Councilmembers voted 6-1 to adopt the moratorium, triggering a ban on conditional use permits for data centers until another final vote to extend it on June 1. At least 100 community members spoke at the more than seven-hour meeting, mostly in support of a pause, though a few union and industry representatives pleaded for officials to reject it.
“We are at such a pinch point here in Northern Nevada in terms of data centers that if we don’t take an action, it’s just a free-for-all,” said Councilmember Naomi Duerr.
The dissenting councilmember was Kathleen Taylor, who said she would have preferred to instead fast-track the process to create a text amendment to city code with data center regulations — something that may be discussed at a future meeting.
For many residents and environmental activists, Thursday’s temporary moratorium was a long time coming.
“Hasn’t Nevada seen enough of these boom-and-bust schemes to actually do something different this time?” said Debra Gallet, a Reno resident who spoke at the meeting. “It’s insane to keep doing the same thing over and over again with no different outcome. We need you to put constituents’ needs over business needs.”
The moratorium will not apply to four data centers already in the city permitting pipeline, according to Angela Fuss, the city’s assistant director of development services. The council continues to pursue a city code amendment to create long-term regulations.
Northern Nevada has quickly become one of the epicenters of the nation’s AI arms race, with a focus on the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center in Storey County. Still, some data centers have sneaked through Reno’s city permitting process with little public scrutiny, Sierra Club Toiyabe Chapter Executive Director Olivia Tanager said in an interview.
The timing of the meeting, just weeks before the June 9 primary election in which Councilmembers Devon Reese and Kathleen Taylor are two of nine candidates vying to become the next mayor, was curious, Tanager said. She has been speaking out against the approval of Reno’s data centers since early 2024 and said she has been met with pushback in private meetings with officials.
“I know that these issues take time and consideration, but when feet are dragged, the buck is passed,” Tanager said during the meeting, urging for permanent regulation to follow a moratorium. “All impacts start to become visible in our community.”
Huge power, water demands
Nearly all those who spoke against the ban still acknowledged the need for responsible stewardship of natural resources and the energy grid, including Rob Benner, secretary-treasurer for the Northern Nevada Building and Construction Trades Council.
Benner’s members want access to these jobs, and he said passing the ban shows that Reno is “closed for business.”
“Do we need to put guardrails on these projects? Absolutely. We are not opposed to that. We want to see some of this stuff happen,” Benner said. “But putting down a blanket moratorium sends the wrong message.”
NV Energy, the utility for the state’s urban cities, is processing unprecedented requests for power from tech companies — ones that could require tripling its current peak load if all of them received service. Advocates have suggested the utility may fall short of its state-mandated goal of sourcing 50 percent of its energy from renewable sources.
Nevada doesn’t have regulatory requirements to insulate ratepayers from costs associated with grid buildout; NV Energy recently declared that it would no longer provide power to some 50,000 residents near Lake Tahoe because of growing demands.
“How will you be able to afford your own energy bill if you and your family are also paying for Sam Altman’s and Peter Thiel’s?” said Nicole Anagapesis, in a public comment referring to two tech billionaires.
Separately, Southern Nevada has a ban on so-called evaporative cooling, which is a technology data centers use that taxes water sources throughout the country. Industry executives have said most companies are shifting to closed-loop systems that reuse water instead of letting it evaporate.
Groups lament potential job losses
One of Reno’s data centers is called Keystone, a 3.26-acre facility located in downtown Reno.
Jackson Mendelsohn, a field technician at UNR’s Nevada Seismological Lab, told councilmembers that he lives 100 yards from the Keystone project. Those who live close by would feel immediate impacts of the data center — many that have not been fully studied, he said.
Mendelsohn added himself to the chorus of people urging a statewide ban, not just a citywide one.
“Our public lands are for us, not to be sold off for profit,” Mendelsohn said. “We are begging you to get tribal input. Prioritize the environment, prioritize your community, not the pockets of people in charge who don’t even call this state home.”
Tray Abney, of the Nevada Data Center Alliance, said tech companies aren’t against regulation. Several projects throughout the state are leaders in water efficiency and renewable energy, he said.
“A blanket moratorium doesn’t distinguish between projects that meet high standards and those that don’t,” Abney said. “It stops everything. There’s a better path forward.”
The economic benefits cannot be written off entirely, especially from an industry that is open to feedback, Abney said.
“This is not a choice between growth and responsibility,” he said. “We can and should have both, because at the end of the day, you will not fix your budget deficit by turning away your tax base.”
Still, some community members believe AI data centers are just another echo of extraction.
Virginia Larmore, with the advocacy group Indivisible Northern Nevada, drew parallels between the gold rush and the race to establish AI data centers in her comments. Larmore’s family came to Nevada in the mid-1800s in search of minerals, she said, and the consequences of mining persist today.
“Here we stand on the precipice of the new Wild West, while the literal relics and consequences of the Old West are in our backyard poisoning our air with radon, our Earth with the fire danger we face from clear-cut forests, and our water supply with mercury and other caustic chemicals,” Larmore said.
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