Members of the Hutchinson City Council finally spoke publicly about their views regarding data centers during Tuesday night’s city council meeting at City Hall. Council member Stacy Goss kicked off the discussion during council comments towards the end of the four-and-a-half hour meeting. “First thing, I believe that we should discuss a moratorium. on data centers until we have appropriate zoning in place,” Goss said. “Currently, and this is a huge concern of mine, under current zoning a data center or BESS (battery energy storage system) could go into a residential area. Because we have not defined what utilities are in our zone, what is a major or minor utility, and what’s their appropriate use or class.” Goss said that while the assumption might be that data centers would only be allowed in the city’s I3 industrial zoning, that isn’t currently spelled out in the city’s zoning regulations.
Read more: The Hutchinson Tribune
