Santa Ana City Council members are expected to debate a suggested ban on new data centers or server farms as they look to overhaul their rules dictating where open space, housing, commercial and industrial buildings can be built in the city next month.
It comes just ahead of the November election as city staff say there are currently three relatively small-sized data centers in Santa Ana and there hasn’t been any new applications for new server farms.
The facilities, which house computer servers and keep digital services running, are expanding amid the growth of artificial intelligence despite concerns the centers increase utility costs for residents, impact the electrical grid and local water supplies.
This week, an effort by City Councilwoman Jessie Lopez to implement a temporary 45-day ban on new data centers in Santa Ana unraveled after some of her colleagues said the issue would be addressed when they overhaul their zoning code next month.
Councilman Phil Bacerra, who is running for reelection, said the moratorium was unnecessary because they’re already revamping city zoning code and called Lopez’s request a “waste of time.”
“It’s not that I don’t have concerns about the data centers, but the fact of the matter is we’re literally going to deal with this in two weeks,” Bacerra said at Tuesday’s meeting.
“This is just frustrating that this item is before us. I get it’s a hot topic and we’re 49 days out from an election. I just wish the energy would have been channeled more towards something that would be, I would say, more urgent like a prisoner reentry center in the council member’s ward.”
At the end of last month, a majority of planning commissioners voted to approve a comprehensive update to Santa Ana’s zoning code and directed city staff to include an explicit ban of new data centers before passing it on to the city council for final approval.
Lopez, who is running for State Assembly, said she requested her temporary ban ahead of the planning commission meeting and wanted to get a clearer picture of data centers already operating in the city.
In her agenda item request, Lopez raised concerns the centers consume a large amount of water for cooling purposes, impact local electrical infrastructure, pollute and create fewer permanent jobs compared to other industrial development relative to the resources they use.
She argued a temporary moratorium can allow officials time to decide if they want to regulate such facilities or outright ban them.
“The City of Santa Ana’s moratorium period, if pursued, would allow staff and the City Council to evaluate whether Coachella and Monterey Park’s approach of an eventual permanent prohibition is the right fit for Santa Ana, or whether a more tailored framework, such as conditional standards addressing water use, electrical infrastructure impact, noise, and design, better serves the City’s interests,” reads Lopez’s request.
Labor union leaders and members spoke in favor of regulating data centers as opposed to banning them, arguing that when built responsibly the facilities can benefit the city and the workers that build them.
Doug Mangione, political director of the International Brotherhood of Electrician Workers – Local 441, said state legislators are already moving to implement rules on data centers and tax operators with high electrical usage.
“We shouldn’t run away and hide from new things, but we shouldn’t let things be built willy nilly,” he said at Tuesday’s meeting. “We all know the community has some concerns here. We have concerns. We don’t want them built cheaply, and we don’t want your community being raked over the coals just because we need a data center.”
Tuesday’s meeting shed light on the current three data centers in the city.
The City’s Planning and Building Director, Ali Pezeshkpour, said one of the centers is county-owned and serves the County of Orange, one is used by Verizon Wireless on East Deer Avenue and the third is on East Dyer Road.
Pezeshkpour added none of the data centers exceed 100,000 square feet and the city hasn’t received new applications for data centers.
Councilman David Penaloza, who is running against Lopez for State Assembly, said data centers should be banned.
“It’s definitely a problem that we are seeing increase throughout, not just here but around the world, of these data centers getting built and whatnot, and the usage of water – the amount of water they’re using and the stress on our electrical grid,” Penaloza said at Tuesday’s meeting.
Penaloza’s campaign has received nearly $1.4 million in campaign support from a committee funded by Google and Meta since April, according to the Secretary of State website.
Councilwoman Thai Viet Phan said she opposed the temporary moratorium and said the city has not clearly defined what exactly they mean by data center.
“Data centers exist because there are many businesses, office buildings that need to have offsite servers that store data so they can process it faster than going to a mega mega data center offsite in another state. These are necessary for the offices that we have in Ward One in the city,” Phan said at Tuesday’s meeting.
“Doing an outright ban of data centers when we don’t actually know what they look like in the city, what they’re doing, and how they actually affect us is, I think, not the best route to take.”
Hosam Elattar is a Voice of OC reporter. Contact him at helattar@voiceofoc.org.
