Data center ban proposal paused by Inver Grove Heights City Council

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INVER GROVE HEIGHTS, Minn. (FOX 9) - After being threatened with potential legal action over a proposed data center in the city, the Inver Grove Heights City Council has decided to hold off on a one-year pause on data center project development for at least one more month.

Inver Grove Heights data center ban

What we know:

The Inver Grove Heights City Council voted on Tuesday to delay a decision on a data center moratorium ordinance after data company, Qlevr, threatened to take the issue to court over any proposed mandated pause.

Before that, the council voted 3-2 for a one-year moratorium on all pending and future data center applications.

However, Qlevr said state law protects its application because it was submitted before the vote.

The council’s latest decision calls for the topic to stay buffering, and be revisited at its June meeting.

Inver Grove Heights data center proposal

The backstory:

The property owner, QLevr LLC, is looking to build a 54,000 square-foot facility at the former Travel Tags site on Carmen Avenue East.

Plans for the data center have been in the works for months, and the project is what prompted the city to move forward with the data center moratorium.

The moratorium would bar the construction or expansion of existing data centers and give the city 12 months to study the impact of data centers on city infrastructure.

What is a data center?

What exactly is a data center and why are so many being proposed across Minnesota? Professor Manjeet Rege, chair of Software Engineering and Data Science and director of the Center for Applied Artificial Intelligence at the University of St. Thomas, joins us to explain how these massive facilities store and process the world’s data and what the economic, environmental, and infrastructure questions are as Minnesota considers hosting more of them.

The other side:

A letter sent to council members includes threats of legal action if the council's decision isn't guided by standard zoning laws.

The developer points out that state law prohibits the city from applying the moratorium to the QLevr project because QLevr had already submitted its application before the moratorium took effect.

In the letter, QLevr's attorneys warned that if a decision on the project is "based on anything outside the objective zoning criteria, it would be insufficient and expose the City to significant legal risk."

Developers say the facility would draw about five megawatts of power. QLevr also says the project will use closed-loop water cooling, meaning the project will have the same water use as one to two single-family homes.

Big picture view:

As the use of artifical intelligence continues to grow throughout the U.S., communities and companies have increasingly begun to grabble with the balance between building out technological infrastructure and the impact it could have on the residents and wildlife that surround them. 

What's next:

If any moratorium was imposed, council members would then need to contend with the impending litigation, as well as, craft policy for data center development once any bans expire.