Tulsa just approved a nine-month moratorium on the construction of any more new data centers.
It was a unanimous decision on Wednesday after District 4 Councilor Laura Bellis asked for a one-year moratorium. The Tulsa Flyer reports she agreed to amend it to nine months.
“Nine months was a reasonable compromise,” Bellis told the Flyer. “My biggest thing was our planning office has enough time to form recommendations for it to go through an official government process.”
Despite the moratorium, Tulsa’s proposed Project Anthem would be exempted for its first and second phases. The moratorium would also not affect Project Clydesdale under construction in the north side of Tulsa. The second construction phase of Project Clydesdale will be considered April 1 by the Tulsa Metropolitan Area Planning Commission.
“To me this is about being fact-based, not being fear-based and acknowledging this is an industry all around us,” Bellis said
The decision by the city council came after 19 people spoke during the public comment period.
One council member, Phil Lakin suggested a 90-day moratorium, expressing concern the longer nine-month delay might harm the city’s economic opportunities.
“It allows us to give people time to do their work and if they don’t, we can extend it another time,” Lakin said to Bellis. “365 seems like a lot.”
Another council member, Jackie Dutton, publicly declared her support for an “indefinite” moratorium on new data centers in the city. She voiced complaints that the centers are being located in the city’s more underserved communities.
“The economic data with data centers does not support that they are revenue generators for the city as a whole … we don’t know what the impact is for those local residents where the data center is going to be.”