WEBVTT 1 00:00:06.871 --> 00:00:14.351 This is California in Depth, from CivicFM: one story from the city halls and county boards we cover. 2 00:00:15.191 --> 00:00:50.161 Data centers, and the cities putting them on hold. San Francisco, Oakland and San Diego have each paused new data centers. Los Angeles County's supervisors had a motion before them that would have had planners draft a ban on large-scale data centers. It was referred back to its sponsor with no action. San Jose and Burbank have rules or reports in the works, and Pasadena's Planning Commission has a public hearing on data centers set for November eighteenth. Why are they pausing or tightening the rules, and what happens next? 3 00:00:50.161 --> 00:00:58.711 This episode is made with AI from each government's own show, which reports from the public recordings of its meetings. Sources are in the show notes. 4 00:01:02.349 --> 00:01:22.074 First, what was decided. On October sixth, San Francisco's Board of Supervisors passed an urgency ordinance putting a forty-five-day citywide moratorium on data centers. It passed without objection. That paused city approvals while the board and the Planning Department study data centers and write permanent rules. 5 00:01:22.074 --> 00:01:32.919 The same day, Oakland's City Council approved a forty-five-day emergency moratorium of its own. It pauses land use approvals and agreements for developing or operating data centers in Oakland. 6 00:01:32.919 --> 00:01:43.964 Then on October twenty-seventh, San Diego's City Council voted nine to nothing for a forty-five-day citywide pause on permits for new, expanded or intensified data centers. 7 00:01:43.964 --> 00:02:06.229 One proposal didn't move. Also on October sixth, Los Angeles County's Board of Supervisors had a motion from its chair, Supervisor Hilda Solis. It would have had the county draft zoning that bans large-scale data centers, such as hyperscale and artificial intelligence facilities, in all zones. At her request, it was sent back to her office. No reason was given on the record. 8 00:02:09.706 --> 00:02:28.141 Now for the reasons officials and residents gave. At San Francisco's board, the pause was described as time to study what data centers do to energy, water, air quality, land use and communities. On October twenty-seventh, a supervisor added that data centers can put heavy demands on the electrical grid. 9 00:02:28.141 --> 00:02:45.176 In San Diego, the mayor's office said the city's code doesn't even define data centers. It permits them under rules written for telecom switching stations. Staff pointed to how much electricity, water and land the facilities demand, and to the risk of higher utility bills. 10 00:02:45.176 --> 00:03:02.276 There's also a site San Diego's pause can't reach: federal land. That includes the Navy's NAVWAR campus near Old Town, where news reports described a proposed four-hundred-megawatt data center. The council asked the city's government affairs office to lobby against a large data center there. 11 00:03:02.276 --> 00:03:20.011 Roughly seventy people spoke at San Diego's hearing, and nearly all of them backed the pause. Many said forty-five days was too short and asked for a year or more, or a permanent ban. They cited electricity bills, water use, noise, pollution from backup generators, and land that could go to housing. 12 00:03:20.011 --> 00:03:33.346 In Pasadena, a resident asked the city's Legislative Policy Committee on September twenty-eighth for a ban or a moratorium, citing a proposed warehouse or data center in a high fire hazard area in the Eaton fire's path. 13 00:03:33.346 --> 00:03:46.826 The committee heard that a possible local ordinance was already working its way through planning, and its chair asked staff for a report on the new federal and state data center laws, and on whether Pasadena needs its own. 14 00:03:50.384 --> 00:04:06.519 Finally, what comes next, starting in San Jose. On October twenty-third, city staff told San Jose's Planning Commission that the City Council had directed them to write data center standards, not a moratorium. They said a moratorium is the council's choice to make. 15 00:04:06.519 --> 00:04:31.224 Under the proposal, backup generators would be capped at twenty-five hours a year. Staff estimated that a ninety-nine-megawatt data center would bring the city about six million dollars a year in utility user tax. A Sierra Club speaker told the commission that residents had asked for a moratorium. The standards are scheduled to go to the commission on November eighteenth and to the City Council on December eighth. 16 00:04:31.224 --> 00:04:53.834 The pauses have deadlines of their own. Oakland's City Council has a public hearing set for November tenth on a report required by state law and on extending its moratorium by ten months and fifteen days. In San Francisco, a supervisor introduced an extension of the same length on October twenty-seventh. A supervisor said the board will review the Planning Department's November tenth report. 17 00:04:53.834 --> 00:05:10.179 In San Diego, staff said the pause can be extended by up to ten months and fifteen days after another public hearing. Councilmember Kent Lee predicted the council would approve that. The council asked the mayor's data center working group for its first progress update within forty-five days. 18 00:05:10.179 --> 00:05:24.744 Pasadena's Planning Commission has a public hearing on data centers set for November eighteenth. And in Burbank, on October thirteenth, one of the city's lobbyists said the City Council would probably get an early staff report on data centers in December. 19 00:05:28.141 --> 00:05:31.661 That's California in Depth. See you next time.