Community Group Calls On Supervisors To Ban Data Centers Countywide

Supervisors Tuesday heard from a handful of residents calling on the board to implement a moratorium on the approval of new data center approvals and the consideration of hyperscale data center proposals in unincorporated areas of the county.

“These facilities are unlike ordinary commercial developments,” Coachella Valley resident Elizabeth Humphreys said at the October 6 meeting. “Without appropriate standards, residents of unincorporated Riverside County and people living in neighboring cities could face massive data center developments before the county has fully determined what rules should govern them.”

Humphreys is the founder of Not In My Valley, a project of her nonprofit American Data Center Research and Education Foundation, which has launched a petition calling on the board to both adopt an interim moratorium and also, in the future, enact a permanent ban on hyperscale data centers in the unincorporated communities.

With a thud that echoed through the chambers, Humphreys presented the supervisors with a physical copy of the petition that, as of Friday, has garnered nearly 9,500 signatures.

“Riverside County has an opportunity to get ahead of this issue before it is forced to create policy while deciding the fate of an active project,” she said. “We are asking you to take that opportunity to protect your constituents.”

Others who spoke on the topic brought up concerns about the impacts hyperscale data center facilities could have on the environment, wildlife, residents and resources such as water and electricity.

The supervisors were unable to discuss the item at the meeting, since it was not on the agenda, but Supervisor V. Manuel Perez addressed the comments saying his office had “administratively decided to have a moratorium on data centers,” adding that he was not taking meetings with developers for those types of projects. 

The Riverside Record reached out to Perez’s office for clarification about the comment, but did not immediately hear back.

The county, in an email to The Record, said that while it had received general inquiries from developers about potential data centers, there had been no formal applications submitted in any unincorporated area.

The email further clarified that data centers were not listed as an allowed use in the county’s current land use ordinance. Changes to the ordinance would require approval by the board, the email said, noting that there were currently “no board-directed efforts to amend the ordinance.”

However, the county noted, the land use ordinance does not generally apply to state-owned property, like the Southern California Fairgrounds, where a proposed project that includes a small data center has drawn public scrutiny.

“There is an exception if the activity is a private action that is unrelated to a public purpose, and/or unrelated to the purpose of the state’s property,” the county said. “Based on what we can tell, this project is for emergency services and to support the parking structure, which would not fall within this exception.”

Across the county, the topic of data centers has become a flashpoint, especially in the Coachella Valley where the cities of Desert Hot Springs, Palm Springs and Indio currently have temporary moratoriums in place, and Coachella has enacted a permanent ban.

That ban was the direct result of public backlash to the proposed Coachella Valley Technology Center Campus project previously supported by Perez. Earlier this year, KESQ reported Perez had rescinded his support of the project, and in June, the city voted to cancel its agreement with the developer.

Perez, at Tuesday’s meeting, said his office had reached out to Coachella Valley resident Claudia Lua Alvarado, who spoke in support of a ban, to schedule a time for him to learn more about data centers and their possible impacts in the region.