Aurora updates residents on newest data center guidelines as states grow more wary of tax breaks

The city of Aurora held another meeting to update residents on new proposed guidelines for data centers in the western suburb.

But states across the nation, including Illinois, are growing warier of data centers, their impact on communities, and the tax breaks they are given.

Aurora already has four data centers, with several more in the works. A moratorium that paused constructing more data centers ends later in March.

The planning and zoning commission has been holding public hearings to get more opinions from communities as it reviews new regulations that include updates on zoning standards, and water and energy use.

But there has been growing pushback on data centers nationally. Dozens of communities nationwide are fighting data centers in local zoning meetings, politicians are growing anxious about AI's effect on household electricity bills and lawmakers are considering reducing tax breaks — or scrapping them altogether.

Aisles of server racks in data centers have gotten increasingly large and seemingly endless, with campuses of server warehouses, electrical substations and backup diesel generators dwarfing the footprints of factories and stadiums. Some need more power than a small city, more than any utility has ever supplied to a single user.

In Illinois, Gov. JB Pritzker called for a two-year "pause" on data center tax breaks, citing rising household electric bills, in February.

Bills to repeal the tax breaks have been introduced this year in Arizona, Michigan and Georgia, even as tech companies have proven adept at lobbying in statehouses.