The Lansing City Council passed a 182-day moratorium on new data center development in a 7-to-1 vote Monday night.
The ordinance came after months of back-and-forth on whether to allow a data center to be built in downtown Lansing came to a sudden end in April, when AI-company Deep Green pulled its proposal.
A draft moratorium on data center development was presented to the city council later that same month.
Public comments at the Monday meeting varied, with some Lansing residents worrying that a moratorium would push developers to other cities.
Jason Brown, a representative of UA Local 333, stressed that the moratorium could have a negative impact on Lansing’s economy.
“A moratorium to me feels like you're just unwilling to hear any new ideas on the potential for growth and progress here in Lansing,” Brown said.
Lansing resident Brad Clark echoed Brown’s worries.
“Take time to write the new regulations that you need,” Clark said, “but know that if this is a strategy to exclude data centers, you will be denying the people of Lansing the opportunities for investment, tax revenues and economic diversification.”
Councilmember Ryan Kost, who initially drafted the moratorium in April, said he did not share these concerns.
“I don’t think that this is telling businesses to go somewhere else,” he said. “This is very similar to multiple communities around us that have done this, and across the state. We are all trying to figure this thing out.”
Nicole Keway Biber with Clean Water Action took a harder stance during public comments.
“If things like escrow accounts for future decommissioning, assuring drinking water is for people not machines, prohibiting new fossil fuel emissions, fortifying noise ordinances, requiring an [environmental impact statement] before building, a full accounting of waste streams, including PFAS, and no NDAs all mean that a data center rep is no longer interested,” she said, “then good.”
Ultimately, only Councilmember Jeremy Garza voted against the moratorium, saying that it “sends the wrong message.”
“There's a lot of companies that come to Lansing or come to other communities that have noise issues, that have water [issues],” Garza said. "So, if we're talking about environment concerns, why aren't we making this one broad stroke and say all development in Lansing?”
Councilmember Trini Pehlivanoglu clarified that the city could not guarantee Lansing would remain data center-free forever, but the six months would be used to draft regulations for the industry.
“It makes sense to take time and craft some regulations for data centers, to have a specific definition of data centers,” Pehlivanoglu said. “I prefer to not build the plane while I’m flying it, and so I think that 180 or so days is an appropriate amount of time to pause while listening to stakeholders who are, you know, part of the process.”
The moratorium takes effect July 27 and will last until Jan. 25, 2027.
