A proposed one-year Milwaukee data center development moratorium will have a Plan Commission hearing in September – when that panel might also review a separate data center zoning proposal.
The proposed yearlong moratorium had a cursory review by the city’s Zoning Code Technical Committee on Aug. 10.
The technical committee doesn’t consider policy effects. It certifies that such proposals meet standards for legality/enforceability, administrative efficiency, and consistency with Milwaukee’s zoning code.
With the technical committee’s assent, the moratorium proposal goes to the Plan Commission’s Sept. 28 meeting.
It will then be reviewed by the Common Council’s Zoning, Neighborhoods and Development Committee before a full council vote in October.
The proposed moratorium was to be reviewed by the council’s zoning committee on July 28. But that was delayed after the city attorney’s office said it lacked a public hearing and needed to be deemed as legal and enforceable.
The zoning technical committee includes a city attorney’s representative, Joseph Dobbs, who joined other committee members in voting unanimously to advance the measure to the Plan Commission.
The commission might also hold a Sept. 28 public hearing on a separate zoning proposal that would ban data centers larger than 60,000 square feet.
That proposal would allow smaller data centers to operate within industrial-light and industrial-heavy zones. Those between 20,000 square feet and 60,000 square feet would be permitted within those zones as a special use with approval by the Board of Zoning Appeals.
Alderwoman Marina Dimitrijevic, a moratorium co-sponsor, said in July the temporary measure is needed because the zoning proposal faces a long and difficult legislative path. The moratorium would end if the zoning proposal wins council approval.
Both measures surfaced after the owner of the former Midtown Center Walmart proposed a 19,000-square-foot computational research facility/data center within that building’s redevelopment plan – which includes a self-storage center and a relocated Capitol Branch Library.
Neighborhood residents and others opposed the data center, with some comparing it to the much larger hyperscale data centers under construction in Port Washington and Mount Pleasant. The redevelopment proposal won Plan Commission approval on July 20 after the data center component was dropped.
Milwaukee has other smaller data centers. Those include Data Holdings, a 46,000 square-foot facility that’s operated at 3135 W. Highland Blvd. since 2013.
Tom Daykin can be emailed at tdaykin@jrn.com and followed on Instagram, Bluesky, X and Facebook.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Data center temporary moratorium plan to have Sept. 28 public hearing
Reporting by Tom Daykin, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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By Tom Daykin, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel | USA TODAY Network
