AURORA, Colo. — Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman has called a special City Council meeting for Monday to vote on an indefinite moratorium on new data center applications, a pause he says would not stop the Trident data center that has drawn opposition from nearby residents.
The special meeting is set for 6 p.m. Monday, Oct. 19. It will be in-person, with a virtual option for council members.
Ward II Council Member Amy Wiles is bringing forward the proposal, which would stop the city from accepting any new data center applications until the City Council adopts appropriate regulations.
In an announcement of the meeting, Coffman said he fully supports the proposal.
“We cannot be blindsided by another Trident Data Center disaster that is unacceptably close to surrounding residential areas,” Coffman said. “We must take a pause to prevent any further requests for data center applications until we have the right policies in place.”
Coffman told Denver7 the moratorium differs from others because it has no set end date. He said applications could resume as soon as the council adopts reasonable rules.
“Indefinite means we’ll get there,” Coffman said.
He said the city was blindsided by the Trident project, which he said is proposed across the street from relatively new residential areas under the city’s existing code. He said he walked the area and concluded it was not appropriate.
“The existing rules are clearly inadequate,” Coffman said.
Under the moratorium, projects already in the city’s system would continue to move forward, Coffman said. Anyone who has not yet submitted an application would have to wait. He said Wiles would lead work on how far data centers should be from existing residential areas, but he could not give a date for when new rules would be ready.
Coffman said Aurora is the largest city in the Denver metro area by land and that about a third of it is undeveloped. He said the city has areas that are appropriate for data centers.
“The intent is not to permanently block data centers,” Coffman said.
The moratorium would not apply to Trident, Coffman said.
“It tries to prevent future Tridents, but it does not prevent Trident,” Coffman said.
He said he is pursuing other options on Trident. Coffman said the current process does not require a council vote on the project, but there is a mechanism that lets him bring it up for one, and he reserves the right to do so and ask for a no vote.
Ray Czaplewski lives in The Reserve, a 55-plus community near the planned data center site. He said residents learned about the project by word of mouth.
“This thing has been under the radar for well over a year, and we just heard about it from word of mouth,” Czaplewski said.
He said there was no notice from the city, not even signs. He said he believes the neighborhood organized just in time and that waiting another week might have been too late.
Czaplewski said his biggest concern is constant low-frequency noise, and he fears his neighborhood would become uninhabitable. He also worries about noise and pollution from diesel generators.
“If it’s built the way they said it’s going to be built, we’re going to have to move,” Czaplewski said.
He said he welcomes the moratorium for the rest of the metro area but does not expect it to help his neighborhood, since Trident is already in the process. He said he hopes the developer will choose a different site.
“It’s really a heavy industrial type facility,” Czaplewski said. He said he has no problem with data center technology itself.
Dan Diorio, executive vice president of state policy and government affairs at the Data Center Coalition, spoke in general terms about moratoriums. The coalition is a national industry association with more than 50 members. Diorio said at least eight have headquarters or a significant office presence in Colorado, including Vantage Data Centers.
He said moratoriums can signal that a community is closed for business and create uncertainty that could put economic development at risk.
“I think it’s more important for communities to work with the industry to establish clear guardrails rather than a one-size-fits-all blanket ban on development in that community,” Diorio said.
Diorio said Vantage is a good actor and urged residents to work with the company to make sure it is a good neighbor.
“Vantage Data Centers as a DCC member is overwhelmingly a good actor in this space,” Diorio said.
He said every job in a data center supports four and a half jobs elsewhere in the economy.
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