One year after it rejected Project Blue amid massive outcry from the community, the Tucson City Council has adopted new regulations for large-scale data center developments.
And, while they will impose a host of new requirements on developers who want to build a data center there, they stopped short of putting a moratorium on them.
Katya Mendoza covered the meeting for Arizona Public Media in Tucson and joined The Show to talk about it.
Full conversation
LAUREN GILGER: Good morning, Katya.
KATYA MENDOZA: Good morning.
LAUREN GILGER: All right. So begin for us just with what these new regulations are. What exactly will the Tucson City Council be able to do going forward if someone comes in and says, “We want to put a data center there”?
KATYA MENDOZA: Right. So last week, the Tucson mayor and council adopted these regulations to govern large-scale data centers within city limits. It’s a new code amendment, which establishes large-scale data centers as a new land use. It defines large-scale data centers as a proposed facility or facilities exceeding 25,000 square feet or more that uses more than 20 megawatts of energy, which must be permitted through special zoning districts. The buildings cannot exceed 50 feet, and they must be located 1/2 mile from residential zones and about 1,000 feet from commercial and zoning districts.
LAUREN GILGER: OK, so some regulations on where they can be built, how they can be built, things like that. But no moratorium, and I want to get to that in a moment. But tell us first about what community members had to say. It sounds like it was almost unanimous in people who showed up to speak at this City Council meeting saying, “We cannot and should not have data centers here and in the desert in general.”
KATYA MENDOZA: Right. For the past year, since Project Blue came to the forefront for those in Pima County and Tucson, individuals have been really vocal and passionate about how they do not want data centers in any shape or form here in the desert. What I heard from community members during the public hearing last week was that they have a lot of concerns about water, natural resources, the potential effects on extreme heat, government surveillance, public health, property values — a variety of different issues. Multiple people did bring up concerns about water, especially because of the Colorado River negotiations.
LAUREN GILGER: People are angry. This seems like it’s been an ongoing story there about data centers since Project Blue came up more than a year ago, right?
KATYA MENDOZA: Oh, definitely. The community has not slowed down in terms of organizing, not only protests starting last year to try to stop this project, but also we’re seeing organized community gatherings in front of the Project Blue construction site. It sounds like these organized residents are also a part of some sort of network with other organizers throughout the country who are also trying to stop data centers from coming to their cities.
LAUREN GILGER: Yeah, so this is definitely not an isolated effort. Back up for a moment, Katya, and just remind us what happened with Project Blue. As you’re alluding to there, it is not over. It’s still going to be created, but in a slightly different kind of way and with different resources. But tell us about the controversy over Project Blue.
KATYA MENDOZA: Yeah, so it started, I would say about June of last year when people first really started hearing about Project Blue. The Pima County Board of Supervisors decided to approve the project despite not knowing who the end user was. A lot of community members expressed concerns for the lack of information, the lack of transparency from the Board of Supervisors. They had so many questions and there were just no answers. So the supervisors, they did approve the project, and it moved to the city of Tucson. It was up to the mayor and council to approve the annexation of this nearly 300-acre parcel of land to be annexed to city limits.
LAUREN GILGER: And they rejected that in the end.
KATYA MENDOZA: Yes, they ultimately rejected this project.
LAUREN GILGER: OK. So could the Tucson City Council last week have gone further? Why didn’t it put that moratorium in place, which is what most of those people who came were calling for?
KATYA MENDOZA: Right. So mayor and council did inquire to the city attorney as to what a complete ban could look like. It sounds like Tucson is bound to state law, which includes Prop. 207, the 2006 voter-approved Private Property Rights Protection Act. This requires state and local governments to compensate property owners if a new land use law or regulation reduces their property value. So essentially, if the city were to consider a ban, property owners would have the right to engage in the process and sue if they potentially felt impacted by that law.
LAUREN GILGER: So there’s this Prop. 207 law, but it doesn’t sound like the City Council is ruling out the idea of putting a moratorium on data centers in the future. They’re considering their legal options?
KATYA MENDOZA: Yes, 100%. So they did approve this new zone code amendment or these regulations for large-scale data centers, in addition to the fact that they would be exploring legal options to potentially pursue an outright ban in the near future.
LAUREN GILGER: OK, so what’s next on this front, Katya? What are you watching for?
KATYA MENDOZA: As Project Blue continues breaking ground, the community has served as sort of watchdogs in terms of where they are getting their water for construction. So because Tucson mayor and council rejected the project, that means that the developers could not have access to Tucson water, city water.
So the community has been successful in terms of calling out, “Hey, we see that you’re hauling in trucks of water. Where is that coming from?” Well, it turns out they were using some sort of city or county water there, so they were able to stop that, and the city manager, Tim Thomure, got involved in that process as well.
But also, what’s coming up for Pima County Board of Supervisors is that this week they’re actually going to be considering establishing a 120-day moratorium on data centers in unincorporated Pima County until a zoning code text amendment process has been completed.
LAUREN GILGER: Wow, OK. So there could be a moratorium at least temporarily at the county level there as well. When might the Tucson City Council make a decision on a potential moratorium in the future?
KATYA MENDOZA: It’s hard to predict that, because if they do pursue that, it would have to be at the state level is what it sounded like from the city attorney.
LAUREN GILGER: OK, so watching for that. Katya Mendoza, reporter for Arizona Public Media, joining us from Tucson with the latest on data centers and regulations there. Katya, thank you for coming on The Show. Appreciate it very much.
KATYA MENDOZA: Thanks for having me.
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