The Coachella City Council is set to discuss an ordinance banning data centers and data center uses in the city at its August 12 meeting.
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As part of the proposed ordinance, the city would ban all data centers from being permitted, established or operated anywhere within the city. The ordinance defines a data center as a structure or site used primarily for the “storage, management, processing, and transmission of digital data and that houses computer or network equipment, systems, servers, appliances, and other associated components related to digital data storage, processing, and related operations.”
It further defines data center uses as “data storage facilities, small data storage facilities, server farms, artificial intelligence training or processing, image processing, cloud computing, email servicing, and other similar uses and appurtenant facilities.”
Exempted from the ordinance are “accessory server rooms, data processing equipment or information technology facilities that are incidental, subordinate and specifically related to a permitted principal use.”
Wednesday’s discussion follows months of advocacy by community members as a result of a proposed data center project that was part of the city’s Municipal Utility Development Agreement with Coachella Valley Power Services LLC, a subsidiary of Stronghold Power Systems Inc.
A May town hall that was meant to provide answers to concerned residents about the project, instead left many frustrated and feeling that city officials and project representatives were not responding directly to questions. Two weeks later, residents packed the Coachella City Council meeting to share their concerns about data centers.
“Community concerns focused on electrical demand, water consumption, air quality impacts, noise generation, environmental sustainability, and economic benefits associated with Data Center development,” a staff report said of the May 27 meeting.
The following week, the council held a special meeting where the members voted unanimously to adopt a temporary moratorium on data centers, direct staff to draft a ban and canceled the development agreement, as reported by KVCR.
That moratorium was subsequently extended, KVCR reported, to allow for the ordinance to go to allow staff to draft the ordinance and submit it to the planning commission. Last month, the planning commission voted unanimously to recommend the city adopt a ban on data center uses.
“We really appreciate all of the hard work that the community has done of showing up physically, showing up virtually, educating the public, and myself included, [about] this important topic,” Commissioner Vanessa Ordorica said at that July 15 meeting. “I’m myself raising a family in our community, and I wouldn’t want them to deal with the heavy impacts of what a data center could possibly bring to the future.”
Coachella is not the only city in Riverside County that has taken action to prevent large-scale data center projects from being built.
The Indio City Council is set to consider a total ban, pending review by the city’s planning commission, as soon as next month. Desert Hot Springs, last month, extended its moratorium to two years and directed staff to study the potential impacts of these projects.
And earlier this summer, the Perris City Council voted unanimously to move forward with a total ban on data centers, though the ordinance will have to go through the city’s planning commission before it can be brought back for council approval.
If the Coachella City Council approves the ordinance on Wednesday, it will still need final adoption, which is tentatively set for later this month. The ordinance will go into effect 30 days after its adoption.
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