Speakers press for data-center safeguards

Several speakers raised data-center rules, noise and vibration, wildfire risks, project costs and winter shelter.

A representative of the Coalition for Sensible Data Center Regulation in Loveland said it had about 150 members and cited studies showing average property-value declines of 7% or more within a mile of data centers. The representative asked the city to answer written questions before its next meeting in December and include the questions and answers in website FAQs, urged special-use permits and public votes rather than by-right industrial zoning, and sought to classify nearby property-value declines as a high-impact, low-benefit threat in the city’s SWOT analysis.

The mayor asked that the questions go to the city clerk for distribution to council members, and a speaker said the clerk had agreed to include them in the council packet after the meeting.

A resident asked what enforceable safeguards would follow the moratorium to protect quality of life and homes near the former Woodward Governor site, including standards for noise, setbacks, heights and cooling systems. The resident also asked how zoning would treat industrial properties beside homes, whether homes within a quarter-mile would get added protection, whether megawatt categories counted on-site power, how independent studies would set noise and vibration limits and measure compliance at nearby homes, and whether the city’s hypothetical 25-megawatt projections included full electricity and water costs and would be public.

An Emerald Glen resident who said she lived next to the former Woodward Governor site said about 1,500 homes were within a mile and Wilson Avenue marked the boundary of LFRA’s urban wildfire zone, with the site on its border. She cited First Street’s wildfire-risk rating of 7 out of 10 and said wildfire was highly likely in coming decades. She warned a data-center fire could release hydrofluoric acid, heavy-metal particulates and corrosive smoke, and argued data centers should not be located in high-wildfire areas and each site should require special-use review.

Another resident supported special-use permits and wildfire-zone review, opposed nondisclosure agreements and tax incentives, and called for information about proposed projects to be public. The resident proposed fees for centers larger than 10 megawatts to help with prevention if developers pulled out, and argued data centers should bring value beyond property taxes despite having fewer employees after construction. A resident also called for a third-party study of data centers’ economic and community effects and urged the city to keep the moratorium until the questions were answered and the study completed.

The mayor said public comment was open to any topic, though he wanted speakers to stay on data centers.

A resident said Loveland still had a homelessness crisis and that her effort to establish a Red Cross emergency winter shelter, after working virtually every day the previous year, was rejected. She questioned Serve 6.8’s shelter plan, saying it lacked a history of providing emergency shelters and that its partners and participating churches were unclear. She said partner locations were not convenient without daily bus transportation and multiple trips, warning that people could otherwise remain without shelter and die.

A speaker thanked the council for proceeding carefully, said substantial opposition was likely to the 3800 Wilson site while private-property rights still applied, and cautioned against a blanket exclusion of similar development as hasty.