Aurora mayor says proposed Trident Data Center should be stopped

Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman says the city needs to rethink how it approves data centers after a proposed massive facility in northeast Aurora began moving through the development process.

Coffman is now calling for the proposed Trident Data Center to be stopped, even as he acknowledges doing so could expose the city to a legal challenge.

"I think that those adjacent neighbors got blindsided. We got blindsided," said Coffman. "So we just have to make sure it doesn't happen again."

The proposed Trident Data Center would total 861,866 square feet near East 48th Avenue and E-470, across from several new residential developments.

Under Aurora's current code, data centers are considered a permitted industrial use in the area. That allowed the project to move through an administrative review process without a required city council hearing.

Coffman said he believes those rules no longer reflect the scale of the data centers now being proposed.

"They're very big, imposing buildings, and so I don't think that we intended that when those, what I consider outdated regulations, were written," Coffman said.

Earlier this week, residents packed Aurora City Council chambers to oppose Trident, raising concerns about its proximity to homes, noise, diesel generators and how they were notified about the proposal.

Amanda Smith, who lives in Green Valley Ranch, told CBS Colorado earlier this week she only recently learned about the project through a neighborhood Facebook post.

"I've been going around and telling people, 'Hey, get involved. Understand what's happening,'" Smith said.

Coffman said he believes Aurora needs to establish clearer rules for how far future data centers should be from homes, schools and other sensitive areas.

The city is already working on additional regulations for future data centers. Aurora has banned evaporative cooling systems in new data centers and has been considering other changes, including setbacks, noise regulations and screening requirements.

Those new rules, however, cannot simply be applied retroactively to Trident, Coffman said.

"We can't go back and change rules that were already in place at the time people made applications," he said.

That creates a more difficult question for the city as Coffman pushes to stop a project that was submitted under existing zoning rules.

In a social media post Thursday, Coffman said he wants Aurora to explore every available option, including calling the project up for a public hearing and asking city council to vote against it, regardless of potential litigation risk.

Aurora City Attorney Pete Schulte has previously warned that the city could face potential liability if officials deny an application that complies with existing zoning requirements.

"I think litigation is always a tool. I hope it doesn't come to that," Coffman said.

He said legal fees are among the possible costs Aurora could face if the dispute reaches court.

The debate comes as another large data center proposal emerged near the Aurora Highlands. Plans for the Aerotropolis Logistics Center call for roughly 1 million square feet of data center space on approximately 500 acres east of the master-planned community.

Coffman said the second proposal makes completing Aurora's new regulations more urgent.

"We need to resolve this soon because we don't want a Trident situation coming up," Coffman said.

Coffman says that he is not opposed to data centers in Aurora. With large amounts of undeveloped land remaining in the city, he said there are locations where the facilities could be appropriate.

If City Council cannot agree on new standards quickly, Coffman said he would support temporarily pausing new data center applications.

"What I would prefer is to have a pause until new regulations are in place," Coffman said. "What I don't want is an arbitrary six-month or year moratorium."

Coffman said Vantage Data Centers, the company developing Trident, has not contacted him directly since he publicly called for the project to be stopped.

Vantage had been expected to hold a community meeting with neighbors later this month.

CBS Colorado reached out to Vantage for its response to Coffman's comments and to ask whether the company still intends to move forward with Trident as proposed.