which voted in June<\/a> to prohibit data centers citywide.<\/p>\n\u201cI would say Austin is leading on developing a comprehensive permanent policy that intersects with our electric utility, our water utility, our land use regulations. So we are really approaching this in a comprehensive way,\u201d Siegel said. \u201cBut what makes Austin different from a place like San Marcos is the data center developers haven\u2019t tried to locate one of these big facilities in our city limits.\u201d<\/p>\n
Siegel said he has heard significant opposition from residents about large-scale facilities.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve heard from many, many members of the Austin community that people do not want these large-scale data centers in our city limits,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Siegel cited concerns including \u201cthe sound, the light, the use of water, the use of electricity,\u201d and said residents worry about impacts on neighborhoods and property values.<\/p>\n
Siegel hinted at what possible first steps to legislation could look like.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd so we\u2019re initiating that zoning process now so we can have a code in place that protects our community,” said Siegel.<\/p>\n
After Tuesday morning\u2019s work session, city leaders are scheduled to hold a press conference to discuss proposed regulations ahead of a Thursday council vote.<\/p>\n
Siegel said it could be months before any prohibition takes effect because the city must first begin a code process to define what a data center is before regulations can be adopted.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow what the public needs to understand is we actually need to initiate a code process to create the definitions for what is a data center before we can regulate and prohibit certain kinds of data centers,” said Siegel.<\/p>\n
The councilmember said Tuesday\u2019s work session is about setting expectations for city staff as the process begins.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AUSTIN, Texas \u2014 Austin City Council members are preparing to begin a formal push to regulate \u2014 and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":416379,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133],"class_list":["post-416378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416378","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=416378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416378\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/416379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}