The Springfield Township Board of Trustees last month approved a 180-day moratorium that prohibits data center plans from being "accepted for review, considered, approved, or otherwise allowed" during its duration.
The moratorium also orders the township's planning commission to amend its zoning ordinance and hold hearings for property owners in connection with data centers. The board may extend the moratorium if it believes more time is needed in this process.
"This moratorium ensures we are planning from a position of strength, not reacting under pressure," Township Supervisor Ric Davis said in the release. "Data centers bring both opportunity and risk. Springfield Township is committed to protecting our residents, our natural resources, and our emergency services before approving any project of this scale."
The moratorium was approved after an outside consultant told township officials Springfield was "unprepared" for the impact of a data center and its potential impact to the community. It was also passed just days before officials met with a developer who'd expressed an interest in possibly building a center inside the township limits.
While the moratorium is in place, township officials are determining where data centers can be located, establish construction and cybersecurity standards, protect residential areas from impacts, ensure emergency preparedness and require environmental and utility studies, according to a township news release.
Davis said some communities have had data centers arrive before they sufficiently planned for them.
"That won't happen here," said Davis in a press release. "We will make sure any development aligns with our values of safety, sustainability, and community-first governance."
Davis declined an interview with The Detroit News at the advice of the township attorney.
Data center proposals have popped up across southeast Michigan, some of which have been met with resistance in communities such as Saline Township and Washington Township. One data center has already been approved in Lyon Township in Oakland County, and another proposal is moving forward in Southfield.
Data centers are collections of computer systems that power online activities such as web browsing and movie streaming. Technology companies are racing to build more data centers to supply the expansion of artificial intelligence.
In Springfield Township, the board enacted the moratorium three days after planners with consulting firm Giffels Webster told the township's planning commission that Springfield Township was "unprepared for the growing economic pressure to construct new data centers." A memo from the firm said the township lacked zoning standards to make sure data centers are regulated in a way that reduces impacts to the area.
"While Springfield Township does have provisions for data centers, they are treated the same as most professional office uses, which does not account for their unique operational characteristics and need for a more rigorous review process," the memo reads. "This underscores the need for new zoning standards that address the scale and intensity of these developments."
Giffels Webster suggested the township consider factors such as size, placement, water and energy use, noise, security and proximity to sensitive areas like schools or hospitals when planning for data centers.
The township passed the moratorium four days before Davis, a trustee and a planning commissioner met with outside parties in a pre-application meeting to discuss the possibility of building the data center.
According to the township's documentation of the meeting, a "long-established data center development group" is interested in an 84-acre tract in the Andersonville Road area. The plan would include two or three 250,000-square-foot buildings.
In the meeting, Davis told the development group's real estate representative that the township "would halt any project posing risk to natural resources or residents." His remarks came after he explained that Springfield Township doesn't have municipal water or sewer services, and that nearby Independence Township's system might not have the capacity to support a data center.
Davis also said an environmental impact study that would evaluate air quality, wildlife, stormwater, soil disturbance, vegetation removal and impacts beyond the site would have to be conducted if the plan were to move forward. The supervisor said he also requires metrics on generator emissions, noise and erosion control plans, according to the meeting summary.
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