Coachella Council Set to Take Up Permanent Data Center Ban

Coachella City Council will hold a public hearing and take a first vote Wednesday on a permanent, citywide ban on data centers, nearly a month after the city's Planning Commission unanimously recommended the prohibition move forward.

The ordinance would ban data centers in every zoning district in the city, citing strain on the electrical grid, water supply, air quality and emergency response resources. It comes after the collapse of the Coachella Valley Technology Campus, a data center project tied to a proposed municipal utility deal that drew hundreds of residents to council meetings earlier this year before it was scrapped.

When commissioners recommended the ban last month, they asked staff to spell out exactly who would be exempt and to look into whether the ban should go before voters instead of being decided by Council. The ordinance headed to Council this week lays out specific exemptions and does not include a ballot measure.

The exemptions are narrow. Small server rooms inside existing businesses would still be allowed, along with IT systems run by government agencies, schools and telecommunications facilities already permitted elsewhere in city code. Hospitals, public safety agencies and utilities could also keep data processing equipment, but only if it supports their main operations rather than functioning as a standalone data center.

On the ballot measure question, city staff is advising against it. Staff looked at Monterey Park, which banned data centers permanently through a ballot measure. That approach would make Coachella's ban harder to undo, since voters would have to approve any changes. But staff says it would also make the ban slower to take effect, requiring the city to wait for a general election or pay for a special one. Staff is instead recommending Council pass the ban as a standard city ordinance, arguing it would take effect faster and could still be updated later, for instance if a new kind of technology comes along that doesn't quite fit the current rules, without needing another trip to the ballot. Any future changes would still have to go through both the Planning Commission and Council, giving the public a chance to weigh in.

Wednesday's vote is only the first of two steps. If Council introduces the ordinance, it would need to come back for a second reading and final adoption before taking effect, which would happen 30 days after that adoption. In the meantime, the city's temporary freeze on data center applications, extended by Council in July, stays in place through June 2027 as a backstop.

The meeting starts at 6 p.m. at Coachella City Hall, 1515 Sixth Street, and can also be viewed on Zoom or the city's website.