Pasco County Commissioners approved a one-year moratorium on large-scale data centers on Tuesday.
Such centers have drawn criticism across the country recently, because of their high demands for electricity and water needed to cool servers.
Pasco officials said they want to be sure how to define a large data center before allowing any to be built in their county. This would place a temporary ban on server rooms and computer rooms that exceed 2.5 megawatts of electrical power. That's enough to power 1500 to 2500 average homes.
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County Commission chair Jack Mariano noted one of the original proposals would have placed a cap much higher, at 10 megawatts.
"This is a board-initiated item," he said. "This moratorium is rock solid for us, so we don't have to worry about any data centers for a year. "
But several county residents — like Cindy Skarda of San Antonio — said a temporary ban is not enough.
"But I also think that maybe we need a permanent ban," she told commissioners. "There are two other counties in the state that have moved to make a permanent ban on these data centers."
Those would be Jackson and Walton counties. Scores of other counties and cities have also enacted temporary bans. They include Sarasota, Hernando, Citrus, Clay, Lake, Nassau and Wakulla counties. Also, the city of Zephyrhills enacted a six-month moratorium.
