The city of Bemidji is contemplating a one-year moratorium on data centers, months after inaccurate reports claiming a project was underway there.
As Big Tech rolls out plans to build enormous data center complexes in Minnesota, like Google in Hermantown and Meta in Rosemount, at least a dozen local governments have pumped the brakes on new development via moratoriums.
Large scale data centers in other parts of the country, such as northern Virginia and Arizona, have come under public scrutiny over their local impacts. Some data center campuses cover hundreds or thousands of acres. Local residents often point to the data centers’ high consumption of electricity and water as the underlying cause of their increased electric and water bills for their homes and businesses.
Bemidji Assistant Planning Director Melissa Fahrenbruch said Monday, Aug. 10, that no developer has yet approached the city for a data center.
But she said a pause on the development of any data centers or cryptomining facilities would allow staff time to update the city’s planning and zoning codes.
There’s a decision to decide…
While no formal action was taken in Monday’s Planning Board meeting, members agreed to vote on a moratorium in September.
Info on upcoming meetings…
To the east, Carlton County is slated to host a public hearing on its proposed data center moratorium on Monday, Aug. 24.
The Bemidji Planning Board typically meets on the second Monday of the month and is slated to reconvene at 5:30 p.m. Sept. 14.