Planning commission recommends two-year moratorium on data centers to city council

The City of Washington Planning Commission voted July 8 to recommend that the city council consider a proposed two-year moratorium on approvals of data centers to allow the city to revisit its comprehensive plan and zoning rules.

Chair said the moratorium would "put a 2 year moratorium on approval of data centers while we revisit the comprehensive plan and the ordinance and make sure we have proper safeguards and rules and regulations in." He said much of the current industrial zoning dates to the 1980s and 1990s and "may not fit so well for another GPC" or data-center uses.

A commissioner citing recent operational strains on city utilities supported the pause. "In the last 2 weeks, 3 weeks, you've been seeing a few water leaks around town and I think today we're up to 19," the commissioner said, adding that the city is operating with three of its four water towers and that allocations to some customers were temporarily reduced. He said those water-supply concerns bolstered the case for a temporary moratorium while the city assesses infrastructure impacts.

A staff member explained the commission's role in the ordinance process, saying the body may send a favorable recommendation, an unfavorable recommendation, or no recommendation to the city council, which alone can enact ordinances.

Chair moved that the commission recommend adoption of the proposed moratorium; a commissioner seconded. The commission certified a favorable recommendation and forwarded it to the city council. The roll-call vote recorded the following results: Mark Arnold — yes; Tom Nash — yes; Nick Fonte — yes; David Dahl — yes; David Gregg — yes; John Pierce — yes. Jeff Stoner and Doug Strattner were recorded as absent. The motion passed.

Next steps: the commission's recommendation will be certified to the City Council for its consideration; the council decides whether to introduce or adopt any ordinance.

Details recorded in the meeting included the cited need to update the comprehensive plan (the last major update mentioned in the meeting was 2009) and local concerns about water capacity and infrastructure that commissioners said could affect large industrial uses such as data centers.