Aurora temporarily pauses data center, warehouse approvals

Aurora has temporarily interrupted the approval of the data center and warehouse proposals to give the staff the possibility of creating new guidelines around these types of developments.

The temporary moratorium was approved by the Aurora municipal council during a meeting specially called Thursday after the city officials pleaded for why it was necessary at the meeting of the municipal council regularly scheduled for Tuesday.

Citing an increased number of requests and concerns of residents concerning existing installations, the staff said that the moratorium would give them time to seek means to mitigate the various impacts of data centers, which are currently classified as warehouses within the framework of the City Code, then report the recommendations to the municipal council.

The mayor of Aurora, John Laesch, said at the meeting on Thursday that he had taken a certain number of telephone calls from those who potentially sought to bring data centers to the city, as well as organized workforce, and he assured them that “we are not against the centers of data as a whole”, the city only made the guards for the residents and “Not contribute to the climate crisis”.

The now approved temporary moratorium will be in force for 180 days, so until the end of March 2026, but could be extended by an additional 30 days. The ESCH said Thursday that the moratorium could also be shorter if a code change was written before the six -month break, and members of the city staff said they would present an update in 90 days.

During the moratorium, the city will not accept or approve of the requests for new data center developments or developments or extensions of existing installations, according to a staff report on the proposal.

However, the personnel noted in the report of several exemptions at the temporary moratorium, including projects with completed requests submitted before the entry into force of the order, maintenance or routine repairs in existing data centers which do not increase the facilities of capacity and public security or emergency operated by government organizations.

There is also a conditional treatment of new applications for developers with projects sensitive to time, but these applications will have to be modified to adapt to any new regulations which could possibly be adopted by the Aurora Municipal Council, said the Yordana Wysocki companies at the meeting on Thursday.

In addition, there is a process of calling difficulties for those who have already made substantial investments in a development but who have not been able to apply in time, she said.

Aurora’s director of chief services, John Curley, told Aurora Municipal Council on Tuesday that there were currently five developments in data centers trying to obtain approval. At the same time, the staff strives to respond to the concerns of residents concerning existing facilities, which include concerns about noise, traffic and environmental impacts, he said.

The Beacon-News previously reported on the noise problems raised by those who live near the Cyrusone data center, located at the corner of the Eola and Diehl roads on the extreme side of East of Aurora near the Interstate 88.

The repairs carried out at this data center in April required the use of rescue generators for several consecutive days, which caused a constantly strong noise in the surroundings that residents called “unlivable” and “horrible”. This caused community meetings between residents, Cyrusone and city officials.

Since then, Cyrusone has implemented temporary measures and has been working on permanent solutions to block the sound from these generators as well as the roof cooling units which, according to the neighbors, also create noise pollution in the region. With temporary measures, residents said recent repairs had less impact, but that generators were still so noisy that they could hear them in their homes.

In addition to the concerns about noise, staff also highlighted the potential problems around the amount of energy and water data centers often takes operation, air quality due to diesel backup generators and greenhouse gas emissions.

A number of residents spoke at the meeting on Thursday, raising concerns similar to those presented by staff earlier in the week.

One of these speakers was Mavis Bates, who is a member of the Board of Directors of the County Kane, president of the local group of the Sierra Club and president of the Aurora Sustainable Advisory Council. She pleaded on behalf of the temporary moratorium, noting environmental concerns as well as those around noise and vibrations, and said that she was happy, Aurora will be “a leader in the accommodation of sustainable data centers”.

The city of Aurora is not the only one in its concerns or challenges concerning warehouses and data centers, and many communities have taken measures to understand how to approach the impact of these facilities, according to Aurora, the director of sustainability Alison Lindburg, who presented Tuesday alongside Curley.

The ultimate objective of the temporary moratorium is to clarify the development process of the data center and the warehouse while ensuring that the long -term community and environmental impacts are treated before construction, depending on the presentation of the staff on Tuesday.

Wysocki said Thursday that any new rule ultimately adopted would not apply to developments with requests submitted before the moratorium approval.

After discussion, the municipal council of Aurora voted 10-1 to adopt the temporary moratorium. Ald. Patty Smith, 8th Ward, was not present in Reunion and therefore did not vote, and the vote against the moratorium was ALD. Carl Franco, 5th district.

Before the vote was taken, Franco said he did not think that the council had received enough information to justify the moratorium. The council should prevent them from developing near neighborhoods until more information is collected, he said, but it seems that there are good reasons to have data centers in the city.

Lamesch meetings during Tuesday and Thursday meetings said that data centers have helped the city with land taxes and significant taxes. City staff also said on Tuesday that data centers create less traffic and can fill the vacant space if they are done correctly, although they create little jobs once open.

Franco has also pleaded for the city to work with those of the data center industry, which, according to Lasch, will occur.

Ald. Edward Bugg, 9th Ward, said that he thought people were looking at the Moratory Tort, as this gives the city time to modify his prescription which does not currently meet the appropriate standards for data centers and warehouses. It is fantastic that some data centers do innovative things that the city can learn, but the city must take the time to create minimum standards, he said.

On Wednesday, the temporary moratorium was approved by the city’s planning and zoning commission, but otherwise has not crossed the structure of the Aurora municipal council committee that the ordinances are generally approved. Instead, the article went directly from the planning and zoning commission to the municipal council for final approval at the meeting specially called Thursday.

rsmith@chicagoTribube.com