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SF is first Bay Area county to pass temp data center moratorium
SFGATE • • nation
Key Points:
- San Francisco has become the first Bay Area county to enact a temporary moratorium on new data center construction and expansion permits to address environmental and community concerns.
- The moratorium aims to pause approvals while the city evaluates impacts related to energy, water usage, air quality, land use, and community effects, particularly focusing on AI data centers that require significant power and cooling resources.
- Supervisor Matt Dorsey clarified the moratorium excludes businesses with server rooms dedicated to onsite operations, targeting facilities that serve offsite data processing needs.
- The ordinance responds to concerns about lack of community input and transparency in previous data center approvals, especially in neighborhoods like Bayview-Hunters Point that have historically borne industrial pollution burdens.
- The city plans to use a clear, federal-style definition of data centers to better regulate and understand their presence, moving away from the current vague categorization as “internet service exchanges.”
