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‘COMMON SENSE’?
Maria Guinnip
The Oklahoman USA TODAY NETWORK
The Oklahoma City Council has amended its moratorium on data center development, a move that drew criticism from advocates who backed the original restrictions.
But some developers contended the changes were needed to make the regulations more clear and keep their existing businesses operating.
With a 7-2 vote, the Council agreed to exempt data centers with electrical loads of 75 MW or less from the moratorium, which was passed April 21.
The latest vote on Tuesday, May 19, came after Mayor David Holt and councilmembers decided it would be best to consider an amendment defining what facilities fit into their concerns so that it wouldn’t force longstanding businesses to close.
About 150 supporters of the
Roughly 150 data center supporters fill the Oklahoma City Council chambers during a meeting May 19. The council approved amendments to its data center moratorium defining which facilities fall under the temporary restrictions.
SARAH PHIPPS/THE OKLAHOMAN
industry packed into the council meeting, many wearing T-shirts that advertised one data center developer.
Holt described the language composed by city attorneys as “creating some common-sense exemptions to the temporary moratorium.”
City officials explained that the amendments would not exempt any entity from going through the proper zoning and permitting channels, but rather create an exemption within the moratorium for properties that are already zoned for data center usage.
Two properties were already exempted from the original moratorium as they were already in the process and actively rezoning – one is near Interstate 40 and Frisco Road, and the other is near Northwest 23rd Street and Frisco Road. The May 19 amendment added two other properties to be exempt – the 7725 campus on W. Reno Ave and Expand’s campus, which are both already zoned for data center operations but in the process of expanding.
The city’s legal team drafted the amendment to operate as “if you are a data center right now, it is business as usual, the moratorium does not impact your ability to continue business.”
But, if those businesses want to build net-new data centers or expand on a current data center, the associated electrical load cannot exceed the threshold of 75 MW, citing experts and other laws that describe facilities operating within and exceeding 70-100 MW as hyperscale.
A representative of the city’s legal team said with this amendment, city officials wanted to recognize businesses that have smaller, enterprise data centers, or those that are supporting their back-of-house operations – such as an asset management system, or “the blinky lights and wires that go to support my business”.
Trevor Francis, a representative of Expand Energy’s campus and its data centers, said that all of the nearly 150 people who showed up to the City Council chambers represented workers affiliated with the multiple buildings of Expand. When addressing the crowd during public comment, he said, “We have over a few hundred people outside that have created jobs in the last 12 months. We have invested $250 million in this city, and this is what you’re seeing here.”
After the meeting, Francis further described the crowd as being filled with electricians, concrete workers, and battery engineers, ranging across “20 different types of trades in here, but all of them are Oklahoma-based.”
He said he was pleased with the amendment and that this would allow them to continue to work.
Councilmember Mark Stonecipher, Ward 8, proposed the amendment to include exemptions for Expand’s campus, and 7725’s project.
Councilmember JoBeth Hamon, Ward 6, pushed back, asking about the legal risk of adding multiple exemptions for two properties that don’t have an active application. She repeatedly expressed discomfort at the prospect of including new exemptions rather than those businesses going through the exemptions process in place in front of the Board of Adjustment.
“It feels a bit like favoritism,” she said.
Hamon also expressed concern that continuing to make amendments to the moratorium would be a distraction from the research and work that the moratorium was put in place for.
Councilmember James Cooper, representing Ward 2, where the Expand campus lies, expressed similar concern.
“As it stands, this is not something I can support,” Cooper said. “I know there are a lot of people in this room today who are very supportive of data centers. I could fill this room with my students. I could fill this room with a lot of Ward 2 residents who would actually share my concerns.”
Cooper and Hamon both voted against the amendment.
Councilmember Matt Hinkle, of Ward 5, addressed the crowd saying, “We’re not killing data centers, we’re being a worthy, investigative body on how they will affect our city.”
He continued, “It’s up to the nine of us to determine how Oklahoma City is gonna look tomorrow, two weeks from now, or next year.”
Hinkle said he’s not against data centers, but that he’s also not for them and that his priorities lie in good governance and land use. He said he toured the 7725 property with Ward 1 Councilman Bradley Carter and saw firsthand some of the safeguards in place, including a closedcooling system.
After the meeting, Hinkle told The Oklahoman, “There’s a lot of hyperbole around these data centers.”
He said he ultimately wants to do the right thing for the city and for taxpayers.
“They’re gonna go somewhere,” he said of data centers.
A supporter affiliated with Tailwind watches an Oklahoma City City Council meeting through the doors of the chambers on May 19. Expand representative Trevor Francis brought roughly 150 supporters tied to data center projects impacted by the council’s moratorium.
SARAH PHIPPS/THE OKLAHOMAN
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