June 2 City Council presentation<\/a> outlining proposed changes to the city\u2019s rules.<\/p>\nSome of the suggestions include a ban on cryptocurrency mining data centers and requirements for noise barriers to reduce stress on nearby residents.<\/p>\n
Roughly 300 people attended with several saying the event was helpful, while others were skeptical whether the proposed regulations would have any teeth.<\/p>\n
\u201cI see a lot of half-measures,\u201d said Alexander Montalvo, a Fort Worth resident and activist pushing the city to establish a data center moratorium.<\/p>\n
While having some regulation is better than the city\u2019s status quo, Montalvo argued the city\u2019s proposals don\u2019t address resident concerns around water use, electricity use, zoning regulations and noise pollution.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s not leadership. That\u2019s just pacifying us for corporate interests,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Arlington resident and longtime JPS nurse Helen Ratliff said the event was helpful, but left her with more questions than answers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe infrastructure, whose paying for it? Whose going to eat the costs?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Ratliff, who has three grandchildren in Crowley, also raised concerns about the potential health impacts on children.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a nurse, so I know those concerns are valid,\u201d she said, adding that her daughter is considering leaving the Crowley area to avoid data center development.<\/p>\n
The city\u2019s regulations haven\u2019t been finalized, and the June 30 event served as an opportunity for residents to provide feedback on how the city should move forward, assistant city manager Jessica McEachern said.<\/p>\n
McEachern spent most of the event talking to residents, and taking notes on their feedback.<\/p>\n
Along with written and online surveys, this feedback will be used to guide the regulations that ultimately get voted on by the city council at its Aug. 11 meeting, she said.<\/p>\n
The Fort Worth zoning commission is expected to take up the regulations governing land use at its 1 p.m. meeting on July 8 at city hall.<\/p>\n
Fort Worth should be leading the way on data center regulations, said Mayor Pro Tem Carlos Flores.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think we should wait for the state,\u201d Flores said, adding that Fort Worth could serve as a model for how cities regulate data centers.<\/p>\n
Wedgewood resident Will Wells said he appreciated the city\u2019s attempt to regulate data centers, but wasn\u2019t sure the rules would be meaningfully enforced.<\/p>\n
He pointed to the proposed noise regulations, which will limit data centers noise to no more than five decibels above the noise level before the data center was built.<\/p>\n
For the average resident, a fine for a noise ordinance violation would hurt, but for the large companies operating these data centers, it\u2019s the cost of doing business, he said.<\/p>\n
The city\u2019s current noise ordinance caps violations at $500<\/a>, however, it does offer carve outs for things like city permitted events and gas well drilling.<\/p>\nFor gas well drilling \u2014 which is regulated by a separate section of the city code \u2014 noise violations can result in a fine of up to $2,000 per day.<\/p>\n
Representatives for the city did not immediately respond to an emailed question asking if the noise rules will impose heftier fines for data centers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fort Worth and Tarrant County residents got an opportunity June 30 to stroll through a city open house…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":358163,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[5421,116,118,117,13196],"class_list":["post-358162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-worth","tag-data-center","tag-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth-headlines","tag-fort-worth-news","tag-tarrant-regional-water-district"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=358162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358162\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/358163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}