The City of Bloomington shared a general timeline for the actions it plans to take during a six-month moratorium on proposals for hyperscale data centers.
The moratorium was passed by the city council in late May, following the Town of Normal. In June, McLean County passed detailed zoning requirements for data centers.
Bloomington is planning to take several months to develop regulations and plans for facilities that use 5 megawatts or more of energy. In an interview with WGLT, City Manager Jeff Jurgens said that includes public forums with experts and public hearings on the proposed regulations.
There are no official dates set, but Jurgens said the special meeting of the Planning Commission will likely happen sometime in late August at the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts. The city is currently identifying and booking experts in the areas that could be affected by a hyperscale data center, like water and electricity.
"I think it's going to be a big mix [of experts]," Jurgens said. "Right now we're trying to come up with the names, who is out there who could come and add value to a discussion like that."
The city is also working on a system for citizens, council members, commission members and others to submit questions ahead of the special meeting. When asked about the city filtering responses, Jurgens said they are ready for hard questions.
"I think we're ready for difficult questions and that's why we're going to be having something like this," he said. "We want to have the difficult questions, and we want to have the difficult conversations."
The first public hearing on those regulations would likely be at the Planning Commission meeting on Oct. 1. The second public hearing would be at the meeting on Nov. 5.
This conversation and these regulations focus specifically on large, high-energy data centers.
"The smaller centers are already within our community, and I've not heard as many people concerned about those," Jurgens said. "They do not use the same amount of resources."
