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Woodland Park adopts 18-month moratorium on standalone data-center applications
Summary
The City Council unanimously adopted an 18-month moratorium to stop acceptance and processing of standalone data-center applications while staff and council draft use definitions and supporting standards (noise, water, thresholds). The moratorium responds to a recent inquiry and aims to allow careful rulemaking.
The Woodland Park City Council unanimously adopted an ordinance July 18 imposing an 18-month moratorium on acceptance, processing and approval of applications for standalone data centers within city limits.
City Attorney Jeff Durwill said the moratorium is a temporary, legally defensible pause so staff and council can define the use and adopt clear standards. "This ordinance proposes an 18 month moratorium on processing applications for the data centers," he told council, adding 18 months is a commonly used interval that can be extended if needed. Planning staff said an initial inquiry had been received from a developer, and that the unified development code currently lacks a clear, itemized definition for some forms of high-demand computing facilities.
Council members and several members of the public discussed potential impacts. Resident James Davis described a proposed film-production facility with a modest server room and asked whether that project would fall under the moratorium; staff responded that the moratorium is aimed at standalone facilities and that thresholds (such as facilities using 1 megawatt or greater, or those with a significant water or wastewater impact) will be used to distinguish exemptions. Resident Monica Zanthes urged a strict process and noted energy and water questions to be considered.
Supporters of the moratorium said it would allow Woodland Park to review how to define data centers, set supplementary use standards (for example, requiring closed-loop cooling to limit water use), and avoid being "caught flat-footed" if a large project is proposed. Opponents in other communities have argued moratoria can slow investment; council members emphasized the moratorium is temporary and designed to permit deliberative, legally defensible rulemaking. The ordinance passed on a unanimous vote; council retained authority to exempt narrowly defined projects by subsequent amendment or to address individual proposals in the rule-making process.
