The Minneapolis City Council has approved a six-month moratorium on data center developments larger than 350,000 square feet.

“A six-month pause on data centers while we work to develop more permanent regulations for our whole city is a practical move to ensure we can have needed guardrails in place that protect our communities as this industry explodes,” council member Elliott Payne said, according to MPR News.

The moratorium passed in an 8-5 vote.

MPR News shared further:

Council member Elizabeth Shaffer voted against the moratorium. She said while it’s better than the one-year pause that was originally proposed, “it sends the message once again that Minneapolis is closed for business.”

The interim ordinance does not require the mayor’s signature. The proposed moratorium will come back in front of a council committee next month.

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“I think it gives the city time to do research and figure out those best practices and how we can govern well without dismissing the boon data centers may provide to our city, particularly downtown,” council member Jamison Whiting said, according to KARE 11.

The six-month pause makes Minneapolis one of the first major cities to take such action on the development or expansion of large data centers.

KARE 11 has more:

Data centers have already been operating in downtown Minneapolis for decades, including the one in the Sleep Number mattress headquarters building. It recently made news – not because it’s a data center – but because the building sold for $235 million in January.

That’s eight times what it was assessed for last year.

“The opportunity for investment is real,” said Ward 7 Councilor Elizabeth Shaffer. “The opportunity for union jobs is real.”

Supporters say these urban data centers have faster connections and smaller cooling systems, unlike the more rural, larger ones, which some residents push back on.

But other city councilors worry that having even more is a cumulative impact that’s just as detrimental to the environment and the electrical grid.

“A local government’s job is to protect our city from extractive and exploitive forces like big tech to make sure our city continues to be affordable, for it to continue to be walkable and sustainable and to make sure our residents have clean water and reliable power,” said Ward 2 Councilor Robin Wonsley.

Other councils didn’t agree with a moratorium at all, saying that it stifles developers.

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