heard beyond property lines. A third, is making sure the energy consumption is from renewable sources and has on-site energy storage to mitigate generator use.
I don’t know what your asks are, but figure them out and make sure to say something at a public meeting. We have not won yet, far from it. And remember, as big as this issue is, we have many others that also need addressed. The City does not have to be reactionary and slow; government can have foresight and have urgency.
Lancaster deserves leadership with foresight, not leadership that fanfares plans and charters, only to do very little with them in a manner of urgency with our public needs. So far, what you’ve observed from your City Council on this issue is a phenomenon in political science called “doing the bare minimum.”
But we out here doing the most, it’s showing, and we gotta keep it up. This was only round one.
