ESCONDIDO — The Escondido City Council unanimously approved an urgency ordinance Wednesday imposing a 45-day moratorium on data centers.
The council and city officials said the moratorium was a public health and safety issue and allows city staff to develop regulations for land use, zoning, and reducing potential impacts on public safety and city services from data centers and other high-intensity computing uses.
Garrett Smith, senior planner with the Development Services Department, said the city currently has no applications or inquiries from data center developers. He said the council’s action would provide staff time to develop the appropriate regulations, conduct legal and regulatory research, and conduct outreach to stakeholders and the community.
Smith said the council will also have the option of two moratorium extensions — one for 10 months and another for 12 months, should the city need more time to build an ordinance, amend its General Plan and update its development standards.
Staff will return on Oct. 10 to update the council on its progress.
“Within this 45-day period, it would provide the city sufficient time to conduct necessary research on the impacts of these uses, conduct outreach with necessary stakeholders, as well as look into drafting appropriate regulations surrounding their establishment, siting and operation,” Smith told the council. “There’s significant discussion underway throughout the country on this industry and the impacts to these communities.”
Data centers have become one of the most divisive issues across the country, especially with the proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI) platforms ramping up, such as ChatGPT (OpenAI), Claude (Anthropic), Copilot (Microsoft), Gemini (Google) and many others.
