Palm Springs may become the latest Coachella Valley city to institute a temporary ban on data centers.
The city council will debate imposing a 45-day moratorium on the approval of new data centers at a meeting Wednesday, Aug. 26. If approved, the moratorium could be extended to a year or more.
In a memorandum included in the meeting's agenda, the Palm Springs Department of Planning Services said the city's municipal and zoning codes do not have policies applying to data centers. The city is currently in a multi-year process to update its zoning code, which governs land use throughout Palm Springs.
The new code, which is expected to be completed by spring of 2027, will likely include laws governing data centers in the city.
"The temporary moratorium
is necessary to ensure that no applications are approved in the interim while staff assesses the appropriateness of data centers within the City of Palm Springs," the department said.
Both Desert Hot Springs and Indio have instituted their own temporary moratoriums on data centers. Coachella has permanently banned them following a failed proposal to bring a hyperscale data centerto the city.
Unlike other Coachella Valley cities, Palm Springs already has a data center within its borders, albeit a relatively small one. The Cogent Palm Springs Data Center operates out of a 4,376-square-foot facility on North Indian Canyon Drive. The building mostly provides internet services for businesses, according to its website.
The Palm Springs moratorium would likely not impact the Cogent data center because it applies to new applications rather than existing businesses. However, the city of Palm Springs did not immediately respond to a question from The Desert Sun on the topic.
The debate in Palm Springs comes as hundreds of municipalities across the United States have instituted their own moratoriums on data centers, according to some counts. A total of 15 states have also explored banning the land use, although some of those measures have failed.
In mid-July, New York became the first state to adopt a temporary moratorium whenGov. Kathy Hochul signed an executive order banning hyperscale data centers for up to a year.
The Palm Springs City Council is considering the moratorium as an urgency measure, meaning it can only be approved if four out of five councilmembers vote in favor.
If adopted, the moratorium will be followed up by a public hearing on extending it further within roughly a month.
"While data centers may generate some tax revenue, sophisticated analyses are necessary to understand their overall impact on the community," the Department of Planning Services wrote in the memorandum. "Although the ongoing review of the City’s Zoning Code can further analyze these issues and provide a more robust regulatory framework, today’s rules lack clarity on how to best locate such uses and mitigate potential impacts on the community."
Sam Morgen covers local government for The Desert Sun. Reach him at smorgen@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Palm Springs considers data center moratorium, joining other cities
