City Council/Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening. This is a special meeting of the joint meeting of the Oakley City Council and the Oakley Planning Commission. This meeting is called to order at 6.30 PM. Will the clerk please call a roll?

Council Member Fuller? Council Member Shaw? Council Member Williams? Here. Vice Mayor Meadows?

Here.

Mayor Henderson?

Here.

Commissioner Gowdy?

Here.

Commissioner Ireland? Here. Commissioner Starrett? Here. Chair Price? Here. And Vice Chair Harvey is absent.

Mr. Mayor, just a housekeeping item. We have two members of the council who are appearing remotely under the new rules that apply for remote appearances. Those council members need to identify whether they are in the same room as anyone over the age of 18. So I will ask them to please make that statement, starting with Council Member Shaw.

She's muted. Did you hear her?

I'm sorry, Councilmember Shaw, we did not pick that up. One second. We're having trouble getting your audio. One second while we address the technical issues.

Mr. Mayor, could you please ask one of the two council members attending remotely to speak?

Council Member Shaw and Council Member Fuller, can you both try to speak and see if we can pick it up? Nope. Sorry, still not hearing either of you. One second.

Mayor, can we take a 10-minute recess?

OK, we'll take a 10-minute recess while staff works on our technical issues. Thank you. For the people that are joining us via Zoom, they're going to reboot the whole system, and you're going to need to, in about five to seven minutes, rejoin the meeting via Zoom. So give us a couple minutes and then try to rejoin the meeting. Thank you.

Oh, the podium mic works? The podium mic does work, but if you want somebody to... It's big. I want to try and speak.

Can anyone hear me?

Yes, we can. Getting a lot of feedback on our end.

Can you turn this volume down slightly?

Council Member Fuller, can you try speaking so we can see if we can hear you now? Council Member Fuller, can you hear us?

Yes, I can hear you.

Okay, we can hear you now. Council Member Shaw, can you?

Yep, I can hear you.

And we can hear you. Okay, so we'll call this meeting back to order at 7 0 7 and We were trying to we have completed roll call, but we have some admonishments We have to take care of yes the two participants starting with councilmember Shaw Can you please advise if you are in the room with anyone over the age of 18?

There is nobody in the room with me over the age of 18 councilmember Fuller

I am in an office with no one over the age of 18 present. However, there is my post-surgical caretaker, and she may wander in and out of the meeting for various medical and other sundry items to be aware of. But other than that, no.

Thank you, Council Member Fuller. With that, we'll move to item two, Pledge of Allegiance.

If everybody would please stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Item three, public comment. At this time, we will receive public comment for items that are not on tonight's agenda. I currently have one public speaker card in front of me. If anybody wishes to speak, please fill out a blue card that is located in the lobby and give it to the city clerk. Remind you that there's a three-minute limit.

The timer's in front of the mayor's seat. At one minute, we'll get a beep and turn yellow.

And when it turns red, please act. If anybody wishes to speak remotely, please raise your hand, and you will be allowed to speak in the order of the speakers. Our first speaker tonight in-house is Bud Chedwick.

Council members and Planning Commission, I'm glad that you're here today to discuss all these things. I read over some of the stuff that was in the pamphlets and whatnot. And I'm glad you're taking some steps towards a very difficult situation. I think you should take solace in the rest of the country is basically strongly going against these kind of things. So I heard some deal today like 68%. So anyways, that's just the poll number at this point. But anyways, it's going to be a daunting thing to do. I appreciate that you're doing it. And it's much needed to look at all angles and try to figure out where we go from here. But then again, not to let a lot of big money take over everything, which is, it's kind of funny how they're all pulling out now, some of them, after dumping millions into this stuff. And it's kind of interesting to see the reversal on some of this and the dangers that they proclaim that it is, especially some of the people that own these big companies. sites that want to promote AI. But on another note, locally, this is on another thing. The e-bike type thing, especially the motocross type bikes, I've witnessed a lot of stuff. Almost seen a two-year-old get hit at Creekside the other day. I mean, literally, the guy come ripping through there and he said a few expletives to us. Uh, he had like a, it was like a 15 year old young man and a 12 year old girl, no helmet, nothing on a bike that'll go like 50. I mean, the thing was like ripping through there. And, uh, the other, the other thing that worries me about that too, is I'm seeing like Creekside getting tore up where all the, uh, redwood is that you do for your landscaping. You do all this great landscaping, spend money to maintain it. And they're using it for a motocross track doing burnouts and donuts. I've seen the same people doing it three times. So it's like a ritual Friday night to Sunday night. So quite a few, actually. It's like there's walked the trail for three miles, run into like 15 of them ripping with doing wheelies and whatnot. So I don't think the trail was really meant for that. And I feel for the safety of especially that two-year-old that almost got hit. His dad was there fishing with him. and his other two kids, and he had a few choice words for the people that did that and explained his feelings towards such a thing. So anyways, that's another thing that could be done, but I'm happy you're all here to talk about a very difficult subject in this time, and I'm glad you're ahead of the curve a bit.

I have other speaker cards in houses or anybody online that wishes to speak if you wish to speak Please raise your hand There are no raised hands online mayor With that, then, we'll close public comment, and we'll move to our work session, 4.1, Data Centers Focus, the second joint meeting of the City Council and Planning Commission for a work session. And we'll start with a staff report with our Community Development Director, Ken Strelow.

Thank you. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Vice Mayor, Chair of the Planning Commission. The focus second joint work session with the City Council and Planning Commission on the topic of data centers. And the reason we're here is that there was a joint work session held on July 21st of this year that covered many different topics and out of that the City Council directed staff to come back with a draft ordinance and to bring back additional information on the health effect that data centers may have on nearby residential uses. Also, there were some questions during that work session on whether this would include a ban on home-based businesses that would be of a similar use. So we have some of that information included in the staff report that's in your packet. The request for tonight is very similar to what was done for the previous work session. So we have a joint work session. The city council provides direction to staff. The planning commission is a part of this work session as well. And the role of the planning commission is to engage in discussion on the topic and to act in an advisory role to the city council during this work session. After that, or after discussion, the City Council is being requested to provide policy direction to staff on whether to proceed with the ordinance to ban the use data centers and whether to include the ban as related to home-based businesses. There's a few items that are attached to the staff report. It includes the staff report for July 21, which includes more detailed information than what's in this current September 15 staff report. It also has the minutes from that July 21 work session, if you choose to refer to those. One of the requests from the July 21st work session was to come back with additional information on effects of data centers on nearby residential uses. You know, one of the things when staff was conducting research on this is it was quickly discovered that without having the specifics of the use, the size of the data center, the number of generators, et cetera, it was difficult to provide solid numbers But still, we were able to dig up some information to give a general idea of what the types of negative health impacts could be as related to air quality. And here I have a couple of slides that summarize those. These are also included in the staff report along with any citations. So the two main items were diesel particulate matter, or DPM, and nitrous oxide, often referred to as NOx. And per the California Air Resources Board, the stationary diesel emissions, such as from emergency backup generator yards inherent with the use, present a highly concentrated cancer risk to individuals living within 150 to 300 feet downwind. Particular concentrations drop by roughly 70% at 500 feet and beyond. Beyond the long-term cancer risk, the sudden high-volume testing of activation of diesel generators causes immediate acute health impacts. And this is a continuation of the health effects on nearby residential as related to air quality. Again, within 0 to 500 feet, these are the following. The table on the left shows what the acute respiratory distresses are associated with those two. chemicals, DPM and NOX. And one of them is sudden exposure to concentrated DPM and NOX causes immediate airway inflammation. And then for children with asthma or elderly living within 500 feet, the sudden generator testing can trigger acute asthma exacerbations, 20 to 40% spike in emergency room visits for respiratory distress. with high exposure zones and immediate cardiovascular stress. And then at a slightly further distance, 500 to 1,000 feet from the source, the DPM concentrations do drop by roughly 70% at 500 feet. And at 1,000 feet, they drop by approximately 90%. And then it's noted that residential uses within this distance of 500 to 1,000 feet of acute NOx emissions are still considered to bear the highest risk of immediate airway inflammation and reduced lung function, particularly for children and elderly residents. Another topic that was covered during the previous work session was noise pollution. Often these are related to large HVAC cooling fans or the backup diesel generators that we just talked about for the air quality. It was noted that the sources can result in a low frequency drone, and that can travel significant distances away from the source, depending on the size and number of generators. The smaller facilities can be noticeable from several hundred feet away. Larger facilities can be noticeable from a much larger distance, often cited as up to one mile or more from the source. And another note is some of the low frequencies can be difficult to attenuate with traditional sound attenuation barriers such as walls, because low frequency sound waves can often pass through such barriers easier than high frequency sound waves. Another one of the requests during the July 21st work session was the council asked staff, how do we prevent, if we wanted to regulate or ban the use, how do we prevent this use by another name or going by a different name? And that was a great thing to think about and get ahead of. So the city attorney drafted this draft ordinance you see before you. And they included a definition that captures data centers by another name. And the manner in which this was done is that the definition covers the physical settings, the functions, and provides examples of various different names a data center of similar use may go by, although this definition is not limited to only uses with those names. They're just examples. It clarifies that size of operation does not matter. It includes all components of the use. And it includes a clarification that the definition does not include accessory or incidental equipment that would be used in a use otherwise permitted or conditionally permitted in the zone. So we don't want to accidentally bring in something that may be used for a completely legal and permitted use, but maybe a component of it is similar to what a data center may have. And the way those don't get mixed up is it's used for the use. So it's not leased out by a third party off site. Staff looked at an energy capacity threshold. And the idea behind this was to say, OK, if the council wishes to ban data centers, what about an energy capacity threshold? How about data centers that use a certain amount of energy or above? And pages four and five of the staff report include a discussion on this. This option would result in only data centers above a specific threshold or the ones that are built with the potential capacity that could be above that threshold. And after some analysis, we looked at different thresholds that could come into play. Staff is recommending to forego the optional threshold qualifier and proceed with the definition as proposed in the draft ordinance language that does not include any such energy threshold. And there's more information in the staff port as to supporting staff's recommendation for that. Another part of the discussion, again, was whether home-based businesses would be allowed to operate data centers, crypto mining, other similar uses that are included in the definition. As of right now, the use is not in our home-based business code. The use is nowhere in our code at all. Pages 5 and 7 of the staff report do include a discussion on this. And staff laid out two options for consideration if the council even wishes to proceed with this. One of them is similar to that energy threshold that was just mentioned for the main commercial use. And that would be a recommendation that we found when researching this is sometimes set at a 300% the median monthly volumetric consumption of standard single family home. What is that? That's a great question, which is one of the reasons why staff would recommend option two if we were to go with that route, which is to ban the use of the home-based business regardless of the energy consumption. And the reason behind that, if this were to proceed, is because usually a home may have a certain main panel, 200 amps. Some new or all electrical homes may have 400 amp panels. And that falls right around 38, 39 to 76 kilowatt hours. Any such use that were to be used by a resident but not receive a home business permit would have to fall within that energy threshold. So it would be like converting the home to all electric or having an EV charger or some other means. However, if they were to come to the city requesting a business license and a home business permit, it would not be approved. So in that sense, they could operate one for personal reasons, whether that's a crypto mining operation or something of that sort, but a business license would not be issued for it. So it would be a personal use and not a commercial use. And then finally, the data centers for another name, We already went through this. I'm sorry that slide popped up again. Don't know how that snuck in there. So the staff recommendation is the Planning Commission should function in an advisory role to the City Council during the work session. City Council is being requested to provide policy direction to staff on how to proceed. And if a consensus cannot be reached on policy direction to staff, the City Council may be asked to provide policy direction supported by at least a majority of the City Council present and on the Zoom. And then just to go back to the recommendations that were covered in the short presentation, You have the options in there. So the staff recommendation would be that if the council wants to proceed with a ban on data centers, that the definition as proposed by the city attorney and the proposed draft ordinance language be what council directs staff to proceed with. And if the council wishes to include some regulations on home businesses and these types of uses, that option two, staff be directed to proceed with option two. part of this were to be directed, if staff were directed to do something about that, it's currently not in the draft ordinance language, but we would add it into the same ordinance that would be brought back for the data center use. So the city council, the planning commission would make a recommendation on and the city council would ultimately take action on one ordinance that would address both. Thank you. That concludes my presentation. I'm happy to answer any questions. City attorney is here to answer any questions and we thank you.

Questions for staff, council, member Williams?

All right. Bear with me. This was my scattered thoughts. So, okay, when you're talking about the ancillary uses, right, like if it's for a real purpose, but how do we know that there's no way to, like, back end it? So what I mean by that is there's an approved use at the site. And they say the data center is just an incidental use. But in reality, the approved use is just like a bare minimum, while the rest is data center. Like how are we going to prevent sort of that sneaking around?

The ancillary, so when we talk about the ancillary use, it wouldn't be a data center that is something else. That would fall under the definition of a data center. Think of it more like we operate Civic City Hall here, and we have a small server room. Now, if this whole building were a server room, that would fall under the definition of the data center of similar use. But our small server room that we have here is not classified as a data center, because it's ancillary to the operations for City Hall.

OK, perfect. And then this question is likely for the attorney. In the draft ordinance, there's item 18, and D and E are the ones specifically that I'm asking about. And of course, I closed it, so I'm pulling it back up. But does that language need to be in there? I mean, D kind of makes sense to me that it's in there. Little bit because I think that's just probably standard language for any use I would guess but he just makes me think that there's a Loophole that could happen. So I was just a little bit nervous about that So can you talk about that language and why it has to be in there? Sorry, it's on page four going on to page five of the draft ordinance and And it's 18D and E specifically that I'm asking about. Existing lawful uses and vested rights is D. And then E is avoidance of unconstitutional taking property.

The reason for subsection E is because we are essentially banning something entirely within the city limits. I drafted this with maximum belt and suspenders. I wanted to leave no stone unturned. I'll just go through all the cliches and the analogies. So the idea here is that if there's something we missed or if there's something that could trigger something a year from now, two years from now, five years from now, 10 years from now, we wanted to have a process. This doesn't suggest that anyone has any right. And in fact, it puts an overwhelming burden on them to prove that a data center is the only possible use of their property. They'd have to show that by clearing convincing evidence. That was a standard I specifically worked in there to not only, you know, to really ratchet it up. I would prefer that the council include language, this language or language like this, just to be absolutely belt and suspenders. The language was carefully drafted so that it's not giving anybody anything. they actually have to show that they would never be able to use their property but for a data center. And I don't think that's really a plausible or realistic argument, but if we have nothing in our code that outlines a process, the concern is that that could make us amenable to litigation. Whereas if we have something in our code, they have to come to you, to the planning commission, and then to the council, and they have to meet these really owner's findings requirements So it is my preference that you include it, but I have to let you make the decisions if you don't I Don't think it's the end of the world. I don't think it Would you know you'd still accomplish your goals? It's just your belt and suspenders city attorney would prefer that you have this I

OK, I mean, I feel like that's reasonable. I just also feel like maybe we need to add a little bit more language, right? So I like where you say concerning the owner's acquisition and use of the property, the property's existing and potential uses, all of that stuff. But maybe can we put in something where they've shown that it has been on the market for, 10 years, and they can't get any, there's nothing, nobody who wants this. I feel like there needs to be a lot more than just, it just feels a little bit like CUP territory for me, so I'm just a little bit anxious about that. And I understand there has to be clear and convincing argument, but what happens four years, five years, 10 years from now when people are a little more amenable to having these potentially, what's the clear and convincing argument? So I think just having stronger guardrails.

I could certainly embellish this language and bring you back something that puts more guardrails and more teeth and other things. I tried to write it pretty aggressively. But the only comment I would make, Councilmember Williams, showing that something's been on the market that may or may not be that may or may not well i i think there's ways to work with that concept so i see what you're saying the idea that you know we've tried to develop this for other things and we've not ever been able to sell it because i i think i can work with the concept i'm more than happy to add to this okay you want to explore that thank you any other questions for staff

I have one question. On the option, again, we're kind of moving around, or I hope it's OK, on the home-based data center, whatever you would call them, is that something that would theoretically need to have a permit pulled? Is that where we would catch it as a home business, as kind of a screening? I mean, I know these things are really new and not very established, but I know we're trying to be proactive.

Yeah. So yes, home businesses are required to obtain a city business license. There is a section of the zoning code that covers home businesses. And there's a list of uses that are allowed to be operated as a home business. There's also a couple of uses that are prohibited from operating as a home business. So if somebody wanted to operate a home-based business, or if they just wanted to get a business license from the city for whatever reason to legitimize their business for tax purposes, et cetera, and we find that they're located in a home or a residential address that is a home, they then need to obtain a home business permit. So it's a secondary kind of add-on permit to a business license. In this case, it would list the uses, probably a similar definition to what's in that draft ordinance. It would include that list of uses as a prohibited use. So it's not to say that someone could not operate one in their home if they wanted. They just could not operate one in their home with a business license. So they would not be able to obtain a business. So it would be a personal use and not a commercial use out of their home. In addition to that, the other reason that our staff came up with that recommendation is because we looked at options for increasing capacity of homes. And we found that in most cases, that is going to be for something like additional EV charging, HVAC upgrades, or electrification of the home. And so something that would be banned, but then allowing it or banning, what I'm trying to say is banning upgrades to the home would be a little too far because there's a lot of legitimate reasons for that.

Yes. So just as a follow-up question, what I'm concerned about is not, or not concerned, but what I'm curious about is not necessarily a, and I don't know if this will be covered, so again, I'm asking a, and this is very new, but not a home-based where I, as a homeowner, am operating a data center. But what I have seen on the market is there are companies that are basically paying me to install a box on the side of my house. And that's kind of what I think we're trying to limit. And so my question would be twofold. is one, would either of these options cover that? Because maybe it's not me operating the business, but it's somebody else, again, putting a box on the side of my house. Similar to a leasing company leasing solar on your house and then selling it back. I'm curious how that would work with the home-based business, if this would cover that. And two, if we may or may not catch that, at the permitting stage, because again, I assume there's some construction with those kinds of exterior boxes. And again, I know you may not have answers for all these, because this is very new, but just trying to catch the next thing kind of coming.

Sure. Yeah, no, great questions. If a main panel had to be upgraded, that would require a permit to do that. So we would catch it at that stage. The other thing that's mentioned in the staff report is, Not everybody's a good player. Some people tend to do things. We've seen the marijuana grow houses and things of that nature, and not comparing data centers to that in any way. But sometimes people just do what they're going to do without obtaining permits. And PG&E flags those. They work with the city to let us know of energy spikes. That could be one way we could identify and implement code enforcement on any use or any building code violation from not obtaining a permit. As for the boxes on the side of the house, I would say if they don't result in the homeowner needing to get a business license and they're within the energy capacity of the home, it's probably a non-issue. It's not worth enforcing. It really doesn't matter at that point.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Vice Mayor Meadows. Ken, in doing your research on the home-based data centers, did you find any place that they were popping up? I mean, obviously not here. I mean, across the country, did you find any research on it?

No, it wasn't something that was as obvious of an issue as the commercial use of data centers. So I think, again, I think that's why if this were to be an issue, it would just be an issue if people were doing massive upgrades to their homes.

Main panel and or doing illegal upgrades to the panel non-permitted Okay, thank you Commissioner Steve So I you kind of answered my question when you were flying over there because I do support a ban on the residential use because I was there when they did a a a code enforcement raid on my neighbor's marijuana grow house. And the electrical upgrades were pretty abhorrent in that home. So even though we might have a ban on a business license or a permit, a data cowboy might just go ahead and do it themselves. So that would be something that would be trackable through BG&E to be enforceable if it was done illegitimately.

Yeah, the idea would be that we may not know they do it. They may do it in the darkness of the night or over the weekend. So that would just fall under a typical normal code enforcement case where we would either receive notification from a neighbor, hey, my neighbor is doing something weird with the PG&E panel box, or if there was a massive spike, PG&E would alert us. And then we would implement code enforcement if necessary.

There's not any additional questions for staff. We'll go to public comment. I have one public comment speaker that was submitted online that wanted it added to the record. And I do have one card in front of me. Bud Shadwick?

Again, thanks for taking the time to do all this work on this. As far as the mining goes, there has been precedence in the past of people tapping into illegal electricity for not through their own, but tapping into things. And it's gotten away for quite a while. So that's something I do remember from the past. The other thing is, I was listening to the The power, I work on boats with 20, 40, 60 kW generators. They emit a lot, even though they're smaller. I worked on a lot of boats. I've seen it, I've heard them, seen what they do. Even though it might be on a smaller scale, They do spew a lot. I live near Torrance Biorefinery, actually four miles away. And stuff was getting on my car that far away. So it's really hard for me about the particulance to believe it's just going to stay within that realm, even though it might be documented. So there's also been like $28 billion used to support data centers of public money. And I don't think that's right either. I worry about the water thing that would definitely bring up the temperature. I was just talking earlier about how the temperature rises in our ocean, and it's not gonna help our fisheries here, that's for sure, our water. The other thing is, I heard a thing from Mark Twain that was like, he said, whiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting. Well, we gotta fight for our water. You know, and that was very sound advice because of the, you know, the cattle at the time and the mining. So you got crypto mining now in place of that mining. But it's just kind of interesting how, you know, times change, but they're the same as far as the way things are thought of. And I think it was very forward-thinking saying that. The other... Just the large-scale water usage it's going to take to do about it. I mean, that's going to be something of a big concern. I'm going to a water gathering up in Hood to fight our water going to LA. They want to put a pipe 100 feet down all the way down to the forebay to take the better water from Shasta. I'd like to see people fight that a little more up here because I tell you what, there's a lot of people flying up to the capital from Southern California right now. And we need some of our people there with their boxing gloves on. So that's the other thing that I look at as far as this data center at times. We need our water anyways for what we do have. It's just interesting this. I just think there's going to be big players coming in here and promoting, selling. Hey, you run three computers or a small server in your house, and we'll take it from you. It's just a hobby. Don't worry about it. I kind of worry about that. Thank you.

Is there anybody else in the chambers that wish to speak in public comment? If not, do we have any hands raised online?

No hands raised online, Mayor.

And that, then I'll bring it back to the Commission and the Council.

I apologize. A hand raised as soon as I said there was no hands raised. The caller with the phone number ending in 0825, you may speak now.

Hello, council. I've listened to some of the comments here, and I must say that they are quite disturbing, to be honest. Using statements like creating an overwhelming burden for your citizenry and onerous finding requirements is very wrong. Continuing to harass your residents with more and more regulation is wrong. let people do what they want to do in their house within reason, trying to implement these sort of policies at the home level is crazy because what this is going to be is not that this initial implementation may cause any issues, but it's going to lead to a slippery slope for future consoles where they're going to say, well, they approved this in the past. So let's tighten it even further. I've seen this slippery slope in other cities and I don't want to see this in Oakley. Thank you.

Do we have any further hands raised?

No other hands are raised, Mayor.

Then I'll close public comment and bring it back to the Commission and the Council for discussion.

Want to start So just yes, no comment other than advise that we move forward with the language perhaps of the modification I'm sorry.

I'm councilmember Fuller does have his hand raised Thank you for noticing appreciate that I my my intake And reading what's going on nationwide, including the collapse of the AI industry, they're figuring this is going to be a stock market collapse because they were leaving the leading the way. But that's AI. That's not what we're up here with. We're just using a tool for AI. It's data center. So we don't even know if they're going to be able to finance such a data center or keep it operational if they do put it in and what happens to it when it doesn't. And listening to the community and listening to people, They don't want it. They just don't want it. Santa Clara, I've just read an article. Santa Clara in this area is a kingmaker on data centers. They're building left and right. Actually, it's San Jose, but Santa Clara area. And they're building... putting in more and more and more data centers. So my thoughts is if they want to build out of the centers, please be my guest and do what you're going to do. And then we can get data from this. But I'm just, no, no. It's what we've been talking about now is I'm not quite sure if we're going to vote on a ban or kind of a ban or not at home. It's just... It's just, until we get that together, I will vote no.

Commissioner?

I would just say as for my portion of the recommendation to council that we move forward with presenting the resolution with the adjustments that Council Member Williams suggested and additionally support option two on the home base. Everything seems to make the most sense and really just thank the staff for the significant amount of research and work that went into this. Thank you.

Council Member Williams.

I also believe that we should choose option two for the home-based businesses. And I think, you know, kind of going back to what Commissioner Ireland said, you know, like lots of us have Tesla Powerwalls or whatever that we had to pull permits for. So I think... to kind of address what the caller said on there. This isn't something that's meant to limit what you can do with your property. It's just limiting the impact that you can have on your neighbors, just like we would with any other sort of ordinance. Just because you own something doesn't mean that you get to impact their way of life. the potential for the home-based ones to do that is something that we don't really know right now. And so I think in the meantime, we need to protect the residents from that possible harm. So I would definitely be in favor of option two for that. And if our attorney can tighten up that language a little bit more, That would be great. I just think that right now this is sort of like a losing proposition. I mean, you know, there's been all the whistleblowers who have come out saying that it's going to end human civilization in the next 10 years and their whole job is to prevent that. So I think Potentially this is a dying industry But I think we still need to go through all the steps and make sure that we're protecting our residents for years and years to come But I think you captured all the different uses that I think we were worried about For the data center coming in is any other name? So that's that's my thought on that Councilmember shot

Yes, I also support option two if we go on the home-based business. I think I also heard what the speaker had said, but if we allow marijuana grows because it's in your own home, I mean, it's kind of the same thing. We're just regulating the things that can hurt. those around you. As far as the ordinance as it is with the changes that Councilmember Williams had mentioned, the only thing is I am happy with the city attorney tightening up the language. I worry about using the how long it's been on the market and we have to have them show that they have done everything to try to sell it. I just think people can can fudge that. So as we're tightening up that language, I just think that market length isn't necessarily the only thing we should be focusing on. So I just want to make sure that we are tightening this. And the residents have spoken. I have listened to my constituents. And they have said that they do not want this. And so I am in support of the full ban ordinance. I will back up. I will say though that. Sorry, that's very distracting. That if I don't know where I was like, hold on, I will. I will. I will come back with that thought. I will let somebody else speak.

Great.

I read in the report that the emissions was from the emergency use generators. And so, and also the noise was from the HVAC cooling systems. So I would have liked to see maybe a little more statistics on if we would have limited a data center size to a certain megawatt what kind of emissions, if it's a limited power draw, is there not as much of a need of the emergency use generators? If the emissions is only coming during the emergency use and we limited the size of a power draw, I believe it would probably be using those emergency use generators a whole lot less. And also, with a smaller capacity, there'd be a lot less of a need of an HVAC system. So kind of compounding, reducing that emission exponentially. But I was just kind of curious also if this property ends up, if we put this ban on data centers and it was to turn into another logistics center.

I don't know if you guys can hear me, but we can't hear anything.

If it was to turn into another logistics center, I was kind of curious on if we have any current statistics of the emissions that are currently coming from that logistics center that has diesel trucks going in and out of it 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. I was just kind of curious if there's diesel emission statistics from the logistics center, what this property could potentially turn into, and what we could do to limit the effects of those emergency use generators based on size rating, just some things that have been kind of rolling around from your presentation.

I may have to ask you to summarize that. There's a few different things going on there with the auto. So you're asking about the Oakley Logistics Center use?

Yeah. It seems like, in your report, the emissions and noise was all based on emergency backup generators. Well, if we were to limit a data center by size, you would limit the need for the use of emergency backup generators. And if we weren't to develop a data center there, and it would be an expansion of a logistics center, that logistics center has diesel trucks going in and out of it 365 days a year. 24-7. And nobody here has slowed down on their Amazon purchases lately. So we're going on an outright ban. We could be creating a bigger monster with an outright ban as far as we haven't really investigated what a size limitation could do to reduce overall emissions.

Yeah, understood. So one thing to kind of remember is this focused second work session was born from the July 21 work session where city council gave staff specific direction on what they wanted to come back and doing data centers of different sizes and what the different What the different pollutants may be for those sizes was not the direction provided by staff. That's why that's not being provided tonight. As far as the Oakley Logistics Center or the recently approved Bridgehead Industrial Project, those do go through environmental review, where they look at the building sizes, the typical types of uses, the truck generation that would be done by that. That all goes through an air quality model, and then those numbers are spit out, and it's determined whether it exceeds a basin threshold and whether mitigation is required, et cetera. So those projects do go through that environmental review. Data center is a different use that has different types of emissions that can be much higher with water and energy use. So that... In a nutshell, that use in itself is the specific subject we're talking about now. But I do hear you about other uses that, yeah, other uses do have other impacts that we do need to deal with. And that will continue to be the case.

OK. And as far as council members, what direction do we want to provide the staff tonight? Shannon, you got your hand back up.

Yes, thank you. I was just remembering, in the original joint session we had, I remember staff saying that there were very limited locations within Oakley that would kind of be suitable for a potential data center. And if I remember correctly, those were, I think it was three. And I was trying to go back and look on two different computers right now. So I'm sorry that I don't have that information. Then I got to thinking, you know, if they're already very limited on where they can be based on how they are right now, but those locations could house something else that could. Bring the construction jobs the same as a data center would, but then also bring the long term jobs. I wouldn't want to risk losing those long term jobs. I hear what those are saying about different size data centers and generators and all of that, but there's so much unknown. And if there's so many spots in the city, there's so little to have them, it would make sense to me to hold up those locations for long-term permanent jobs. That's all I wanted to say. I got distracted by the echoing earlier, so that helps. But I do support the ordinance with some stronger language.

Yes, I support it with stronger language and option two for the home-based business.

Did I give you the direction you needed for tonight?

I think we have... I feel like I've only, well, I have heard from three council members that they support the ban. Two council members that they support option two of the home business. Two planning commissioners have provided input. And one of those is similar to Williams and Shaw's direction. I do not have a third council member that would support option two for the home business permit.

OK. And that's my bad because I haven't said anything. I do support the resolution, the ordinance as written. And I do believe option two is the right direction to go on the home base.

Thank you. That gives us consensus direction.

And if there's not anything else, then we'll go ahead and call this meeting adjourned. Thank you.