Charlotte City Council held a public hearing Tuesday on a proposed 150-day moratorium on new telecommunications and data storage facilities. Speakers ranged from watershed advocates and environmental justice researchers to commercial real estate representatives, and the council is scheduled to vote on the moratorium on June 8.
The hearing was Item 8 on the regular meeting agenda, opened by unanimous vote.
Three sites. Two approved. One pending.
Speakers framed the city's situation around three data center projects. Two hyperscale facilities have already been approved — one on Morris Chapel Road, one on University Boulevard in University City. A third, proposed by American Tower Corporation, is under consideration in East Charlotte.
The University City project was approved at the August 21, 2023 council meeting. Antoinette Mingo, speaking at Tuesday's hearing, read from the minutes of that session and noted that council members Renee Johnson and Luana Mayfield had asked questions that went unanswered — and that both voted against the rezoning.
The approved facilities drew attention to scale. Craig Reynolds, who told the council he has spent 25 years in big data, server farms, systems engineering, and artificial intelligence, said the Morris Chapel Road facility is projected to begin at 400 megawatts and grow to 750.
"That is 8 to 14 times the combined residential power demand of the entire city of Morrisville for one facility," Reynolds testified. He also told the council that the same facility would consume 2 percent of Charlotte's total water capacity.
Amy Cheek placed a second site in similar terms. "The new 400-megawatt data center that's next to the Whitewater Center will use the energy equivalent of 280,000 households," she told the council.
Water, power, taxes, and who's bearing the load
Brandon Jones, representing the Catawba Riverkeeper — an organization he said represents more than 8,000 active members and nearly 3 million citizens who rely on the Catawba-Wateree watershed for drinking water, recreation, and electricity — focused his remarks on water.
"A 400-megawatt facility, like the one now under construction on Morris Chapel Road, may actually evaporate more water indirectly than directly for cooling," Jones said. "The nearby Catawba Nuclear Station uses approximately 5.2 million gallons per day from Lake Wylie per 400 megawatts of generation."
Multiple speakers tied those figures to Charlotte's current drought conditions, arguing the timing made industrial water consumption more urgent.
On taxes, Ethan White — who identified himself as working in FBI cybersecurity — cited an unnamed state analyst in his testimony. "Your own state analyst said this is going to drain at least $50 million from our public tax collections in the first year," White told the council. The identity of the analyst was not established in the hearing.
Amy Cheek addressed jobs directly: "These centers span 100 plus acres of our land and on average employ a mere skeleton crew of 50 or fewer people."
Jeffrey Shen, speaking for the Party for Socialism and Liberation, said his group helped organize a petition with almost 6,000 signatures from residents opposed to the East Charlotte data center.
Tina Schull, a researcher at UNC Charlotte, testified that all three sites — Morris Chapel Road, University Boulevard, and the proposed East Charlotte location — are situated in environmental justice communities. She said federal screening tools identify them as disadvantaged, characterized as low-income and majority-minority.
James Ford, whom Mayor Vi Lyles identified during the hearing as a former Charlotte teacher of the year, lives in University City. "There's a 2.5 million square foot, 300 megawatt hyperscale data center being built in my neighborhood," Ford testified.
Tita Katsanos also spoke in favor of the moratorium, identifying herself as a Charlotte-Mecklenburg NAACP representative serving as third vice president and chair of its Climate and Environmental Justice Committee.
The industry pushes back
Bobby Jo Lazarus, president of NAIOP Charlotte, said the organization represents more than 300 members of the commercial real estate development community. She asked the council not to pursue a moratorium.
"Any significant project would already require well over 150 days to move through the existing permitting and approval process," Lazarus said, adding that a moratorium would send an unnecessary signal that Charlotte is "hesitant to participate in the future of technology infrastructure."
What state law does and doesn't allow
The hearing produced a legal dispute about what the council can actually do.
Larry Shaheen, an NAIOP board member, told the council it does not have the authority under state law to stop construction on projects that have already been approved. He also cited North Carolina's downzoning law, which he said limits changes to current by-right zoning classifications.
Casey Moravec, an attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center, offered a different reading. Telecommunications and data storage facilities have been allowed as of right in several zoning districts under Charlotte's Unified Development Ordinance since 2011, Moravec acknowledged — but she argued the hyperscale facilities now under consideration are a different category.
"They should be considered an emerging land use that can be regulated as a new industrial use under the UDO without running into down zoning restrictions," Moravec told the council.
June 8
Mayor Lyles, who moderated Tuesday's hearing, has announced her resignation effective June 30. The vote on the moratorium falls twelve days from now — among the last major decisions of her tenure.
The council will vote June 8.
Related coverage: Charlotte Council Votes Unanimously for 150-Day Data Center Moratorium · A 2.5-Million-Square-Foot Data Center Is Going Up off University City Boulevard · On Data Centers, Mecklenburg County Wants a Voice It Mostly Doesn't Have