Council extends data center moratorium to 2028, giving zoning rewrite two more years
The unanimous September 30 vote turns the 45-day pause into a nearly two-year freeze, joining Coachella, Indio and Desert Hot Springs in holding the line on data centers while Palm Springs writes the rules.
PALM SPRINGS: The City Council voted unanimously on September 30 to extend its temporary ban on data center applications to nearly two years, stretching the moratorium through August 25, 2028. The vote converts the 45-day urgency ordinance adopted August 26, which was set to expire October 10, into an additional 22 months and 15 days of freeze while the city writes permanent zoning rules.
The extension puts Palm Springs in line with its neighbors. Coachella, Indio and Desert Hot Springs have all either passed two-year moratoriums or a permanent ban on the facilities, and the defeat of a proposed hyperscale data center in Coachella showed how quickly the projects can galvanize opposition across the valley.
At the heart of the issue is a blank spot in the city's rulebook. Palm Springs' zoning code contains no definitions or regulations specific to data centers, which means a proposal would technically be allowed under city law simply because nothing prohibits it. The moratorium blocks the acceptance, processing or approval of data center applications and permits while planners write the missing rules. Under the staff report's definition, as reported by MyNewsLA, a data center is "a structure or site used primarily for the storage, management, processing and transmission of digital data."
The city went from a 45-day pause to a nearly two-year freeze in a single unanimous vote.
Why the council wanted more time
Council members framed the vote as a matter of studying the facilities' demands before any proposal arrives. "We've seen how these started to come up before people even realized it," Councilmember Jeffrey Bernstein said during the meeting, according to the Desert Sun. "And the more education that we can have, the more we're able to prevent and prepare ourselves for the future."
Planning Director Chris Hadwin cited environmental impacts and heavy demands on land, electricity, water and fossil fuels, and described the facilities as placing "stress on local infrastructure and environmental assets with very limited community benefits." He told the council that data centers "can take up large amounts of land without necessarily generating the employment we're looking to generate on the industrial lands that we have available."
Water and power in a desert city
The facilities' appetite for electricity and water has made them one of the most contested land uses in the desert. The defeated Coachella proposal could have drawn up to 300 megawatts of electricity, enough to power a city of 100,000 homes or more, the Desert Sun reported. Even a 100-megawatt facility could consume around 530,000 gallons of water a day for cooling, according to the International Energy Agency, a difficult figure to absorb in a city facing a 40 percent state-mandated cut to water use by 2040.
City planners expect to finish the updated zoning code in 2027 with data center standards included. If the facilities are allowed anywhere, staff said, it would most likely be north of Interstate 10 in an industrial zone the city has designated for warehouses. But officials still hold reservations about allowing them anywhere, and the city plans to rescind the moratorium and regulate the facilities through the normal process only after the new code is adopted.
The extension required, and received, a four-fifths council vote. Residents who want a say in where, or whether, data centers ever land in Palm Springs should watch the zoning update process, which will bring the question back to the council chamber before the 2028 expiration.
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