Gallatin council moves toward data center building moratorium

GALLATIN, Tenn. (WSMV) - Leaders in Gallatin are taking steps to consider a moratorium on building data centers.

Council members discussed Tuesday what a moratorium could mean and what it would take to put one in place.

Councilmember Susan High McAuley said the moratorium would be more of a zoning amendment and would go through the planning commission.

When asked about the criteria for what a data center is, McAuley said the city would define that in a resolution. The planning commission would review it and might change it, but council members ultimately have the power to approve it.

McAuley said the city currently does not have a definition for a data center.

Mayor Paige Brown said no data centers have expressed interest in Gallatin, but the city has had inquiries about using gas for hydrogen and, possibly in the future, nuclear energy.

Gallatin is home to a Meta data center campus of more than 900 acres, one of the largest in the state.

Residents who live near the center said they have seen negative impacts, particularly from construction noise during the campus build and from water runoff that floods their property.

Brown said she thinks they are creating a problem to solve an issue they do not have. She said the city probably will not see another data center for several years.

“Our sprinkler users in the city of Gallatin use more water than Meta does,” Brown said. “I think there is a lot of inaccurate information, and not all data centers are created equally.”

Brown said she thinks the city’s data center is environmentally conscientious and tries to do well.

Brown added that any moratorium would need an existing justification and a study.

“The comparison of the population of Gallatin using sprinklers and one company’s use of water is not like I use sprinklers on my 15 acres and spend the same amount of money, the same amount of water that the center does,” said Councilmember Pascal Jouvence. “It’s all the sprinklers that count in Gallatin compared to one company, so I don’t think we can compare the same thing.”

Council members ultimately voted to move forward with creating a data center moratorium in the city.

The city of Gallatin is one of many Middle Tennessee cities working to place limits on data center construction.