Lakeland’s effort to hit the pause button on large-scale data centers took another step Friday, June 12.
At their agenda study session, commissioners directed City Attorney Palmer Davis to draft a 12-month moratorium ordinance, setting up a likely vote next month.
The move comes less than two weeks after a proposed 600,000-square-foot data center in west Lakeland triggered a wave of public opposition.
Davis said his office has already begun reviewing moratoriums adopted or proposed elsewhere. A 12-month pause appears to be the norm, he said, and would give the city time to study an industry that isn’t specifically addressed in Lakeland’s land use code.
One of the first challenges will be deciding exactly what the moratorium covers.
Davis said simply banning “data centers” could create unintended consequences, since there are many small buildings with computer servers in the city that are not problematic.
“I talked to IT yesterday, and they said we probably have a data center in City Hall for our IT equipment,” Davis said.
Davis said the city should focus on facilities with exceptionally large power demands. He pointed to a definition in Senate Bill 484 — which Gov. Ron DeSantis signed at Florida Polytechnic University in Lakeland last month — that classifies a large-scale data center as a facility with an anticipated peak electrical load of 50 megawatts or more per month.
Out of fairness, he said any moratorium should also include other “large-load customers” wanting to use more than 50 megawatts. The city currently has no customers that meet either definition, Davis said.
Only four of the commission’s seven members were present for Friday’s agenda study meeting, but all four supported moving forward with the research and drafting process.
The ordinance is expected to come before the Commission for a first reading July 6, followed by a public hearing and final vote July 20.
Commissioner Stephanie Madden she hopes two upcoming conferences — the American Public Power Association from June 26 – July 1 and the Florida Municipal Electric Association from July 14 – 16 — will give Lakeland an opportunity to compare notes with other utilities.
Cindy Glover is a reporter for LkldNow, a nonprofit newsroom providing independent local news for Lakeland. Read at LkldNow.com.
