Reno City Council Enacts Data Center Moratorium Amid Community Concerns

The Reno City Council recently enacted a 30-day moratorium on new data center developments in the city, commonly known as "the biggest little city." This pause is intended to allow council members time to establish a new set of rules and regulations for data center construction.

The moratorium comes in response to significant community concerns regarding the potential negative environmental impacts of data centers. Residents have specifically raised questions about an AI data center being built near Keystone Avenue, close to the Truckee River. The city of Reno explained that this particular data center was permitted under existing municipal code with a conditional use permit approved by the planning commission, and the city council did not appeal the decision. Since the current moratorium applies only to new conditional use permit applications, the Keystone data center is permitted to proceed as planned.

Concerns extend beyond Reno to Northern Nevada as a whole, with residents pointing to issues such as increased traffic from new facilities like the Fleet data center in the USA Parkway area, and the substantial water and electricity consumption of large AI campuses. In hot climates like Nevada, extensive cooling systems drive significant water use, and AI training workloads demand far more power than traditional internet services.

In response to these concerns, the governor and developers have addressed some misconceptions. They stated that the Fleet data center utilizes a closed-loop system for water, ensuring recycling and reuse. Regarding job creation, they noted that while data center construction generates hundreds of short-term jobs, the long-term impact on traffic from full-time employees is expected to be minimal due to fewer permanent positions.