Oshkosh council member urges city to pass on data centers
An Oshkosh council member is urging the city to ban data centers, citing concerns over their minimal job creation, extensive land use, and high water and electricity consumption. This follows the Oshkosh Common Council's directive to draft a one-year moratorium on new data centers to allow time to develop a regulatory ordinance.
An Oshkosh, Wisconsin, council member is advocating for the city to prevent data centers from being a permitted use within its boundaries. This call follows a July 14 directive from the Oshkosh Common Council to city staff to draft a one-year moratorium on new data center developments. The council intends to use this period to collaborate with Winnebago County and other partners to develop a comprehensive ordinance regulating such facilities.
The council member's opposition stems from concerns that data centers offer few jobs while consuming significant amounts of land, water, and electricity. They argue that Oshkosh, being geographically constrained by lakes and neighboring municipalities, has limited space that should be prioritized for housing, retail, and sectors that generate higher-paying jobs and greater property tax value.
Specific environmental worries include the large water consumption of data centers, potentially exceeding 5 million gallons daily for large facilities, which could strain local resources and necessitate costly infrastructure upgrades for utility ratepayers. The protection of Oshkosh’s natural water assets is emphasized as a critical planning priority. The article concludes by stressing that the city's finite land should foster economic opportunity and strengthen the tax base, rather than being allocated to server storage, which is seen as having too high an opportunity cost for Oshkosh.