Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich held a Friday afternoon news conference to announce an executive order that would deny permitting for data centers for a period of six months.
Elrich said the order directs the Department of Permitting Services to “temporarily pause the acceptance and processing of permit applications for new data centers in Montgomery County.”
“It’s not a ban on data centers. It is not a statement that data centers should never be built in Montgomery County, and it’s not a judgement on any specific proposal,” he said. Instead, “What this does is create time for Montgomery County to establish clear rules and expectations before applications begin moving through the permitting process.”
While Montgomery County has zoning and permitting regulations on a variety of developments, “right now, Montgomery County doesn’t have regulations that specifically address data centers,” Elrich said.
The county executive also said he was eager to create specific regulations and have them in place before applications come in because, “I think it’s good for everybody to understand what the rules are going to be before going forward.”
Several proposals have been introduced at the Montgomery County Council, and councilmember Marilyn Balcombe, who serves on the Transportation and Environment Committee said, “The moratorium doesn’t mean that we stop. What it means is that we work harder,” to come up with regulations that will address community concerns.
Councilmembers Will Jawando and Kristin Mink also spoke at Friday’s event. Jawando said he and Mink proposed a two-year moratorium, and added, “We might not agree on every single issue related to the moratorium but the important thing is that we do agree that we need time to get this right.”
In a statement sent to reporters, Montgomery County Council President Natali Fani-Gonzalez wrote: “With the moratorium in place, we now have the space to finish up working on the Data Center Zoning Text Amendment (ZTA) 26-01.”
That measure, she said, “establishes clear definitions and limits data centers to industrial zones under conditional use-review” with conditions around noise, environmental protections and siting.
Jawando mentioned California-based Atmosphere Data Centers, which has worked with the county’s planning board on locating a data center on a former coal-fired power plant in Dickerson. Jawando said he believed the developers have good intentions, “but good intentions are not assurances.”
Councilmember Evan Glass, who, like Jawando, is running for county executive, attended the event, but was not invited to speak. After the executive order was signed, he spoke with 海角社区app.
“I’ve introduced two pieces of legislation, one creating a task force, which would have been studying this right now, and another one when that failed, to create a six-month pause,” Glass said. “So while none of the speakers today supported any of my proposals, I’m glad that they do now, and I’m glad that they’re moving forward.”
Caroline Taylor, with the Montgomery Countryside Alliance said she was glad to see the six-month moratorium in place. She said there are concerns about noise, possible impact to water infrastructure and “rate-payer impact: who’s paying for this industry’s energy use?”
Elrich said that while his action won’t stop the planning board’s work with the Atmosphere Data Centers group, it will not provide a permit for the facility during the moratorium.
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