Kalamazoo city commissioners voted to move forward a zoning ordinance change that would place the city’s existing one-year pause on new data centers into its formal zoning code.
The city commission first adopted the moratorium by resolution on August 17, pausing new applications for data centers, battery storage systems, crypto mining facilities, and AI data centers within city limits for up to one year, citing resident concerns about noise, vibration, lighting, backup diesel generators, water use, and emergency response capacity. Monday’s vote is a procedural step to carry that same temporary pause into the zoning ordinance itself, which city staff said is required to make it legally enforceable under the state’s zoning enabling act. The pause remains temporary either way; state law does not allow a city to permanently ban a land use through a zoning ordinance amendment like this one.
The point of the pause is meant to give city staff and the community up to a year to study data centers and similar technology and develop zoning standards to regulate where and how they can operate, not to prohibit them going forward. City staff said the approach mirrors past moratoriums the city has used, including one addressing marijuana-related uses and a 2012 moratorium on digital billboards and signage. Both of these moratoriums were followed by regulations.
As part of that process, city planning staff plan to assemble a cross-functional working group, not a formal board, made up of residents, neighborhood representatives, public and private utility representatives, and industry stakeholders to help shape the eventual regulations. The exact composition hasn’t been finalized. The city’s planning commission held a public hearing on the change September 3 and voted unanimously to recommend moving forward, including forming the broader working group.
The ordinance had its first reading Monday. A public hearing and second reading are scheduled for the commission’s October 5 meeting, which would also start a new one-year clock on the moratorium from that date, according to city staff.
