The City Council takes public comment Tuesday evening on a proposed 90-day pause on new data center development, the first formal hearing since members voted in August to start the legal process.
The hearing is part of the council's 6 p.m. meeting on Nov. 10 in the council chamber at City Hall, 100 Fort Worth Trail. Two hours earlier, at a 4 p.m. special-called work session, the city's Data Center and Infrastructure Commission is scheduled to present its report. The city's announcement of the meeting, posted Monday, did not describe the commission's recommendations.
What the pause would and would not do
According to the city's data center page, the moratorium would apply to new data center development applications. Projects that are vested, already approved or that have zoning applications on file would be exempt, so work already underway would continue. The city says a moratorium cannot be used to ban a lawful land use or to regulate matters outside its authority.
Starting the 90-day term takes a supermajority of the council. State law requires more notices, hearings and ordinance readings first, and the city lists Feb. 16, 2027, as a tentative adoption date. The pause could be extended once for another 90 days, and if one is adopted the city could not impose another data center moratorium for two years.
The city counts four existing data center developments, with 10 buildings totaling more than 3 million square feet, in council Districts 5 and 10. One more is under construction in District 7, four are proposed inside the city in Districts 3, 6, 7 and 8, and two are proposed in the city's extraterritorial jurisdiction.
How it got here
Planning staff proposed data center rules in June, and the Zoning Commission voted 7-4 on July 8 to deny those amendments. In a meeting that ran past midnight on Aug. 11, the council voted to begin the moratorium process and to create the commission, FOX 4 reported.
The commission, led by Mike Slattery of TCU's Institute for Environmental Studies, was asked to study electricity demand, water use, siting and neighborhood effects, and economic and fiscal impacts. Its members include a representative of QTS Data Centers, the Sierra Club and the 2871 Community Coalition, according to the city.
