The Riverside City Council voted Tuesday to declare data centers a prohibited use under the city’s zoning code, a decision that pauses any new or expanded facilities while a working group studies the technology’s impacts on energy, water and neighborhoods.
The council adopted a resolution memorializing the city’s existing interpretation of its zoning ordinance over a 45-day moratorium, after extensive public comment that pitted building trades unions against residents and environmental advocates.
City Planner Laurel Reimer told the council the municipal code does not specifically regulate data center facilities, and that staff consider them prohibited because they are not a listed use.
“We need to have that conversation,” Councilman Steven Robillard said in moving to adopt the resolution, adding that the moratorium would remain in place until an artificial intelligence working group finishes its work and the council adopts its recommendations.
“We currently don’t have a zoning (regulation) that allows for data centers,” Robillard said. “We need to discuss the entire conversation around AI and its related uses, including data centers. Until we do that, I think approving a data center doesn’t make any sense.”
The vote passed 5-2 with council members Chuck Conder and Sean Mill opposed.
Conder said the prohibition “is premature and a little bit overreactive. It’s not a question of will data centers be built or not. They will be.”
He added that “not all data centers are 1 million square feet. They can be as small as a medium sized box truck.”
Mill called for “defined timelines” for developing a clear policy on data center and involving labor unions in policy discussions.
The debate drew sharp divisions. Union representatives argued the pause would send construction jobs to neighboring cities, while residents and the Sierra Club urged the council to protect water, power and quality of life.
City staff identified four threats data centers pose, including concentrated energy demand, noise and air pollution, water consumption and pressure on large industrial parcels.
Mill said his greatest concern was electrical capacity, noting the city has only one connection to the statewide power grid until the Riverside Transmission Reliability Project is completed.
Conder added that data centers can be constructed with closed-loop cooling and on-site power to mitigate noise and electricity drainage.
The AI platform Civilio assisted this report.