The city of Aurora is considering putting in place new regulations around data centers as its moratorium on these types of developments nears its end.
The regulations would include provisions on energy efficiency, water efficiency, noise and various emissions, but only for new data centers coming after the city lifts the current moratorium. Under the city’s current codes, data centers are considered warehouses, have no special regulations around them and can be built without the Aurora City Council’s approval in certain areas.
For the new codes to be adopted, they would have to be approved by City Council. The earliest a final vote could take place on these newly-proposed regulations is March 24, which is also the day the moratorium is set to end.
Despite the proposed regulations, some of which city staff have said would be the most strict in any community they’ve found, some residents have said at recent public meetings that they want even stricter requirements or a complete ban on any new data center developments. Many of these residents say they have been impacted by noise coming from the CyrusOne data center in Aurora, an issue the company and the city are working to address.
Noise was one area of focus for the newly-proposed regulations, which were first officially presented by city staff at the Aurora Planning and Zoning Commission meeting Wednesday evening.
Currently, city regulations around sound reference state regulations, but those are difficult to measure and to enforce, Aurora Chief Development Services Officer John Curley said at Wednesday’s meeting. So, the city is proposing its own maximum noise levels.
After feedback from residents at a town hall meeting last week, city staff are now proposing those maximum noise levels be 59 decibels during the day and 49 decibels at night. Originally, they were set slightly higher.
Those are the lowest levels city staff have found communities to require through their past few months of research, Curley said. Some residents who spoke at Wednesday’s meeting said those levels are still too loud, especially when the noise is daily and constant.
The proposed regulations also would not allow data centers to install roof-mounted chiller units within 1,500 feet of residential, educational or hospital uses. These types of units are contributing to the noise that residents living near the CyrusOne data center in Aurora have said is impacting their daily lives.
Similar space requirements would be set for ground-mounted chillers and back-up generators, the latter of which are also contributing to the sound issues at the CyrusOne data center. These units would need to be at least 1,000 feet away from residential, educational or hospital uses under the proposed new rules.
Minimum distances between sound-producing units and sensitive uses like residential are there to help mitigate the sound but also vibration, according to Curley. Some residents have said that they have felt within their homes vibrations coming from CyrusOne’s backup generators.
Although these minimum distances are further than what Aurora currently requires, some residents said at the Planning and Zoning Commission meeting that the city should further extend those limits to up to five miles away from neighborhoods. That way, when the backup generators turn on during electrical issues like they did last year, there aren’t any nearby residents to impact, some said.
Under the proposed regulations, both roof- and ground-mounted chiller units as well as ground-mounted generators would be required to have sound walls around them, similar to what is being built at the CyrusOne data center. Plus, rooftop generators would not be allowed.
Incoming data centers would be required under these proposed regulations to do sound studies and modeling at several points in the development process. This would include a baseline sound study before anything is built on the site, a sound modeling study showing that the planned data center would not go over maximum sound levels and a study of the sound the data center actually produces once it is built.
Additional studies would be required if the data center sees major renovations. Aurora also is set to require data centers to set up their own 24/7 monitoring of sound along their property lines to make sure the facility isn’t producing sound above required levels.
Like sound, data centers would also be required to monitor vibration levels at their lot lines to make sure they don’t go over certain maximum levels, according to the proposed regulations.
If a data center is decommissioned and the building is set to become something else, the data center’s owner would be required to remove all obsolete equipment like chillers and generators from the site. It is unlikely another type of facility would have use for these things — but if it did, far fewer would be needed, Curley said.
The newly-proposed regulations would also require data centers to meet certain energy efficiency levels, tracked through an industry standard called “power use effectiveness,” according to Curley. Aurora’s proposed standard of 1.2, he said, is energy efficient but not impossible to hit.
New data centers would be required to provide energy modeling reports before they can be approved and would be required to follow a number of established energy codes.
The regulations being proposed by city staff also would require data centers to either have renewable energy generation on-site, enough to power 25% of the facility at peak demand, or battery storage with the capacity to power up to 50% of the facility for 15 minutes, which Curley said is to stabilize the energy grid and help during brownouts.
As for water, the proposed regulations would set a similar efficiency standard to energy usage. Aurora would also prohibit evaporative cooling, which Curley said is the most water-intensive type of cooling, and would require modeling and reporting on water usage.
These requirements would be mandated through the zoning and entitlement process, meaning they only apply to new data centers or substantial renovations to existing data centers, according to Curley. He said that, as a part of the approval process, data centers would also be required to sign agreements with the city that sets fines and makes it easier for the city to enforce the proposed provisions.
If the new regulations are put in place, then new data centers coming to the city would also be required to seek special approval from the city before they can be built. So, they would need to go before the Aurora City Council for the final decision, which will give more public oversight during the process, Curley said.
The reason for the changes, he said at Wednesday’s meeting, is to address residents’ concerns as well as issues that city staff are seeing play out nationally.
The Aurora City Council on Sept. 25 temporarily paused the approval of data center and warehouse proposals to give staff the chance to create these new guidelines. The temporary moratorium is planned to be in effect for a total of 180 days, but it could be extended an additional 30 days.
Citing an increased number of applications and residents’ concerns with existing facilities, city staff asked for the moratorium to give them time to research ways to mitigate the various impacts of data centers. Since then, staff members have met with various stakeholders and have done research into how other communities have regulated data centers.
Public input has also been incorporated into the development of the new regulations, city staff have said. In addition to an online survey, an open house was held last week to preview the proposed changes and get feedback on them.
Many residents used their opportunity to speak at that open house on Feb. 12, and at a public hearing held during the Planning and Zoning Commission meeting on Wednesday, to voice their concerns about the noise coming from the CyrusOne data center in Aurora.
The currently-proposed regulations, which some felt didn’t go far enough, should also apply to existing data centers, several residents said.
The Beacon-News has previously reported on noise concerns raised by those living near the CyrusOne data center, located at the corner of Eola and Diehl roads on Aurora’s far East Side near Interstate 88.
Repairs made to that data center in April required the use of backup generators for many days straight, which caused consistently loud noise in the surrounding area that residents called “unlivable” and “horrible.” Since then, CyrusOne has been regularly meeting with residents and working toward mitigating the noise from those generators and from rooftop cooling units that residents say are also an issue.
Permanent measures have been put in place to block the sound from the backup diesel generators, which are tested regularly and used during power outages. Temporary measures are also in place for the rooftop chillers, with permanent solutions planned to be completed later this year, company officials said at a community meeting in mid-January.
And, in October, the city of Aurora signed an agreement with CyrusOne that set a timeline for the company to continue addressing residents’ noise concerns. At various meetings, city officials have said that they are not able to talk about or answer residents questions specific to the CyrusOne data center due to ongoing litigation.
For CyrusOne’s part, a lawyer representing the company sent Aurora a letter on Wednesday asking for the consideration of the new regulations by the Planning and Zoning Commission that evening be delayed.
Although notice of the meeting was given, the actual proposed changes were not available until 24 hours before the meeting, which was “insufficient time to review the regulations with subject matter experts and provide meaningful feedback” to the commission, attorney Russ Whitaker of Naperville-based firm Rosanova and Whitaker said in the letter.
CyrusOne had met with city staff in November to work on additional regulations on the construction and operation of data centers, the letter said, and since then have regularly checked-in with city staff.
“We acknowledge that the continuance of tonight’s hearing may result in an extension of the city’s data center moratorium,” Whitaker wrote in the letter. “For the record, CyrusOne has no objection to an extension that provides industry experts an opportunity to review and comment on this important subject matter.”
At the meeting on Wednesday, Aurora city staff did recommend the Planning and Zoning Commission continue the public hearing for two weeks, until March 4. So, the commission will again meet to hear public comment and then vote on its recommendation on the issue on that day, with the meeting set to begin at 7 p.m.
The Aurora City Council’s Rules, Administration and Procedures Committee is set to review the proposed regulations on March 3. The City Council Building, Zoning and Economic Development Committee will then review them on March 11.
If both those committees recommend the newly-proposed regulations for approval, they will then head to the City Council Committee of the Whole on March 17 before going before the Aurora City Council on March 24.
At each of these meetings, members of the public will have opportunities to speak.