Draft ordinance on 12-month data center moratorium handed out at Geneva City Council meeting

GENEVA – Geneva City Council member Jeff Griffiths handed out a draft ordinance for a 12-month moratorium on data centers at the April 13th council meeting.
Griffiths handed out copies of the draft ordinance to council members at the meeting to review, but no action was taken. He hoped a first reading of the ordinance could take place at the next council meeting.
Griffiths thought a moratorium would give council “the safety and the chance to do it right” when it comes to data centers.
Griffiths thought council should do its “due diligence  and have a pause.
He was concerned about “the uncertainty of everything with them” as well as the long-term impact on water.
Online information states that data centers “use significant amounts of water, primarily for cooling their servers and managing heat generated by high-performance computing systems.”
Griffiths wanted council to use the pause to see how things roll out in other communities.
“Currently, we don’t have anything specifically for data centers in our planning and zoning,” he said.
A copy of the draft legislation states that it’s “an ordinance imposing a 12-month moratorium on the acceptance and processing of applications for zoning and/or occupancy permit approvals for data centers within the City and the issuance of such approvals in the City of Geneva…”
The draft ordinance states that the city “wishes to study the current planning and zoning ordinances and also business regulations of the City in order to determine the appropriate next steps and possible new regulations, possible use, locations, and operations to be adopted that regulate data centers.”
Until such regulations are reviewed, council “desires to declare a moratorium on the acceptance and processing of applications for zoning and occupancy approvals and business license approvals for data centers and the issuance of such approvals,” the draft ordinance states.
Council member Bill Baker referred to a presentation by Sarah Jammal of Verdantas at a past council meeting in which she addressed the possibility of data centers in the area.
“I know when Sarah was here, I asked her pointedly if there was any plans at all, and she emphatically stated we are not even in consideration of anyone having a data center in our area,” he said.