Prohibit Construction of Data Centers Initiative

Shall Article VIII of the Charter of the City of Urbana be amended to add Section 8.07, to read as follows?

Article VIII, Section 8.07. Prohibition of a Data Center

(A) the construction of a data center is hereby prohibited.

(B) as used in this Section, "construction" shall mean the erection of one or more buildings, infrastructure, facilities and related activities, which include preparations and modifications for same, for a common purpose.

(C) as used in this Section, "data center" shall mean one or more buildings or physical facilities or infrastructure, located on a single real property parcel or on contiguous, adjacent, or otherwise aggregated real property parcels that are used primarily or exclusively for digital information services such as the management, storage, processing and dissemination of electronic data and information, including but not limited to the implementation of artificial intelligence, through the use of computer systems, servers, networking equipment, and related components, including equipment cooling systems, or virtual currency mining.

(D) this Section shall not apply to data centers, as defined in this section, whose sole purpose is to serve as a dedicated facility that supports the computing needs of a single organization or enterprise not otherwise engaged in the business of management, storage, processing, and/or dissemination of electronic data and information and which is wholly owned by that enterprise, and which has an aggregate monthly demand or peak load of less than seven-point-five (7.5) megawatts, however derived from any energy source, or a combination thereof.

(E) this Section is self-executing.