The McMinnville Board of Mayor and Aldermen unanimously approved an 18-month moratorium on data centers Wednesday following more than 90 minutes of citizen comment.
The decision allows the city time to study the infrastructure, environmental, and noise impacts of such facilities. Planning Director Sean Garrett said the city chose a moratorium over an outright ban to ensure any future regulations are legally defensible.
“This is a temporary stay on receiving any kind of permitting or requests in these regards while we all collectively figure this out,” Garrett said. “And if this passes tonight, and then we do it the second reading next week, then this is not the end of this conversation, this is the very beginning of this conversation that as a collective, as a city of people together, we can sort through this, see what options we have, how we want to move forward, putting very dense codes, if that’s all in lieu of what we have, to limit this and address all the impacts, all the concerns that everybody has in an open dialogue type of situation.”
Mayor Ryle Chastain said the city has not issued any permits to date despite reports to the contrary. A company is interested in building a data center in the community. No one from the company commented during the public session.
Garrett said rushing into a permanent ban could lead to litigation that, if lost, would leave the city with no power to regulate water usage, power consumption, or noise levels.
“McMinnville has been the example for other rural towns all over the country to pull together, use their voices, and fight back,” A McMinnville Resident said. “Someone else said it best, this is the hill to die on. As we close this out, I just want to say vote yes on the moratorium and keep McMinnville beautiful.”
“We’ve seen what these data centers have done to other small towns and our community, and their communities, and we want to be the first town to say no,” A Resident said. “And we want to be able to be on the right side of history, because like people have said before, we will remember y’all if y’all don’t speak for the people.”
The board will hold a second reading on the moratorium ordinance during its next meeting. The moratorium could be extended if needed.
The ordinance includes Data Centers, Bitcoin mining facilities, and Microchip manufacturing facilities. Chastain said it does not ban these facilities.