Kent’s City Council unanimously passed a one-year moratorium on massive data centers at its April 15 meeting.
In discussions the previous month, Ward 6 Councilman Jeff Clapper sought to adopt a six-month halt on receiving and issuing permits for such centers. But during discussion, his motion was amended to a one-year period, with council agreeing by unanimous vote.
The legislation says data centers “… are industrial-scale facilities that consume significant energy, water and infrastructure capacity …” and the city needs time to study whether it has the resources to accommodate them.
In a social media post, Clapper applauded the council’s recent vote.
“I know Ravenna grabbed some well-deserved headlines last week with their public hearing about data centers, but don’t assume we are late to the party here in Kent,” Clapper stated. “We have been working on addressing AI data centers and how to control them through our zoning code for a few months, and this moratorium gives us a little extra protection while that process continues.”
Ohio is home to nearly 200 data centers, most of which are concentrated around the Columbus area, the USA Today Network State Bureau has reported. Critics say these projects harm the environment and drain energy resources while providing few permanent jobs.
Several communities in Summit and Portage counties have been considering or have passed moratoriums on the centers.
Tallmadge passed a six-month moratorium on April 13. Ravenna and Streetsboro also recently had public meetings to discuss moratoriums on data centers. Shalersville recently extended its existing moratorium on data centers.
In October, Norton officials rejected a proposal by Quantum HPC, which wanted to construct a data center, dubbed Project Triton, on a 90-acre site off South Cleveland-Massillon Road.
Data centers house computer systems that power services such as data distribution, cryptocurrency mining and artificial intelligence.
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Kent latest city to tap the brakes on data centers
Reporting by April Helms, Akron Beacon Journal / Akron Beacon Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
