The City of Bloomington will host a public planning commission meeting focused on "hyper scale" data centers at 5 p.m. Aug. 26 at the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts.
City Manager Jeff Jurgens said a panel will be available to the commission. He did not specify who would be on the panel during his report at the city council meeting Monday night, adding more information would be released later.
"This will be the meeting where we have a panel of different people, different viewpoints, different experiences come and talk to the planning commission, talk to the community," he said.
Bloomington is in the midst of a six-month moratorium on proposals for data centers. It started in late May, following similar action by Town of Normal.
Bloomington is planning to take several months to develop regulations and plans for facilities that use 5 megawatts or more of energy.
The first public hearing on those drafted regulations will be Oct. 1. A second hearing is scheduled for Nov. 5.
Jurgens said officials had gotten questions on whether the city could ban data centers outright.
"That's something we are looking at legally as well," he said.
