The Palm Springs City Council voted to extend a temporary data center moratorium to two years.
The unanimous vote Sept. 30 brings the Palm Springs in line with other Coachella Valley cities, like Coachella, Indio and Desert Hot Springs, who have all either passed two-year moratoriums or a permanent ban.
The large computer warehouses that power artificial intelligence and other internet services have become a controversial topic across the valley following a proposal to construct a hyperscale data center in Coachella. That plan was defeated following a huge community backlash.
“We’ve seen how these started to come up before people even realized it," Palm Springs Councilmember Jeffrey Bernstein said during the meeting. "And the more education that
we can have, the more we’re able to prevent and prepare ourselves for the future.”
The vote on Wednesday extends the data center moratorium to Aug. 25, 2028.
In Palm Springs, concerns arose because data centers are not defined in the city's outdated zoning code, which regulates land where different types of buildings can go within city limits. The city is in the process of updating its zoning code, but until that is completed, a data center proposal would technically be allowed since it is not prohibited in city law.
That's part of the reason why the city passed its initial 45-day moratorium as an urgency ordinance on Aug. 26.
City planners are expected to complete an updated zoning code in 2027, with data center regulations included. If they are allowed anywhere, it would likely be north of Interstate 10, in an industrial zone the city has designated for warehouses.
Still, officials have reservations about allowing data centers anywhere in the city.
"We talked about how these 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," Planning Director Chris Hadwin said during the meeting.
Data centers have attracted controversy because of their high use of energy and water. The proposal for the Coachella data center could have used up to 300 megawatts of electricity, which is enough to power a city of 100,000 homes or more.
The water use is also troubling for desert residents. Even a 100-megawatt facility could consume around 530,000 gallons of water per day for cooling, according to the International Energy Agency, a intergovernmental organization that provides policy recommendations for energy.
That may be difficult to allow in Palm Springs, which faces a 40% state-mandated cut to water use by 2040. City regulators will need to balance the needs of businesses and residents when implementing a new water plan.
In the meantime, the data center moratorium will remain. Once the new zoning code has been adopted, the city plans to rescind the moratorium on data centers and regulate them through the normal process.
Sam Morgen covers local government for The Desert Sun. Reach him at smorgen@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Why Palm Springs is banning data centers for two years
