AURORA, Ill. (WLS) — Aurora’s City Council convened for a special meeting on Thursday. The council discussed instituting a temporary ban on both new data centers and warehouses.
They were meant to be a boom for the town’s bank account, but they’ve become a drain on certain resources.
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Concerns about noise, traffic, and environmental impacts led to the city council approving a moratorium on data centers within Aurora.
“We were told years ago they would be great ,” Aurora resident Lori Evans said.
The decision was made during a special meeting held Thursday afternoon, which was positioned between the Aurora City Council’s finance committee meeting and the regular city council meeting that evening.
The town’s alderpeople took a vote to enact a 180-day pause on additional data centers so the city can study and address their impacts.
The moratorium primarily affects new applications and the expansion of existing facilities but includes exemptions such as already submitted proposals for projects and routine repairs that do not increase capacity.
“We’ve noticed a rise in interest for data centers, so we need to establish a more streamlined process that benefits both developers and the city in terms of application approvals and denials as they come in,” stated Aurora Mayor John Laesch.
City leaders say aurora currently has four data centers with at least another five in the works.
A data center refers to a facility where an extensive range of servers, storage systems, networking equipment, and other essential IT infrastructure is maintained to process, store, manage, and distribute large quantities of digital information for organizations.
Right now aurora city code classifies data centers as a type of warehouse and doesn’t address, noise, emissions, energy consumption or water use.
“Noise was the biggest concern and then there was vibration too, so the biggest concern specially after office hours and over the weekends when people want to be outside,” 10th Ward Ald. Shweta Baid said.
In addition to the noise and traffic concerns, some residents complain about increasing utility bills they say have been caused by the large amount of electricity they say a data center needs to operate.
City officials say during peak demand, a single data center building can use the equivalent of energy for 15,000 households.
Aurora does not have a city-owned electric utility, meaning it doesn’t generate, transmit, or sell electricity to its residents or businesses. They have to pay an electric supplier like ComEd.
“It’s definitely not an anti-data laboratory at all in fact we’re just trying to get an understanding of what some of the potential impacts, because we’ve had concerns raise from the community like noise, but also environmental concerns,” Aurora director of sustainability Alison Lindburg said.
Other concerns are centered around storm water run off and increased water consumption as well as air pollution.
Any moratorium would result in a report recommending zoning charges while updating operational standards.
Attempts to reach owners of data centers buildings located in Aurora were not successful.
The moratorium would last until March 2026 and could be extended another 30 days.
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