Committee Weighs Data Centers as Officials Cite Power, Water Demands

City officials began weighing whether to allow data centers in the City, with discussion focusing on the facilities’ significant demands on electricity and water infrastructure as well as how they should be defined and regulated.

The Housing, Homelessness and Planning Committee on Wednesday received a staff presentation outlining what data centers are, how they operate and the potential impacts they could have if permitted locally.

The discussion centered on whether the City is prepared to regulate data centers before proposals emerge, particularly given their significant demands on energy, water and infrastructure.

A data center is a facility that houses computer servers and networking equipment used to store, process and transmit digital information, serving as the backbone of internet services such as cloud computing, streaming and online communications.

These facilities operate continuously and require significant electricity to power equipment and cooling systems, often relying on backup energy sources to maintain operations during outages.

“It needs to have special provisions for fire hazard because there’s the heat factor and for cooling,” said Councilmember Jason Lyon. “And my feeling is they got to bring their own resources. I don’t really know how that’s going to work with water, but with power, I think they need to bring their own power and it needs to be clean.”

Lyon also said the site would need security and a cooling system.

“I don’t know how we deal with that because they’re not bringing their own water.” Lyon said.

The City has had data centers in the past, including the AT&T building on Colorado Boulevard, but those buildings did not require anywhere near the resources of an AI driven data center.

“The draw of natural resources that are required is a burden on the City, not just in terms of the City’s capacity, but the City’s purchase of commodity and then passing on,” said Mayor Victor Gordo. “And so there are costs associated with the new technology and impacts associated the fire, public safety, all of that, associated with the use of the new technology that we have to mitigate against and also ensure that the City’s residents are not subsidizing the cost of implementation of the new technology.”

Gordo said a balance was necessary because the technology is coming.

“What we don’t want is to create either a dangerous situation or allow a use that then requires a public subsidy by way of either water, public safety, or any of the associated issues,” said Gordo.

Councilmember Rick Cole agreed about the enormous resources needed for a data center but said at this point the City should not welcome data centers.

“I think these are early days and we are safer not innovating in this space and catching up,” Cole said. “That’s not always going to be true, and I respect that others may have a different risk assessment, but I think what we know about these is that they are early stage monsters that will, draw on water and energy we don’t have, create enormous political upheaval that we don’t need and don’t do anything for us directly. It’s not like Pasadena’s going to get some benefit from this data center. It’s not going to be for Pasadena. It’s going to be located in Pasadena.”

Officials underscored the scale of resources required to operate such facilities. A 10-megawatt data center can consume roughly the same amount of electricity as 8,000 households and use water equivalent to about 120 households annually, depending on cooling methods.

Staff said the City is in the early stages of considering how to regulate the use, including whether to create formal definitions and establish development standards to address infrastructure impacts.

Among the concepts presented was dividing data centers into categories based on size and resource use, including smaller “limited” facilities and larger “general” facilities, with thresholds tied to electrical capacity and water consumption.

Committee discussion also touched on the broader pace of technological change and whether regulations can keep up.

“I support sending the definition to the Planning Commission for further public input,” Jones said. “They should take a full, hard look at the environmental impacts, especially water and power demands, and how any proposal aligns with potential state laws.”