The potential of a moratorium on data center construction in Cumberland County increased on Monday when the Board of Commissioners voted 6-0, with one absent, to hold a public hearing on the idea on May 18.
A vote on a moratorium could take place sometime after the hearing.
In the meantime, commissioners want to consider what the text of a moratorium ordinance should say, and review similar ordinances enacted in other communities. County Attorney Rick Moorefield said his office is gathering this information.
In addition to setting a public hearing date, the commissioners voted 6-0 to have the Cumberland County Joint Planning Board work with the City of Fayetteville as the county’s planning board develops ordinances to regulate data centers.
The rapid growth of data centers—warehouses or other facilities that house large clusters of computers that store electronic records and perform the computing tasks that power modern business and society—has generated concern in the public due to their consumption of electricity, use of water for cooling, noise from their cooling systems, and other factors.
Fayetteville-area residents have been pressuring the city and county governments to temporarily or permanently ban data centers. Those calling for a temporary ban have said it should run at least one year, and as many as three years.
Could Data Center Moratorium Be Done Faster?
Chair Kirk deViere asked Moorefield whether another measure could be enacted sooner than May 18 to stop data center construction while the moratorium ordinance is considered. “So right now, we are exposed. Right now, if the company put a permit in, we would have to honor that permit or start that process,” deViere said.
State law doesn’t allow for that, Moorefield said. The law requires the public to be notified of a proposed ordinance and a public hearing, he said. This includes legal ads published in a local newspaper. “There’s no way to shortcut that,” he said.
Commissioner Henry Tyson said the moratorium should be carefully written to differentiate a data center from a company that needs data storage, but the data storage is secondary to the facility’s primary function.
“Let’s say we had Apple that wanted to put an office here, for example,” Tyson said. “I mean, they may have a lot of data that gets uploaded for crowd services, but I don’t know that we would necessarily preclude them if they were looking to put some sort of corporate headquarters or an office here that had an economic impact in terms of jobs.”
As the county develops a separate ordinance to regulate data centers, Commissioner Glenn Adams said the county staff should coordinate with the city as it crafts regulations that would take effect within the city limits.
Commissioner Veronica Jones suggested that the county commissioners meet with the Fayetteville City Council to discuss data centers before enacting a moratorium.
Senior reporter Paul Woolverton can be reached at pwoolverton@cityviewnc.com.
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