Council pauses data centers for 45 days to study water and power demands
The urgency ordinance halts new data center applications while staff study the facilities' thirst for electricity and water in a desert city.
PALM SPRINGS: The City Council voted unanimously August 26 to impose a 45-day moratorium on data center applications, giving staff time to study how the power-hungry facilities would affect the city's water supply, electrical grid and land-use rules. The pause took effect immediately and runs through October 10.
The urgency ordinance bars the city from accepting, processing or approving data center applications while planners draft permanent regulations. Urgency ordinances take effect immediately and require a supermajority vote. Part of the problem: the city's zoning code has no definitions or regulations specific to data centers, so planners have no rules to apply if one is proposed.
City staff identified no active data center application in Palm Springs. The moratorium is preemptive, aimed at writing the rules before the first proposal arrives rather than after.
In a desert city, every large new electricity and water customer deserves a hard look.
Data centers have become one of the most contested land uses in California desert cities. The facilities can draw enormous amounts of electricity and, depending on their cooling systems, significant volumes of water, a sensitive question in a region that imports much of its water and manages fragile groundwater basins.
How the moratorium works
Staff are expected to return with options for permanent rules governing where data centers may locate and what standards they must meet. Staff have since recommended extending the pause by 22 months and 15 days to complete the work, a sign the initial 45 days were understood as a starting gun for a longer planning process.
The council can extend the moratorium if the work is not finished in 45 days, as state law allows urgency moratoriums to be extended for further study. Extensions are common in California land-use planning, where drafting permanent regulations routinely takes far longer than six weeks.
Palm Springs is not the first desert city to pump the brakes. Across the Coachella Valley and the high desert, councils have weighed the tax revenue and construction jobs data centers promise against their long-term demands on infrastructure. Palm Springs will now do its own math.
Residents who want a say should watch for the study sessions when staff return. Moratorium extensions require public votes, which means the data center question will come back to the council chamber more than once before permanent rules are set. The 45-day clock is ticking.
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