Two Michigan communities approved measures restricting data center development on Monday, joining a growing list of local governments which have done so.
On Monday night, the Saginaw Township Board of Trustees voted to approve an ordinance regulating the development of data centers in the area.
According to MLive, the 15-page ordinance lays out a number of standards any prospective data center must meet. Noise produced by data centers may not exceed 40 decibels at the property line, buildings and equipment must sit at least 500 feet from residential property, and cooling processes must use a closed-loop or recycled water system, among other regulations.
Developers must notify any residents within half a mile of planned data center sites, and hold a minimum of two community meetings on any proposed developments. Medium and hyperscale data centers, as defined by the ordinance, are restricted to a narrow section of the township.
The ordinance will go into effect on November 16.
Things are moving slightly faster in Romulus, where the city council unanimously approved a 180-day moratorium on data centers, also on Monday night. It took effect immediately.
The six-month pause on approval of any data center development will be used to craft permanent data center regulations for the city.
Several residents present at Monday’s council meeting reportedly asked the city to ban data centers entirely, a sentiment echoed by two council members. Mayor Robert McCraight said any new city ordinances should consider the value smaller data centers may have to local industry.
Neither locality has faced a data center planned for development yet, so both resolutions were passed as a preventive measure. And they are far from the only ones.
A long list of local governments in Michigan have passed restrictions on data center development over the last year. A Michigan Public analysis in July found that as many as 52 local township and city governments across the state had passed data center moratoriums, though more have done so since.
The state’s political environment seems set to grow even more opposed to data centers in the coming months.
While Governor Gretchen Whitmer has generally been supportive of data centers, growing public backlash has led many Michigan politicians to adopt more skeptical stances.
Notably, Governor-elect Jocelyn Benson has called for a statewide moratorium on data centers pending the development of regulations holding developers to certain environmental, energy, and public transparency standards.
