Coachella City Council Unanimously Approves First Reading of Data Center Ban

Coachella City Council members unanimously approved the first reading of an ordinance banning data centers in the city Wednesday night, following months of resident pressure at City Hall.

The ordinance bans data centers, data storage facilities, and large scale computing facilities citywide. It does carve out exemptions for accessory server rooms and IT equipment tied directly to another approved use, language some residents have pushed the council to tighten so it can't be used to sneak future data center projects through.

Council still needs to approve a second reading before the ban becomes official. That vote is set for August 26th. If it passes, the ban would go into effect 30 days later. From that point, the ban could only be undone through another council vote.

The debate goes back to April, when hundreds of residents turned out against the proposed "Coachella Valley Technology Campus." That project has since been canceled, but the fight over data centers more broadly kept going, with council extending a temporary 45-day moratorium on data center projects to 10 months while it worked out a permanent ordinance.

Coachella Mayor Dr. Frank Figueroa said ahead of Wednesday's vote that he'd heard the same concern from residents over and over.

"That's one thing that I've been hearing a lot from the community," Figueroa said. "We want to ensure that this data center ban ordinance does not allow anybody to just sneak in through."