Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

See you soon for another episode of restaurants near me. Let's eat.

When disaster strikes, it could take the city up to seventy two hours to get to you. With that, it's important that you all the necessary items to sustain yourself for seventy two hours. One of the most important takeaways you can do is to have a Go Bag ready at your house, which consists of multiple things that are tailored to you. There's no wrong answer. Add what you think is necessary for you during an emergency, and you're set to go. In your go bag, you wanna include an extra pair of clothes, a trauma kit, and remember your important documents. Ready to eat meals? Add an emergency blanket. Add some extra water. Add a battery or a hand crank radio, and add a flashlight.

Add some cash in there as well. Also, adding toiletries and hygiene products. And keep in mind the nuances, your pets, your medication. And when your bag is all ready, zip it up and ensure it's placed in a well accessible location where you or anybody in your family could grab it and immediately exit the house.

Does your Venn diagram include supporting local businesses, reducing waste, and finding a new outfit? If so, you need to check out our reuse business directory. You'll find places to repair, rent, or buy used items all while supporting local. Keeping goods circulating for as long as possible in our community is great for Denver's economy and the environment. Choose to consume differently.

It's just

as good as new at denvergov.org/reusedirectory.

Welcome back to this weekly meeting of the community planning and housing committee with Denver City Council. Your community planning and housing committee starts now.

Special.

Just waiting for that old green light like a pro. There it is. Alright. Welcome to the community planning and housing committee with Denver City Council. Today is the last day of March of twenty twenty six. We have a packed schedule, so we'll get right on into it, with council member introductions. I'm Sarah Parity, one of your two council members at large, and I will go to my left.

Laura Alvarez with Lucky District seven.

Good afternoon. Daryl Watson, Fine District nine.

Good afternoon. Paul Cashman, South Denver District 6.

Jamie Torres, West Denver District 3. Amanda Sourier District five. And I think

we have at least one council member on Zoom, so we'll give her a chance to introduce. There she is.

Good afternoon, Diana Romero Campbell, Southeast Denver District 4.

Alrighty. Pausing in case there are any more council members on Zoom. Looks like not. Alright. So first, we have a rezoning at 1057 South Gaylord Street, and Abner is here to take us through that. So as you're ready.

Yeah. Thank you for having me.

So my name is Abdul Ramos Alcedo. I'm with Community Planning Development, and I'm here to present 1057 South Gaylord Street. I'll try to keep this quick since it is packed agenda. So really quickly, the outline for this presentation is the request for the property, the location in context, existing conditions, then we'll talk about the process to date. And then lastly, there were criteria that was used to compare this application.

So this property is 5,555 square feet. It's currently a two story mixed use building. It is located in Council District 6 in the Washington Park neighborhood. There is a request for a waiver to permit the lodging accommodations, all others, all of the uses. The existing zoning is u m s two, and the entire block is u m s two.

The proposed zoning is u m s two with waivers, so the base zone district will remain the same, and then the waiver is to permit a use that is currently not permitted in the standard zone district. This is a visual representation of previous slide showing the allowed building forms being the townhouse and the shopfront building form. The proposed waiver is to permit the lodging accommodation all other uses. So currently, the only lodging accommodation that is permitted in The U M S 2 Zone District is a bed and breakfast, which has a requirement for the property to be manager occupied. Whereas this a waiver would permit the lodging accommodation, all other uses, which does not require it to be manager occupied.

And that's what this definition is showing, that the main difference is just that there is someone that lives on-site, so a manager occupied unit versus a non manager occupied lodging accommodation. The land use, as I had mentioned earlier, is mixed use in a block that is primarily commercial and office. Here is on the top an image of the actual property. It's a two story mixed use building. And then to the south are some single story commercial and retail uses.

The process the informational notice for this application was back in December. They then noticed for planning board on the February 3. Their original planning board hearing date was delayed, and then it was rescheduled for this past hearing on 03/18. We're with committee today and then planning to go to the full city council later this year. Planning board voted unanimously to recommend this be considered by the full city council in a vote of eight to zero.

Public comments, we have received two r and o comments through the application, but have not received any outside of that. One from the Washington Park East Neighborhood Association and another from the South Gaylord Street Business Improvement District, both in favor of the waiver to allow the lodging accommodation all of the uses and preserving the two story height. The criteria starting with the consistency with adopted plans. First up is comprehensive plan 2040. So this this request is consistent with the vision elements in comprehensive plan twenty forty.

Additional detail is provided in the staff report. Moving on to Blueprint Denver. It is consistent with the future neighbor context map showing it is mapped as urban, which is consistent with mixed use buildings and pedestrian friendly that are situated in a pedestrian friendly manner near the street. The future place guidance is a local corridor, so the heights are generally generally up to three stories. This applicant is requesting two stories, it is consistent there.

The future growth area strategies is all other areas of the city, which is meant to accommodate 20% housing and 10% of employment growth. That 10% does consider this application does fall within that 10%. Additional strategies focus on the diversity of employment and retail that are that would be provided along this corridor. And then lastly, the consistency of the waiver with Blueprint is met because there is this need to make sure that the Denver zoning code remain flexible and accommodating to the modern needs. This application does meet the public interest because it has done the outreach and is meeting the requested two story height.

And then lastly, it is consistent with the neighborhood context, zone district purpose, and intent statements. So with that, CPD recommends approval based on on finding all review criteria have been met.

Okay. Thank

you so much. The queue is open for council members. And council member Cashman, if you'd like to ask your questions first since it's in your district, go

for Yeah. No no particular questions, madam chair. I I would just note that, this, application received in-depth, scrutiny by the the Wash Park East Neighborhood Association. Their zoning committee, arrived at comfort with the agreement with the developer. I one of the main things was preserving that that max of two story height, which it currently is, and it's a relatively small residential property, half dozen or so apartments. I think it'll work well on the on the block.

Okay. Thank you. I have council member Torres next in the queue.

Thanks. That was my only question if the upper story are already residential. Correct.

Yeah. That's where the bed and breakfast current currently is. Okay. Yeah. The current current use is.

That's the current use. Okay. Would and it would be converted to apartments?

They're yeah. That's what they're looking to whether hotel was most appropriate for the site just to make sure that they're maintaining the corridor vibrant.

Got it. Thank you. Thank you.

Great. I don't have anyone else in queue. Anybody wanna Oh, alright. This is straightforward. With that, I will take a motion and a second. Moved. Moved by Sawyer. Second. Seconded by Aledarez. Anybody need a vote? Alright. And knowing that council member Romero Campbell is on Zoom, so I'll watch for her. Are we good to move this to the floor? If you're on the committee, who's on?

Good. Time's on.

Leave him there. She's been a mayor. Okay. Great. Awesome. Thank you all. Thank you so much, Abner.

Sorry to work you so hard. That was

quick and clean. We next have Joe Green from CPD with another rezoning at fourteen fifty three North Wabash.

Yeah. That's tight.

Alright. Hello, everybody. My name is Jill Green with the planning and development We're looking at a rezoning at 5101 To 5115 North Milwaukee Street.

Said the wrong address. I retract my I just said.

Alright. On Milwaukee Street. We were on

Milwaukee Street last week. Got a mark up

in there.

I said it in the chat here. It says we'll pass you.

Regardless. Here we are. We are oriented. Thanks, Joe. Okay. Great.

So as usual, walk through the request, provide a little more information about the location, go through the process, and then get into the review criteria. So this is two parcels. One of the parcels contains a single unit house. The other is a vacant lot that's used being used as a driveway for that house. So combined, it's 12,000 square feet, but each individual parcel is about 6,000 square feet, just over.

The current zoning is ESUD, so it's a single unit district in the urban edge neighborhood context with a minimum lot size of 6,000 square feet. They can build a house and an accessory dwelling unit currently. The proposed zoning is a two unit district in the urban neighborhood context, so it would allow them to build a duplex on a lot or a tandem house on a minimum lot of 5,500 square feet. Getting into the location, we're in Council District 9, council member Watson's District. We're in the Elyria Swansea neighborhood in the northern part.

The existing zoning is ESUD. Like I said. It's completely surrounded by ESUD in the residential portion of this neighborhood, but there's industrial zoning just to the west and just to the north of the property. And then when we look at the existing land use, it's mostly single unit in the residential part of this neighborhood, though it shows one of the lots being vacant. You can see the top picture is the property and kind of the left side is that vacant parcel and the right side is the existing single unit house.

And then just an example of some of the smaller scale single unit housing that we have in that neighborhood. When you look at the process, the informational notices went out right after we received the application back in January. The planning board of some notice went out in early March. The paneling board public hearing was just a couple of weeks ago, and then we're here today. Planning board unanimously recommended to voted to unanimously recommend approval.

There were no speakers for or against at the meeting. The applicant did receive a letter of support from the United Community Action Network, but we haven't heard anything from the Elyria Swansea Neighborhood Association as of yet. And we have not heard any comments from neighbors or other stakeholders. We have reached out to the Elieria Swansea Neighborhood Association. I emailed the district nine council a Dwight, and he forwarded my email on just to try to make sure that they knew about the application.

Getting into the review criteria, we'll start with consistency with adopted plans. Big picture in comp plan '20 40, it would offer a mix of housing types in this neighborhood that's mostly single unit residential, and it would promote infill development where infrastructure and services are already in place. So we think it's consistent with comp plan 2040. Looking at Blueprint Denver, this is a mistake. This should say urban. Apologies. I used the wrong slide deck. But it also talks about single and two unit residential uses. It talks a little bit more about embedded multiunit and mixed use uses that are kinda found in those areas. But this should say urban and that's what you'll see in the staff report.

It designates the property residential low, so it talks about single and two unit uses. It says duplexes can be thoughtfully integrated where they're compatible. But then as I'm sure you all know, we have very specific language in Blueprint Denver that talks about when we can apply and how to apply that residential low guidance. It says that two units are not appropriate in all areas. And if we don't see an existing pattern of zoning, then the request depends on adopted small area plan guidance or neighborhood input, and those need to show an intent to set a new pattern for the area.

So the first question is what is the existing zoning pattern? We see it as ESUD. All of the zoning in this area is ESUD, so we don't see a pattern of two units only. But the follow-up question is what does the neighborhood plan say? Does it set a new intent up set a new an intent for a new pattern in the area?

It very clearly designates this area as single family duplex, and it talks about a mixture of housing types specifically mentions duplexes. So we do find this application to be consistent with the Blueprint Denver language about how to apply residential low guidance. Looking a little bit closer at the Elyria's Winsea neighborhood plan, you can see the map where it designates this a single family duplex, such as primarily residential, moderately dense, and again, mentions duplexes. It also specifically calls to update the neighborhood context from urban edge, which it is right now in the zoning, to urban because it better reflects the use of alleys that you find in the neighborhood and the kind of development that they wanna see, which is why that applicant went for the UTUC instead of the ETUC district. The neighborhood plan does also have policies and a lot of narrative around displacement and affordable housing.

So we want to note that we do think it would be more consistent if it included dedistricted housing, but we still think the application meets that plan's guidance. And then getting to the rest of the criteria, we do think that this application is in the public's interest because it implements plan guidance specifically about allowing a mix of housing types in this area, and we do find it to be consistent with the neighborhood context, zone district purpose, and intent statements found in the Denver zoning code. So we recommend approval based on finding the review criteria have been met. I'm available for questions. The applicant's representative is here as well, Shaquille Carter, and he's available for questions as well.

Thanks, Joe.

And I will see if council member Watson, since it's his district, would like to be first in the queue.

Okay. Good. Thank you, committee chair. Thank you so much, Joe, for providing the this presentation. I know that the applicant met with my team back in November 2025. Would like to is the representative? Yep. Do you mind introducing yourself, sir? I just have some questions on kind of the outreach and what your community engagement process was.

Yes. My name is Shaquille Carter, and I'm representing applicant.

And Shaquille, you're located here in Denver?

Yes. I'm in Denver, right.

Alright. Talk to me about the engagement with the community I saw through some of the staff report. There were outreaches in both English and Spanish. You reached

out to a whole host of folks.

Walk us through what that outreach looks look like.

So the applicant, they did bilingual letters and emails to every home within a 200 property and also did follow ups and text. Like, overall, there was limited direct feedback for or against the rezoning. We did receive I think you mentioned the the letter from the community network. The applicant also did supplemental outreach through a nikadendra.com on their website, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Still, that resulted in minimal comments for or against, and that's pretty much all what we did.

For the type of the the housing you're provided, most of the most the recent housing that's similarly zoned is deed restricted here. So it has many multi year restrictions on affordability. Speak a little bit to kind of what you are planning on building. Is it your expectation that there is some level of affordability in that? Talk us through that a little bit.

So we haven't gotten into the affordability aspect yet or and we have not obtained official building plans. Really, what the applicant wanted to do with this process is to see how the community felt about this rezoning before additional funds were spent on that. So we're still really in the early process of those plans. Mhmm.

Any other questions at this point? Okay. Thanks, John. Thank you, Sarah.

Feel free to get back in. Before I move next in the queue, I wanna welcome council member Lewis who's joined us online and council president Sandoval who's joined us in the room. And the next person for questions is council member Torres.

Thank you so much. I'm assuming, and this might also be for the applicant's representative, that your intention in going down in lot size for the zoning is to split the lot.

Is that accurate? So not split the lot. So there

are two parcels here.

One is both parcels are owned by the owner of a single family home.

Mhmm.

And the applicant under contract to purchase just the vacant lot. And just in negotiations, it was decided to include that home in the application also.

Okay. So what's the need to reduce from c from d to c?

Joe has a You don't take

that one.

Yeah.

There's not a UTUD. So the only

Oh, we got

have is

c. Okay. Perfect. Thank you. Do you know if there's an intention to demo the existing single family home?

No. Not that that I've known. There's no intention to do that right now. It's tenant occupied, and we don't really have the plan for what the owner wants to do with the the

Is it owner occupied as well or just

It is tenant occupied.

Got it. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thanks, Ben.

I'm sure.

Thank you. I would also like to welcome council Mardanzlowski chairs to the meeting. I don't have anyone else in queue at this moment, so I will pause a little bit for that. And I do have a couple of questions, I think, for Joe. Joe, if I'm tracking this correctly, we had one of these single family to two unit rezonings a couple weeks ago that was in Park Hill. And I think the difference is just the language of the small area plan around how it describes what's appropriate for the future vision of the single family zone districts. Is that right? Like, Aleria Swansea plan language just being clear about duplexes?

Yeah. That's right. For the Park Hill neighborhood plan, it has kind of more general language about a mix of housing types and diverse housing. And this one's just very specific.

Okay. Anybody else have any more questions? And if not, I will ask for a motion and a second.

Move. Second.

Moved by Albedra, seconded by Sawyer. For those who are on the committee, which will keep my brain here, anybody need to get a voice vote? Alright. Thumbs up to move to the floor. Moving that Romero Campbell and Lewis are both online. I'll just give a second in case either of them needs to burst in with anything here.

This I'm having trouble doing thumbs up.

Great. Thank you, madam Pro Tem. Okay. With that, we will see you all in full counsel. Joe, thank you so much for this.

Thank you all. And we did a great job moving quickly to our next item, which is I will let the council sponsors get to head of the table. It's twenty six zero four three one, a proposed data center moratorium sponsored by council members Cashman and Watson. Alright. And when you gents are settled, feel free to if you want any staff at the table to introduce themselves or just take it away. Whatever you wanna do.

Alright. Well, thank you very much, madam chair. Colleagues, what we're looking at today is a a bill, a simple bill to place a one year moratorium on the development of additional data centers in the city and county of Denver. And and and yeah. And you can go to the first slide, please, Elise.

Let me start with what what the bill let let me back up. Let me thank my partner, councilman Watson, for for his help in bringing this forward. Also, I wanna thank the mayor and his team for joining us in in this effort. I do wanna start with what the bill we are bringing forward does not do. It does not address the challenges that data centers present.

What it does do is recognize the impacts the data center development can bring to a community and puts that one year pause in place so we have time to look at it and look at if or how, with adequate regulation, we might accommodate new data center development in Denver. It also says we will put together a broad based working group to address the topic and recommend a path forward. A few quick minutes of investigation reveals that the new breed of data centers that have arisen in recent years require extremely large amounts of energy to power the processing systems that direct the data and potentially massive volumes of water to cool them as these data center processing giants need to run twenty four seven three sixty five. When power outages occur, centers turn to enormous on-site generators to keep them going. These can produce noise levels inappropriate for many locations.

The next slide, please. Councilman, if you wanna

And and I just wanted to add, thank you so much council member Cashman, your staff. I wanna thank Dwight and Bonnie on my team as well for the good work that they've done. Before we go to the next slide, just want to share overarching. We've had data centers in Denver for decades. What we have not had are clear regulations as to how and where these should be built.

This is the first step. This moratorium provides that opportunity for us to take a pause, to breathe, to do the research necessary, and to have the experts and the community members and the folks who are deeply impacted by these data centers provide their feedback and their input. And so I appreciate council input throughout this process. This moratorium is one step. The next step will be looking at the regulatory environment to ensure that we're putting forward common sense legislation on to focus on this.

And we have reviewed, and I should say, our council aides have reviewed sister cities that have similar types of moratoriums or steps that they've put as far as a pause. Many other cities are coming forward. We're doing the same. I won't read through them all. It's in the documents within Legistar, but we feel that we are in a sweet spot as far as where other, cities our size are at.

Yeah. And I would just add, you know, I've had people say, you know, data centers are being built all across the country. Why aren't we the ones making such a big fuss? As you can see, there are some examples there to give you a more complete list. Yeah.

Virginia, New York, Maryland, Georgia, Vermont, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Delaware are all promote proposing similar actions. And as as you know, our own Colorado legislature is weighing in on elements of this topic as we speak. Already, in addition to moratoria statewide, local governments in DeKalb County, Georgia, several counties in Indiana, Saint Charles, Missouri, and more than a dozen communities in Ohio, Virginia, and Arizona have already passed some sort of legislation regulating how data centers can fit into their environment. You go to the next one.

You did.

We already did. Way to go. Quick. As you can see, some of the things that the working group will look at is, you know, as I mentioned, the enormous amounts of power and water that are used. So we'll speak with the utility companies.

We'll continue outreach to the community including, you know, as we've been looking at the working group, we're looking at members of the community, we're looking at experts in the field, we're looking at data centers themselves, we'll involve union representation at the table and make sure that we're we're bringing in all points of view. What I wanted to mention, what's really interesting, if you look into the topic of data centers, as my partner was saying, data centers have been around a long time, but we're seeing a new breed. The and the CoreSite facility currently under construction in councilman Watson's district, The first of three proposed building, it's around, I think, a 180,000 square feet, consume 18 megawatts of electricity. The plan is potentially to build two additional buildings on the on the 12 acre site. If they were to build out all three buildings, you're at around 54 megawatts.

One megawatt equals a million watts, can power 600 to 750 average American homes at any given moment. You can do the math. 54 megs comes out to about 30,000 to 40,000 homes. And this is this is a colocation site, which means CoreSite does mainly colocation data centers where many different customers are having their data stored and and and moved through the system. The larger AI data centers that are developing are entirely different.

And I pulled some examples. In Aurora, our neighbor, company QTS, an international data center developer, is building a 65 acre, 160 megawatt complex Southeast of E 470 in Gun Club. It'll need a 104 external heating and air conditioning generators. Internet giant Meta, we we all know, our friend Meta from spending time scrolling, is planning its largest data center to date in rural Louisiana. They announced it in 2024 as a $10,000,000,000 project over 22,250 acres.

It's since ballooned to 3,650 acres at a cost of $27,000,000,000. We'll use five gigawatts of power, enough for 3,750,000 homes and consume more than 23,000,000 gallons of water a day or 8,400,000,000 gallons per year, the daily use of 80 to 90,000,000 people. I will say the industry has begun looking at opportunities to do their cooling with less water, and they begin begun looking at the possibility of what they can do in employing renewable energy. But by and large, we're they're still in very, very early stage.

And and I'll share briefly, council member Cashman. Our legislation or the the regulatory environment that we are we'll be asking council to engage in will take into consideration the co located sites that we currently have here in Denver that are smaller. They're not the larger AI sites that's described in Wyoming and Nebraska and other places. But it must have the agility to speak to that in case that type of development is considered within the confines of Denver and the state doesn't have that information. So we will be looking at all of the above to ensure that we have from, as council member said, from union members to experts within the environmental climate community to community members to make sure that what we put forward, and hopefully with your input, that is has the agility to speak to any of these developments even though none of those are planned currently in the city and county of Denver.

Thank you. Next next slide. Way to go. So, yeah, what we're talking about is, as I said, a one year moratorium from the effective date. Right now, it looks like a May 18 council vote effective date of the twenty first when it's signed halts new construction and development.

As with any moratorium, it's it's scheduled in up to one year or it could be extended if the the working group finds need. Part of why I think this moratorium is so important is how quickly the world of data centers is evolving and how new information is coming to us on a regular basis. There was a major piece yesterday talking about with the larger data centers, and we obviously, you know, referring to the meta data center in Louisiana, we don't have 3,000 acres. We probably don't have a 160 acres to build something like Aurora is doing. However, what they're finding is these massive data centers are changing the ground temperature, you know, anywhere from, I think, 3.6 to 11 degrees.

So what does that mean? How can this be mitigated? So to turn our heads away from this would be doing a disservice, and and I think the councilman's exactly right. We just need to regulate so to see if and how if they fit in. So I believe One more. Yeah. We've got one more. Why don't you take this, sir?

So for who will participate? So the working group, as council member Cashman shared, will consist of community members, industry stakeholders, utility companies, subject matter experts, individuals who lived experiences, union representation, city departments, and of course, members of Denver City Council. What it will affect? Any new or proposed data center, either new construction or redevelopment of an existing property that does not receive the zoning permits, site development plan, or site development plan amendment, but it will not affect our current data center work that has already been permitted.

Yeah. And where we go with with regulation potential outcomes, you know, where do we if we if we decide we wanna have data centers as part of our landscape, where do we need do we need setbacks from residential areas, which most other locales are doing? Do do we need guidance for cooling systems? I don't think we can tolerate a single business using a 100,000,000 gallons of water a day or a year when it's not necessary with with alternative technology. Same with energy use and looking at renewables and the number of codes that could potentially be affected, zoning, building, energy, the green code, and obviously, Denver revised municipal code.

In our in our early discussions, looking at formulating the working group, CASR has been at the table, CPD has been at the table, and a bunch of other folks.

In our timeline, we are here today at committee. If we move forward, it'll go to mayor council. We'll file for first reading, on April 20 and in second reading and public hearing on May 18. And with that, we open up for questions.

Oh, great.

We've got lots of folks in the queue. So starting with council president, and after that will be council member Albuzov.

Thank you. Thank you both for this work. In the bill, it talks about on section two applicants for a site development plan, and then they have approved sites. And it references the Denver zoning code section twelve point three point three point twelve. And in the Denver zoning code for section twelve point three point three point twelve, it talks about withdrawal for pending applications.

My question is is how many pending applications are do we have right now that would have to because in the zoning code, it talks about withdrawal pending applications except for otherwise explicitly provided the only the applicant and owner of record may withdraw the application. Zero. So we have zero.

We we we made sure the first thing was to take a look at what zoning has already on their table.

Okay.

And there are no applications at at Crescent.

Okay. Thank you for that. And then it says the moratorium shall expire the earlier of one year from the effective date of this ordinance and I can't find the effective date. It's not in the ordinance.

Oh, the

effective date is when it's signed.

Okay. Does that need to

be set? Does that mean that

Jeremy, you wanna address that, sir?

Doctor Griffin, deputy legislative council. It doesn't need to be set in there Okay. As long as it's it will be effective upon the Signature. Signature. Yeah.

Okay. And then so the effective date, we have to have a public hearing. Correct? What when would the effective date be? Do we have the public hearing

in May? The public hearing is is currently

May 18. Okay. So then that Friday, I think the day that he signs the bill on Thursday or Friday? Yeah. Okay.

And then were your are you so because it's only March and we have to have this posted with me, are you all going to set up the working group now before the effective date, or can you give me a little bit more understanding on the working group? Does that make sense? Because if we wait till the effective date

Correct.

That seems like the March where we could use utilize already April. Yeah. Yeah. What are your thoughts on those?

I was gonna say, yeah, we we've already began fully engaging to create that working group. So we have the kinda the architecture of who should be in that working group, and we're just still in the final approval review process.

I would guess certainly before the end of this week

Yeah.

We will be at the point of, you know, we're having a list of who'll be on the working group and verifying with those people that they're available to serve. Yep.

Okay. Awesome. One last question for you all, and I have a question for CPD. Are you all who's facilitating it? So oftentimes when you, like, have these working groups, the council members wanna participate, and it's hard to facilitate and participate. I've learned since being here.

Yeah.

Are you gonna have a outside facilitator?

We that is the plan. The director Babcock of CASR brought that up our first meeting, and I agree that it's it's the way to go. So we've begun that discussion as to who

Might need a facilitator.

Yeah. Who might serve.

Awesome. Awesome. Okay. Then for CPD, I have a couple questions for whoever wants to take it for CPD. So currently in our zoning code, we do not have a zone district. If I'm not mistaken, we don't have a zone district for, like, a specific zone district for data centers.

There's no real definition of data center.

Is that what you all so I'll give a different example. I think it was Council District 4. We had no real definition of storage units, like private storage units, and then they were popping up. I will never forget. I was on a a tour and it was councilman Blackfoot store more in District 4. It's like this whole slogan that we all passed around. And then we had to run run an amendment, remember, to the zoning code to address where storage units could go. Is that what you'll be doing on this process is, like, actually defining data centers so we could track where they're going and putting the permit in place?

Great question. Chris Pleissner, community planning and development. Thanks for having us here. I think we would be looking to guidance coming out of this work group in terms of what the correct path forward needs to be for this. It absolutely could include some enumerated development of a use category for this particular use. But again, think we want to hear sort of what the process drives toward and then be able to work from there in terms of the regulatory environment of what the right solution is to embed in one: one or multiple of our codes, whatever the right answer is.

Okay. So currently, right now, what use are they like the one in Illyria, what what use is that? Like, if you have to get a use permit, right, they had to get a use permit, what use did they go under? Do you know?

I'd have to double check that one, but our our history shows that this the data center use, as we've known it in the past, can be accommodated in multiple primary uses based on the descriptions and definitions of those uses. And so I think this would look to drive toward a single clear answer that would provide those future regulatory tools, guidelines, safety valves, what have you, for future development.

Can you find out what use it went under the one in you do you know?

Angela has raised her hand. I I know it's an industrial use. I don't know the exact

That's the South District. That's the use that's the district. District. I'm on the

Exact use.

Because you have to get a use permit. I wanna know the use permit. I'm with guys. Different.

Yeah.

Hi. Angela Casias, mayor's office. So the information that we have is it's a industrial storage. Wholesale trader storage general use category. Wholesale trader storage general use category.

Okay. So that's the if that's the district, right? But then they have to use is that No.

That's the use.

Permit would be as well?

In for the core site storage facility, that is the primary use.

And that would be what their use permit is under? Okay. Okay.

But we have others that are under a primary use office and other situations or scenarios. Again, due to the the definition description of our uses, it it fits probably not great in multiple different primary use categories.

Yeah. I remember when marijuana got legal and we had to I was in councilman office and we had to figure out the use and where is it going. And one of the things unintended consequences is it pushed it into all communities of colors that right next to industrial. So they were the ones who had that smell and then we had to go through the smell and I won't you I won't waste the committee's time for that, but okay. And if anyone is interested in joining, do they just contact your all's office? I've had couple people reach out to me.

Yeah. They they they can contact myself. They can contact Angela Casias who's been leading the the charge from the mayor's office. And

Okay. Awesome. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you, madam chair.

And thanks, Victoria. Alright.

Council president, was that are you done? Yes.

Thank you.

Well, thank you. Council member Alveder is next and then council member Torres.

Thank you so much. Thank you for your questions, council president. I have similar ones. But how are we going to pay for these studies, and are they gonna be independent studies of water usage, ground temperature, infrasound?

How are we gonna pay for those studies? I think 99% of the information that we're gonna be looking for is already out there in general as far as, like I said, many other states and cities have looked at the impacts. We will wanna work with our local providers be it Denver Water, Xcel Energy, anyone else that the committee deems as affected for their local perspective to add into the the general formulas.

And if there's additional cost for any of the departments, let's say, like, CASR or something, they will go through a regular process. We're not assuming that that's going to be necessary based on their current work and that that they're doing looking at impacts on water use and energy. But if there is, we'll have to go through they'll have to go through whatever regular process if there's an additional cost from that.

Yeah. I'm curious how you're going to study all of the issues that are tied to these facilities that are so new and some of the issues we may not even know yet and the costs. I mean, we if they do a study in California, that's nothing like the ground and the water and the resources we have here. And so relying on what data is already out there and not being specific to our city and to our state and point in time is concerning to me. So I'm curious exactly what studies you're expecting to do Yeah. And what studies you're going to be relying on. How did you come up with one year being long enough to do this work?

It's it's not I don't know that it's long enough, but it's it's a start. We felt you know, we spoke with CPD and looked at, you know, let's let's start with a year. If it turns out that it's not long enough, we can always we can always extend it. And as far as the information that we need, councilwoman, we have existing data centers in Denver. I mean, the numbers that I've gotten on water use and power water uses come directly from from CoreSite, and, you know, we've talked with Excel on power use.

So we don't need a lot of of exact numbers. What we need to do is to require the industry to do the best that it can do to see if where they say they can get down to is something that as a city, we we can welcome. You know, we all know we're we're in stage one drought right now. So can we just kinda shrug our shoulders when someone says a a 100,000,000 gallons of water a year? So there there are those things.

The other issues such as zoning are that's maybe the simplest part of this. You know, we need to get definitions. We need to determine setbacks. But as far as the things that get most people's attention, which are water, electricity, and noise, those I don't believe we need detailed studies, anything that would require real significant dollar output.

Okay. Well, when we talk about the current core site site being a stone throw from a medical center Right. I think that's a really big concern that has been brought and that this isn't gonna do anything for that. And so what are we gonna do about if we do study these and it turns out that it does harm within a certain distance the infrasound or the movement or the humming? How are we going to use that information to protect where the current site is?

Yeah. I mean, what is the permits that have already been issued have been issued, and and CoreSite will continue building this this first building. However, as I said, their plan, their ultimate plan is depending on how many clients say, hey, we want in two, they may build a second building or a third building. And what the working group being formed comes up with could affect that. There are already noise regulations that they need to pay attention to, and if unforeseen challenges come up, they'll they'll have to be addressed in some manner.

But the yeah. The building that's there is permitted and, like I said, we're late to the dance, you know, while as you can point fingers at data centers, you can also, unfortunately, point fingers at at Denver City government. We're late to the dance. We we did not do enough advance regulation to, you know, I I think the current location might have been better suited, but like I say, we we need to do better in the future and that's what we're doing here.

Yeah. And the only quick thing, council member, I would share is that the reason we have such a expansive working group is to make sure that the thoughts that you just shared, the concerns that you shared are incorporated into our process for creating a regulatory environment. And so this is the first step, and this is for future development. It's not a there's not a look back opportunity within our current code if there is a permitted site. But going forward, anything that these experts, folks who are in the field looking at sound and noise and impacts to individual health and water use, all of that, they're gonna be involved in that process.

You will be able to provide input and direction, so will your staff and others as we move the regulatory environment through. So future impacts of future developments, we welcome everyone to that.

Okay. So what I'm hearing is if we find out that this current site is harmful to the neighbors, there's nothing that we're going to do about that?

It it depends on what what that harm is and if they're violating regulations, if they're violating noise, that will be addressed. Yeah. Okay. Without question.

Correct. Okay. Thank you, committee chair. Thank you. Luckily, have

a lot of time today, so I think folks we do have everyone in queue, and we may still have time if people need to get back in, which is great. Council member Torres is next, followed by council member Lewis online.

Thank you. So we did a moratorium before for mobile home parks. Yeah. And that's there's a couple similarities that come to mind when it comes to how this is being applied. One is that mobile home parks were in lots of different zone districts.

And CPD took the lead largely on us knowing we need to get to an answer on are we creating a new zone district, are we fitting it into in some way those existing zone districts, which were like TU zone districts, Industrial zone district, etcetera, in different parts of the city. So CPD was our quarterback on that piece, and I really give them a lot of credit for doing that. They also did it over two sets of elections, council classes. And that's something to keep in mind too. If this goes longer than a year and four months, there might be other council members that get brought into the Just looking at and this is just like a super fast scan.

It's totally fascinating and would be interesting to see where do we have them, what zoning are they using, what use are they using. Because you can have one in IB zoning, which is the one on 4900 Ray Street. You can also have one in downtown theater district zoning, which is the one on 15th Street. So it becomes really difficult to think about, like, is their zone district language flexible enough that it flexes both a downtown context and an industrial context so that they don't end up all in our industrial corridor like we would fear those of us along the Platte River. So something really interesting, I think, to think about.

But I only found four locations that kind of popped up with Denver addresses. So it would be interesting to really get a full breadth of that. Yeah. The other thing is that around the timeline, I think you're right to pick a year. We picked a year and a half, I think, on the first round of the mobile home moratorium because you can't pick too long of a period of time for legal reasons because you're stepping into somebody's development authority on their own property.

And you have to be able to justify we need x amount of time and not more. We're not overextending that regulation. So we brought mobile home moratorium back again for a reauthorization of that moratorium. So if your work is still getting done, you still totally have justification to keep doing that. So I appreciate what you're doing.

I realize it's going to take quite a bit of work. It does feel like a lot of this is conversation. Yes, I think there are other policies related, but the zoning and the use seems like that's the pivotal point because otherwise, how do we know it's a data center if it's just coming in as an office building or storage use, right? Absolutely. How would we know? So that's what I'm really interested in and what kind of flags it as a data center versus any other use on the property.

Yeah. I I think you're exactly right. I mean, that's the first thing we need to do. But I don't wanna underestimate the challenges around the power and water Correct. Element and the noise. Correct. You know?

And do we have anything comparable that utilizes that much energy?

I I don't think Liz Babcock is in the audience.

Like, I don't

know how much I believe is yours? Pardon me?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I believe in a quick chat with Liz, she indicated that the CoreSite facility would be like the third largest power user behind Purina and the airport. And Yeah.

Hi. This is Emily Gideon with Office of Climate Action Sustainability and Resiliency. That does sound right to me. We should verify that with Excel. But we do have large power users, as you noted. Councilwoman Torres, your estimate was correct on some of the data centers around town. Based on our Energized Denver data, we see that there are about five sites across the city that are exclusively used as data centers and then about 46 other sites around the city that are a partial data center use. So it might be an office building, or for example, some of the TV news stations have data processing within them. So it's multiple use on one location.

Do you know for those 40 some, which is a big number, is that on-site use just for that ownership? If it is a new station, only that new station is using that? Or are they loaning their capacity out? Would we know that?

I don't have the answer to that question, but what I can do is send over the data set that we pulled from what we collect through Energize Denver benchmarking. And if there's further questions we have, we can dig into that with our staff.

Okay. Great. Thank you. Emily, if you

can break down to co located sites, just clarifying which ones are if it's the five that are only co located that are leveraged solely as data centers, That'll be great for all council members to see as well.

Great. We'll send her on that information. Okay.

And thank you both for diving in. This is super important, I think, for everybody.

Thank you. It's council member. Alright.

We have council member Lewis who's online. If she's still able to be here, think she might have had to hop off at some point. So at some point. So hopefully, we've got her.

Still here, and I'll be quick, because I do have to hop off in just a bit. I wanted I wanted to, one, I appreciate this conversation, but I wanted to talk a bit about the data center that's currently being proposed and how this might interface with such. It's my understanding that the permits for the foresight were pulled on the March 11, and this is coming now, obviously, on the thirty first in December of thirty first March 31, but wouldn't be implemented until the twenty first. And so I'm curious as to how you all arrived at May 21 as a date, to enact this, and what was your thinking around the pulling of the permits, for CoreSite on May 11, and the potential yeah. I'll stop there.

I'm just I'm just curious as to how you all are thinking about that.

I think we'll we'll have we had some direction as far as the start date from I don't know if it was from the city attorneys or from cash as to when that start date was for the twenty first. And so if there is anyone available that can speak to that. And then for CPD, any of the the permitting for CoreSite folks, if there's anyone I can speak to when the original permits went through for CoreSite and then what's was the items that came through recently, what those are.

Yeah. My under Yeah. Councilwoman

the original and more about the May of March 11, the final permits.

Yeah. Councilwoman, CPD told, us that, the work had already been permitted weeks ago. I am not aware of March 11 permits. I is there anyone from CPD? Yeah.

Good afternoon, everybody. Eleventh for the core site, that was submitted for final permits to the city to complete the construction of the existing D E 3 building at 4900 Ray Street. And so those were the final permits required to complete the approved site development plan and with the final phase of the construction permits approved by the city for twenty twenty five.

Yeah.

Browning from building will address that.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. Eric Browning, building official with Community Planning and Development. So the permit for the building and a significant portion of the 1st Floor and a portion of the 2nd Floor were issued on March 12 for building one of the CoreSite project. That's all that we have from a building construction perspective in terms of permits issued at this time. There have been two other submittals to complete the interior portions of the 2nd And 3rd Floor that are going through our permitting process currently. Those have not yet been reviewed or approved, but those are in process currently with with plan review.

Thank you. John Griffin? Mhmm. Can can you address the permitting issue? My understanding was that Corresight had the ability legally to continue building the building that's under construction.

Jonathan Griffin, deputy legislative counsel. I actually would need to follow back up with the CPD attorneys about the legal requirements around that. I was taking direction from them.

So We'll get you an answer from the city attorney. But that was my understanding. Thank you for bringing that up, counsel.

Yeah. John, if you can put that in a memo, I'd be very interested in it because it sounds like the March 12 date actually had a pretty could have a significant impact on whether or not we included that in this moratorium in terms of the development, particularly particularly for for the the GS community as opposed to just, like, kinda accepting that it is what it is for that project. But is there anything that we could have done to be able to halt some of the harm that is potentially the the some of the potential harm, more specifically. I know we asked some questions about the work group, but I just wanted to make sure that I understood what that work group looks like in terms of the selection process because it was kind of vague in in terms of that. And so if you all could kind of walk me through how you all are envisioning the work group aspect of it, and to councilwoman Alwija's point, how the work group is going to consider the financial implications of such.

So oftentimes when we are running budget amendments, one of the things that we have to consider is staff time, and so that's not cost neutral. And and I think the way that you all have presented it as though it's cost neutral. And so I'd be curious to hear from Kasser about the amount of staff time that this actually might require, in in terms of those studies.

Well, councilwoman, we don't know right yet what the, schedule of meetings is gonna be or how long it's going to take. All I can tell you is all the agencies involved, including city council, the mayor's office, CPD, and the other city agencies, our union partners, outside agencies have all expressed a willingness to do that work. But I don't have a figure for you because I don't know how long it's going to take. But I but I think I think it's more cost.

I don't disagree, but I am curious as to what the cost is. Like, that's our responsibility as council members to just kinda understand what it is that we're going into. And so I would be curious if hazard could give it a ballpark of what they estimate that this time staff time will be for such a project as such. And it's just a general courtesy, I think, that council members expect in terms of when we are proposing things that there's some kind of cost analysis that we've done in order to be able to understand the direction that we're headed in.

I'm sorry about that. I thought we were asking a question of CPD, I was waiting for that. But I could have been wrong about what was happening there.

He was just making calls.

Got it. Okay. So council member Lewis is all finished.

I actually was I was asking. I'm gonna ask you if he has it. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

No. I'm I'm just

I knew. Sorry.

Go ahead. Yeah. Emily's here. And Emily can just say in general, and then possibly there's a any way that we could provide some level of a high level cost structure for engagement and similar working groups, we we can.

But And also what the kind of what the workload is looking like to you guys, think, was part of the question too.

Yeah. Right. I will again, this is Emily Gideon with Castor. We will be sort of running through what that would look like over the course of the task force process if there's additional studies needed. We haven't done that full analysis yet.

But we can certainly look into that and report back to you all. And we do consistently and one of the things that CASR does is we have policy staff that work on different dockets and intervene at the State Public Utilities Commission. So we have capacity in that space and that's well, I wouldn't say necessarily a bunch of free capacity in that space, but we do engage in those sort of statewide settings where, a lot of energy policy that's determined, like, in terms of those policy spaces, that's where we're showing up. So, I guess short answer to your question is we will do an analysis of kind of what the workload would look like over time. And this does touch on lots of different agencies, know, we have CPD, DDPHE, and we're working collectively with those, our our partners at those sister agencies as well.

So we'll take a

look. Thank you.

And I'll just conclude with, an appreciation for you all being willing to look at that. And I know, when we worked with CASR, previously on the social housing study, that you all worked with consultants. And so there was a cost associated with that budget amendment. And so I'm just curious as to the direction that you all are going in. So I appreciate the time. I appreciate the research. And I hope that this results in better outcomes for communities, particularly communities of color, low income communities that happen to have these types of things shoved into their communities without any dialogue or discussion. Thank you.

Thank you, council member. I have council member Sawyer up next, followed by council member Gonzalez Gutierrez.

Thank you, madam chair. Thanks, you guys. I'm in full support of this. Really appreciate it and thrilled that CPE is finally now agreeing to moratoriums on things because when we asked about a moratorium on our gas stations, it turned into a whole situation, and we got told no. So thrilled that CPD is finally in a space where a moratorium for something like this makes sense, and they are willing to move it forward. So really appreciate that. Question for you guys around who is seated on the working group. Are Denver Water and Excel both going to be at the table for that as well as our union partners, etcetera?

It anticipated. Yes.

Okay. Great. Because I just don't see how we could

do this without them. So That's correct.

Yeah. I think that's fantastic. I just wanted to confirm because it I don't think it was on the slide, or if it was, I missed it, which is very possible, but I wanted to just make sure. Yes. Great. Second question is around what we are gonna do about the things we can't do anything about. Yeah. Right? So part of the biggest challenge when it comes to more when it comes to data centers is the PUC. Yeah.

PUC, it Public Utilities Commission is a state regulatory commission that sets energy policy that has absolutely nothing to do with the city and county of Denver, and we have absolutely no power over the decision making there. I know Casar has a really great relationship with them and, attends pretty regularly. But if the largest issue that we have the two largest issues that we have are water and electricity, and the PUC manages the electricity part, what and we don't have much say over what that looks like. How are we gonna, be able to create a regulatory environment that makes sense when we have no control over a very large piece of that regulatory environment?

What I would tell you, councilwoman, is as best we can. Yes. And in that, I'll I'll remind you what we're doing today is simply to pass a moratorium. Yeah. The working group that gets crafted will be crafted with with experts with with deep knowledge of that landscape. So whatever we can do will get done as as best we can to protect the residents of Denver.

I really appreciate that.

There there are challenges. You're exactly right pointing that out.

Yeah. No. I really appreciate that, and I appreciate that you're doing this. One follow-up question, I think, for CPD. And, Eric, this is probably for you because my question is, what part of this is actually gonna be regulated or should be regulated in zoning, right, setbacks?

And, obviously, we need a definition of what a data center is in a zoning code. But it seems like the real issues with data centers are mostly gonna be things that are gonna need to be managed in the building code. You look at it from, like, a global perspective, but we're not there yet, so I don't know what I don't know. Can you tell me, like, are you guys thinking that way too? Are you gonna be have a seat on this working group too, not just the the zoning services side, but the planning services side or development services side or whatever the difference between you guys is?

Thank you. Again, Eric Browning, building professional community planning and development. So, yes, we'll certainly be participating in the conversations. And your, I think, understanding is spot on with respect to the non zoning related elements associated with these types of buildings and development. There are regulations that already exist with respect to data centers specifically.

Point in fact, the Coresight project is designed in compliance with the energy code that was adopted by Denver at the time, which does include a reference to ASHRAE 90.4, which is for data centers. So there there is language that exists currently. That language continues to mature, and it does live in our building and energy codes outside of the zoning. And so that'll just be part of the discussion and the conversation as we move forward.

Okay. I really appreciate that. Can you refresh my memory as to whether other than just approving the version of the building code that we're using at this moment, council has any piece in the building code side of things?

Well, the agency will bring council a proposal with respect to adopting future versions of our codes with specific language covering many different areas. We've just kicked off an energy code update process

That's why I'm asking.

That'll last through this year. As a matter of fact, it's open and ongoing currently. And we'll look to engage many stakeholders throughout this year and into 2027 as we look to update what'll ultimately end up being a 2027 Denver energy code.

Okay. I really appreciate that. I think the oh, you can sit down. I'm just gonna make one quick comment. Thank you. I think this is great. I'm full in support of it. I, I am a little bit concerned based on the presentation of the, peer cities that you looked at Mhmm. Because the vast majority of peer cities that you listed there have a ban. And I don't or or, like, a full moratorium or a ban that there are only maybe two on there that have actual, like, regulations that are in place.

And I find that to be very concerning because data centers I mean, we're using a data center right now to stream this committee live to have council members join remotely. Data centers are really important part of the way we function in our universe, and then that's not going anywhere anytime soon. And so I just wanna make sure Data that as we head into this process, we are clear that this is about thoughtfully integrating data centers into reasonable, locations and, and business spaces within our city and not about banning data centers in Denver.

Yeah. What I would say, councilwoman, is if you look in the appendix, the vast majority are moratoriums in before legislatures currently.

Okay.

Yep. Okay? Yep. And I agree with you to to the extent that if we find we are unable to craft policy that makes puts reasonable guardrails on our limited resources, then we've got some serious decisions to make. The reality is the massive AI data centers that are being built will probably not be built in Denver just because we don't have the land.

Yeah. They can't be.

But we also live on the same planet in in this in the same country, and I think it's our responsibility to do what we can to set the proper example of doing what you can do to yeah. I mean, it's like you say, yeah, data centers, they've been around forever since these things were invented. Right? But it is a new breed with new impacts. So we've got to do everything we can do. Yeah.

I really appreciate that, and I don't disagree with you at all. I just think that, we need to make sure that as these conversations are happening, this is a space where there's like we acknowledge the balance here because we are literally using a data center right now. Right. We're all using repeat more than one for all the things that we're doing at this table right now. And, I think that it concerns me, some of the rhetoric that I have heard, because that is a space where where we need to make sure that we are negotiating and researching and bargaining and having these conversations in good faith.

And that's where I think my concern is.

And I'll be very quick, council member Soyer, and I appreciate the your statement on balance. And I think that's where I see for the discussions that council member Cashman and I have had and the engagement with all of the parties, including administration as far as billing this work working group is that that balance is is going to be required within this process. We're not coming in with a clear bias on one side or the other or multiple sides of issues, but when we look at a regulatory environment, we need to ensure we can enforce the things that we're we're that we're looking at, and then also that we're having voices from folks across the spectrum of this issue. So I am absolutely with you and for the folks who are listening to be clear that we're looking at this as a moratorium solution to something that we must, I think, as a city, take some action on.

Awesome. Really appreciate it. Thank you guys so much. Thanks.

Thank you.

Alright. Council Margo Lois Gutierrez followed by madam Pro Tem. And we're getting a little tighter on time, so everyone's had a lot of time to ask questions. I'm not implying anyone needs to cut short, but just keep an eyes on a little.

Before you close, mean, if you could save a couple of minutes. I wanna offer miss Casillas an opportunity to comment if she wants

to We'll try.

At some point.

We'll try,

but we have fifteen minutes left until three four members in queue. So council member Gonzalez, good chairs.

Thank you, madam chair, and thank you both for for taking this on. And councilman Watson, I appreciate, you know, the fact that you're wanting to have a broad perspective and have, you know, multiple players at the table. I do have some questions, however, about the in the language, and I know in other types of ordinances where we have been very intentional and specific about who are the players at the table, who are the folks that have a seat at the table. This is pretty kinda broad and a little bit vague. Mhmm. And so I am curious who is defined as industry stakeholders?

Who who are who are those stories?

What I would mean as far as industry stakeholders would be data centers themselves, have representatives of the data centers. I think you consider could consider our union friends industry representatives. They certainly wanna preserve jobs where where wherever possible. Okay. Yeah. I think I'm just looking at the language here again, just trying to

make sure who's captured in those. I think, you know, one of the the thoughts that I had was, is it helpful to be a little more prescriptive of not the exact person that would sit, but the groups that are actually represented because I feel like this is a little open ended. I will share that I do have some concerns of having, you know, data centers, like actual folks who stand to profit from, you know, having data centers up, perhaps be part of that working group. And, for example, with the surveillance task force, we don't have any vendors that sit on that task force. You know, I can see that being a conflict in some ways.

And so just food for thought, just a concern that I need to make sure that I brought forward. Sure. And I think I'm sorry. Angela.

Wants to reach my

Hi.

Angela Cassius, mayor's office. Just to be clear, so we've kind of gone the way that we set up the task force currently is to kind of go away from that bringing in like an actual data center and bringing in representatives of data centers in that way, so it's a little bit higher up. So we right now, we have IT industry representatives and subject matter experts, which are more like kind of trade organizations rather than actual data centers, so just to be clear there. So the way our task force, the way we have kind of agreed to have it set up to offer some balance here is we have some three council members, three subject matter experts, which Denver Water, Xcel Energy, and I think there's a state representative on that kind of fall under the subject matter expert. We have three union representatives, three IT industry representatives, we have three advocacy represent representatives and three community members, along with three staff.

So that's the way we're kind of threading this needle to balance. Now, that doesn't mean that they're that's the only people who are going to have to be able to weigh in at this point. So this is a task force that's helping to develop the policy. That is a separate process from the community outreach that we'll be also engaging in.

It's really helpful to have a clearer picture of who would be around the table so that everybody's on the same footing. I don't know what's possible in the language to include, you know, not the specific entities, but the representation, I guess, and what they represent. Just just food for thought.

In writing. That would be really helpful.

We've we've had I had a request from from the union representatives that they would like that clarified. So we'll be looking at that in the next few days, not just a union represent Okay. But any other clarification that might be helpful.

That's great. And I really appreciate that, you know, kind of shifting to those experts in the field, not necessarily, you know, folks from the possible developers themselves. So I appreciate that. Thank you, Angela. My other question is so I know that there you said mentioned, like, there's a state person that might that somebody from the state or a state entity that might be incorporated on the group.

There was an environmental justice report that was issued, and I'm just curious how that interplay between the state and the environmental justice office that's tasked with evaluating different types of developments such as this that go into certain types of communities. So there is a report that was issued. It's pretty lengthy. There are a lot of criteria requirements, identifies this, you know, for the purposes of talking about CoreSite, but even looking towards the future and where these could potentially go, there's a lot of information, I think, that would be helpful for us to be able to review in that report, and that could help hopefully guide this working group.

Yeah.

And so I'm just curious, like, what that interplay will be with the environmental justice office at the state through the State Department of Public Health and Environment. I'm not sure if if CASR has any interaction with them or if DDPG, who who has that connection?

Yeah. I was gonna say

we had from DDPHE, they recommended someone from the state because the the regulatory impacts for air is managed at the state, not by them. I don't know if we have the name of the organization and how they're going to coordinate.

Yes, the state CDPHE. Ogletree, someone? Yeah. So yes, we do have a representative from that organization on the task force.

And I was gonna add council member, if you have any type of studies, research that you believe that would inform the work of the working group, and that's for any member of city council, Please provide that to both of our offices to make sure that we have an informed process. But the the state department of health leader, and I I I'm not gonna call the person's name out, but part of their role was to ensure that they're informed by any of studies, any of the impacts that the state is reviewing as far as data centers and impacts to communities.

Okay. Thank you.

And I would just remind what we're talking about today is a one year moratorium. Mhmm. And the makeup and operations of the working group task force, whatever it ends up being called, are still being hammered out in final form. But I appreciate you bringing up that other interplay between the state and the city.

Yeah. I'll go ahead and stop there because I know there's other folks that have questions, but thank you, madam chair.

Thank you so much. Councilmember Romero Campbell online.

Thank you. And I just want to thank the council members for bringing this forward and for the presentation today. A lot of my questions have been asked and answered. And specifically, I just want to put a finer point a little bit on so the facilitation and then the community outreach are two separate kind of facilitation processes that we're going to have, as I heard.

Doctor. Correct. But

I am interested, or maybe it's more of a request from the group or from the task force, is to have a way that we can have regular communication back. So I don't know if it's a bimonthly or a quarterly update, but I would just request that, you know, as the task force moves forward, that that information comes back to council on a regular basis.

Absolutely, council president and pro tem. We'll make sure that occurs.

Great. And then We'll

kinda define a cadence, and we'll see how that works, you and council president first, and then we'll bring it back, see what makes sense, which committee, and we do that inform to.

Great. I appreciate that. And then a moratorium, it was mentioned earlier that there are, you know, these larger data centers for or more. I think there's more, but and then there's, like, 40 plus smaller data centers that are businesses, probably for, like, a single entity. Will there be a moratorium on those as well? So I'm just thinking of, like, if you do have if it's a hospital hospital opens, does that mean that their data center is also having a moratorium? Or can we just get some more definition around what you anticipate that to be?

We can do that, council president Pro Tem. What council member Cashman shared in the beginning, there are zero zoning requests for any additional data centers no matter what size and what type, and we made sure we did a full review. And so if there's any impacts beyond the five co located sites and going into kind of the single shared data center piece, we'll we'll provide that information back to city council.

Okay. And would I think that'd be helpful. What I'm concerned about is, like, if we have an industry or if we have an industry partner that is trying to start and their the way that they're storing their data for for their organization would somehow be impacted, and then they would not be able to continue. And I don't know if currently they have to classify it as a data center. Because if we're talking about what it looks like or what the zoning is, it may not even be captured at that size. So just a concern.

Maybe Yeah.

Nonpro Tem, I I think just about every business hospital, whatever you wanna grab, is going to have some sort of data processing on their site. I think we're probably looking, and I I do need to leave this to the attorneys, but I think we're looking at a business whose primary use is the storing and manipulation of data.

Correct. Correct.

Great. Those are my questions. All my other questions have been answered. I just appreciate you guys bringing this forward, and I would support it moving forward. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am.

Thank you. Wanna pro tem? I have myself in queue, then we have some people that will get back in if we do have time. So I've asked the producer if we can stay five to ten minutes late for a vote. If you're on the committee and that's an issue for you, please ping me on teams. No problem for you. So quickly as I can then. First of all, the this bill does lay out the creation of this working group. And what's in here right now, I am just really uncomfortable with how big this is. It says there will be a working group.

It doesn't actually lay out what Angela just told us about who's gonna be on it, and it doesn't lay out who's convening it or or even how these people are appointed. It just says it has the voice of the formation of a working group. And I'm not deeply comfortable as a council member voting through the creation of a working group that's basically being sort of negotiated off to the side. I don't feel great about that. So I would strongly suggest I would strongly prefer to see on the floor the makeup of this working group so that we can actually hash that out because what I just heard rattled off, and I don't know that I totally caught it or caught all the categories, did not sound balanced to me.

What this ordinance says is that we're trying to prioritize people that will be impacted, and the makeup of the work group that I just heard, I don't think does that. And I and I just heard it, so I could be wrong. But that's a huge concern that I have. If we are selling this to community as a process where people will be able to give input, we cannot have an inside baseball working group understanding that we need people there with expertise, but that cannot be the only thing. It has got to have legitimate community voice on it.

It will not be inside baseball. Yes.

Okay. But what I just heard was three IT industry, three government agencies that often seem kind of captured, honestly, at to varying degrees, Denver Water probably least of all, three I forget what the other categories were, and three people from community, and that's just not balanced.

Yeah. It's still being negotiated. Yeah.

Right. But I'm saying, like, it feels like if we're gonna create it in this ordinance, then we need to create it in this ordinance.

I mean, I will

provide the the detailed makeup Mariah. Committee chair of who's on the committee, and the overwhelming number of folks are not industry folks, and so we look forward to you having a a view of what that looks like.

We need to know that. I I don't wanna hold it up before it gets to the floor because it's we need it in place before any more permits get pulled, but I don't wanna vote on it without that level of detail. Graham?

What I what I would say, madam chair, is first of all, I would not have read that list today because it's still being negotiated.

Right. But negotiated by whom? The makeup of

the group. Councilman Watson and I and everybody that's been at the table are are discussing it and are

trying

to put together a balanced group to get regulation to determine if and how data centers might continue. Okay. What I would say is to not move a moratorium forward.

I'm not suggesting that.

No. I understand. But to not if if we didn't even have a working group mentioned

Correct.

To not pass the moratorium leaves the door wide open. I agree with you a 100% on what you're looking for, and we'll work as hard as I can to get that. Great.

Okay. Then my other question here is that I am actually a little bit counter to council member Sawyer, and I understand what she's saying because I take very seriously the fact that there's a lot of economics tied up in

these things and a lot

of jobs tied up in these things. We all know that. But at the same time, water's finite. Like, it will go away. And so I don't think we can meaningfully embark on this process where we say we're going to be data driven. We're gonna, you know, see see what the landscape is because we don't know yet. We're gonna ask our staff to put in a bunch of work and do studies and all of this without even being willing to think that perhaps these are just not a use that we should have in Denver. So I'm surprised not to have seen that as a possible outcome on the slide. You know, the principles of sort of, like, good environmental analysis are that you have to consider all alternatives equally at the outset. Right? And so I really hope that we're planning to do that and that this is it's not a foregone conclusion that that we will continue to allow them in some form because I just don't think we should be taking that off the table.

The moratorium bill says if and how. Okay. Intentionally. Because you're exactly right. If, and this is my point of view, if somehow data centers can be accommodated without draining our resource and and being negative impacts on our community as with any other business, bring it on. If those conditions can't be met, then we have that hard decision to make. But that's for the working group to decide.

Okay. I will be a yes on this, but I don't feel great about jumping voting on a working group that doesn't have anything in it as to who's appointing it, what the positions are, because that's so important to this process. So that's Yeah. That's what I want to get out there. With that, I don't wanna keep us over. So can I get a motion in a second? And then Second. Moved by Abelgio, seconded by Swayer. Anybody need a voice vote? Thumbs up. Great. Thank you for your work on this.

Alright. Thank you. Thank you.

Bill is an interesting character and a very complex story across across time and space and lots of different concepts that are a little bit controversial and sometimes really cool and really fascinating. And all of those