CLEVELAND — Cleveland City Council is advancing a plan to press pause on data center projects, responding to a wave of high-powered computing hubs sweeping across the state.
After hours of discussion and debate Thursday, council’s utilities committee voted to move forward with a three-month moratorium on permitting and reviews. The freeze will apply only to standalone buildings — both ground-up construction and expansions — and not to computing hubs integrated into multi-tenant properties or mixed-use projects.
Now the legislation is headed for a full council vote July 15.
Council members said the moratorium will give the city time to put some guardrails around data centers, which aren’t specifically addressed in Cleveland’s nearly century-old zoning code. Working with Mayor Justin Bibb’s administration, council is trying to figure out if — and where — data centers fit and how to get the biggest economic bang from any new development.
“We’re not saying 'absolutely no' to data centers,” said Councilman Brian Kazy, who leads the utilities committee. “We’re not saying 'absolutely yes' to data centers. What we’re saying is, 'today is the beginning of gathering that information.'”
He said the city is putting together a working group to dive into everything from land use and power needs to environmental standards, jobs and community benefits. The goal is to come up with a regulatory framework that council can take up in mid-September.
Cleveland is poised to become the largest city in Ohio to pump the brakes on new data centers, as moratoriums sweeps across some suburbs and rural areas.
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On Thursday, a crowd of construction workers, labor leaders, policy wonks and city residents packed the council committee room, overflowing into the hall, to listen and weigh in.
“Cleveland needs an identity. It’s not steel. It’s not the railroads anymore. It’s not auto. We could be the tech capital of the Midwest,” said Mike Bremmer of IBEW Local 38, which represents more than 2,000 electrical workers.
Councilman Tanmay Shah scoffed at that, denigrating big tech companies and calling artificial intelligence an attack on workers. He lobbied for a yearlong moratorium instead of three months. But that would have required sending the legislation back for more reviews.
“We can’t even get our streetlights fixed in three months,” Shah said.
Kazy pushed back.
“If we can’t get it right in 90 days, then we’re never gonna get it right,” he said.
The original legislation, proposed by Councilman Charles Slife, called for a yearlong pause.
RELATED: Cleveland considering a moratorium on new data centers
But the Bibb administration proposed a shorter term, with the goal of making policy reforms without stifling growth and development.
The legislation gives council the option to extend the moratorium by another three months if the city needs more time to figure out how to classify and regulate data centers. On Thursday, it was clear that some council members are still trying to understand what the facilities are — and sort out fact from fiction.
“You don’t know what to believe half the time, from what you read. … I want the facts. The good. The bad. The ugly. I want the facts,” Councilman Mike Polensek said.
Representatives from Policy Matters Ohio, a think tank that's been tracking data center debates across the state, urged council members to reject incentive requests for data centers, create clear zoning language around the facilities, restrict public officials' ability to sign non-disclosure agreements with companies, prioritize public input and ensure that developers sign robust community benefits agreements.
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Councilwoman Deborah Gray represents the Slavic Village neighborhood, where a developer filed a permit application in May to build a large-scale data center on a dormant industrial site. The city rejected the permit filing because of incomplete paperwork.
But that doesn’t mean the project is dead, despite what Gray described as strong opposition from her constituents. The Slavic Village site came up several times Thursday, with some speakers characterizing the project as a potential boon for the community and others calling it a threat to the surrounding neighborhood.
“We already know that there’s a proposal for a $1.6 billion investment in the city of Cleveland, right?” Kazy said. “If it was anything other than a data center, everybody would be bending over backwards.”
Nobody from Lakeland Equity Group, the company floating the Slavic Village plans, spoke Thursday. In an emailed statement after the committee hearing, Lakeland described the meeting and thoughtful discussions about data center development as encouraging.
“Unfortunately, there is still resistance grounded in inaccurate interpretations of a data center’s impact on the community and the environment,” the company wrote. “The fact is that this technology on our project utilizes vacant land that cannot be repurposed for other projects, is environmentally safe and can deliver significant economic impact in a very short time frame. It directly addresses the very issues raised by council members of lack of investment and job creation in the city.”
The Greater Cleveland Partnership and other business organizations, including the Cleveland Building & Construction Trades Council, have spoken up against moratoriums — calling for “sensible regulations” instead.
RELATED: Business leaders urge Northeast Ohio communities to stop data center moratoriums
But during an interview after Thursday’s council hearing, Executive Secretary Dave Wondolowski said he thinks Cleveland is setting a solid example for other communities.
“We don’t find it to be an unreasonable timeframe,” he said. “Ninety days is not going to make or break a project.”
Michelle Jarboe is the business growth and development reporter at News 5 Cleveland. Follow her on X @MJarboe or email her at Michelle.Jarboe@wews.com.
