Community Group Calls On Supervisors To Ban Data Centers Countywide
Residents and the Not In My Valley community group urged the Riverside County Board of Supervisors to adopt a moratorium and eventually ban hyperscale data centers in unincorporated areas. The petition has gathered nearly 9,500 signatures, while the county says no formal applications have been submitted and no board-directed ordinance changes are underway.
Residents led by Elizabeth Humphreys, founder of Not In My Valley, presented the Riverside County Board of Supervisors with a petition urging an interim moratorium and eventual permanent ban on hyperscale data centers in unincorporated communities. The petition had nearly 9,500 signatures, with speakers citing potential impacts on the environment, wildlife, water supplies, electricity resources and neighboring communities.
Supervisor V. Manuel Perez said his office had administratively decided to impose a moratorium and was not meeting with data center developers, though the county later said no formal applications had been filed and no board-directed effort existed to amend the land-use ordinance. Data centers are not currently an allowed use under the county ordinance, while separate moratoriums or bans are already in place in several Coachella Valley cities. A proposed project involving a small data center at the state-owned Southern California Fairgrounds remains subject to a separate land-use framework.