The city of Palm Springs passed a temporary moratorium on data centers and the city of Coachella gave final passage to its permanent ban during separate meetings the evening of Wednesday, Aug. 26.
In two unanimous votes, the two city councils at opposite ends of the Coachella Valley aligned with a growing movement against the large computing warehouses that have powered the artificial intelligence revolution.
While Palm Springs passed an ordinance on a short-term ban on new data center applications, Coachella went farther.
The city, which was the subject of a fierce public backlash earlier this year following a proposal to construct a hyperscale data center within its boundaries, passed a permanent ban.
Wednesday's vote in Coachella was largely
procedural. State law requires that city legislators vote on ordinances at two separate meetings before they can be enacted. The Coachella City Council already voted in favor of the ordinance during a meeting in mid-August. The "second reading" of the ordinance passed Wednesday, meaning the new law will take effect in 30 days.
In Palm Springs, the moratorium will go into effect immediately because it was passed as an urgency ordinance. At the meeting, councilmembers spoke of their desire to extend the initial 45-day ban up to a total of two years, the maximum allowed under state law.
"There are so many different technological advances, and it’s really important that we are cautious and thoughtful in our planning for all of these," said Councilmember Grace Garner, who requested city staff prepare the ordinance for the vote at a previous meeting. “There are really huge detriments and we don’t need to have that happen in our community.”
Many Coachella Valley residents have proven to be hostile to data centers, which can use as much electricity and water as small towns. In the desert, which has relatively low water supplies and high temperatures that would need extra energy to mitigate, data centers would be extra cost-intensive.
"The building of data centers anywhere in Palm Springs or the desert, incorporated or unincorporated, is catastrophic," Palm Springs resident Lindsay Rowe said during the public comments portion of the Palm Springs council meeting.
But while Coachella has enacted a permanent ban, and Indio and Desert Hot Springs have passed temporary moratoriums, Palm Springs may seem like an odd fit for the group. It has embraced artificial intelligence with an annual AI conference and many tech workers have homes in the city.
Councilmember Jeffrey Bernstein spoke to the position the city finds itself in during the meeting.
“It also doesn’t mean that we’re anti technology or closing the door on innovation of Palm Springs," he said of the moratorium. "It’s just that the rate of change as (Garner) said is moving faster than we’ve ever seen, and technology is so powerful, and this is why how we govern actually matters.”
The city will likely include regulations on data centers in its zoning code update, which is expected to be completed in the spring of 2027. Such regulations would mandate where a data center could be built within the city, if anywhere.
The city is in the process of updating its entire zoning code. The update will modernize where different types of buildings can go within the city.
Sam Morgen covers local government for The Desert Sun. Reach him at smorgen@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Coachella and Palm Springs crack down on data centers
