Springfield’s Planning and Zoning Commission this Thursday, will discuss two data center topics.
The commission will look at extending the city’s data center moratorium for an additional 120 days. It's currently due to expire November 17.
They’ll also consider adding definitions for data centers to city code.
A city staff’s report clarifies that those potential definitions would not add any development standards or regulations on where data centers may be built. It would seek to simply define what a data center is. The report says the definitions would create three classes for data centers:
An accessory data center, one that is less than 1 megawatt, inside another building, not more than 20 percent of its gross floor area, and serving only the owner or tenant. A micro data center, not more than 10,000 square feet and less than 5 megawatts. And a large-load data center, 5 megawatts or more, or more than 10,000 square feet.
That structure is similar to definitions in an ordinance passed by Ozark earlier this year.
Springfield’s definitions for a data center would also include “the backup generators, energy storage systems, cooling and electrical equipment, and any substation that primarily serves a data center.” That is meant to avoid those pieces of infrastructure being treated separately. It also has language that groups together data centers built adjacent to one another or under common control to prevent a large data center from being developed and classed as several small centers.
Pending Planning and Zoning Commission recommendations both the new definitions and the moratorium extension will move on to Springfield’s City Council to make the final decision. P&Z will meet this Thursday at 6:30.
Both moves by the city come amid ongoing tensions over data center development. Developer Trent Overhue’s attempt to develop a potential data center at 2900 S National in Springfield has been submitted and withdrawn multiple times as Overhue has at times taken to the internet to argue over the city’s definitions.
An LLC attached to Overhue is currently suing the city over its moratorium.