South Elgin Village Board approves temporary moratorium on building data centers in community

The South Elgin Village Board unanimously approved a 12-month moratorium on the construction of data centers in town while staff evaluates the potential impact of such facilities.

“This is a good direction to start going,” Village President Steve Ward said at the Oct. 5 board meeting.

Village Attorney Derke Price said trustees could decide to extend the moratorium in the future.

“The technology on this is expanding so rapidly that I don’t know if we’re going to be able to keep up with it. I don’t know if a year is going to be sufficient. But what I do know is courts frown upon long ones,” Price said, referring to moratoriums.

To that point, Ward said the board could review the moratorium in a year.

The approved ordinance says the planning and zoning commission held a public hearing Sept. 16 and unanimously recommended approval of the moratorium.

Ward noted that despite a large number of residents voicing opposition in August to a company wanting to annex land along Kenyon Road into South Elgin to build a data center there, no one showed up at the hearing to express their views on putting a moratorium in place.

On Aug. 17, after hearing a presentation from Dallas-based White Rose Partners about its data center plans, the village board unanimously rejected the annexation request. According to Courier-News reports, about 150 people showed up at that board meeting.

Village resident Anthony Saccomanno told the Courier-News that a petition he started in opposition to the center had been signed by more than 9,475 people.

In late September, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said he would not seek a moratorium on new data centers in the state, preferring that legislators pass regulations after the November election, according to Chicago Tribune reports.

Local opposition to data centers reflects a nationwide trend. According to a poll conducted in September by PBS, NPR and Marist, 65% of voters oppose construction in their communities, with 43% strongly opposed.

A Pew Research Center poll conducted in July and August found that 54% of Americans feel data centers are mostly bad for the environment, 50% said they are bad for energy costs, and 49% said they are bad for quality of life for those who live near them.

Mike Danahey is a freelance reporter for The Elgin Courier-News.