Colorado city council backs year-long data center moratorium after proposed project withdrawn

Brighton City Council voted Tuesday night to move forward with a one-year moratorium on data centers, doubling the six-month pause originally proposed. This comes after hours of public comment from residents concerned about the potential impact on their community.

The vote came on the same night city leaders announced that an application connected to a proposed 155-acre data center campus near Brighton's border with Lochbuie had been withdrawn.

The proposed development, known in city documents as the Silo or Willard Property project, called for eight two-story data center buildings of roughly 315,000 square feet each - more than 2.5 million square feet of building space altogether.

The project had not started construction.

Records obtained from the City of Brighton through a request show discussions about the property dating back to January 2025 and show a Planned Development application had been under city review.

The documents prompted questions from residents about water and power demands, noise, backup generators, air quality, and the project's proximity to homes in neighboring Lochbuie.

Those concerns brought a large crowd to Brighton City Hall Tuesday night.

Brighton resident Stacey Baca, a retired television journalist who grew up in the city, said she began looking into potential data center development after discovering Brighton was seeking expertise related to data center noise.

That led her to file an Open Records request.

"What jumped out at me the most was the sheer magnitude and size of this data center," Baca told CBS Colorado before the meeting.

During public comment, Baca urged council members to take more time to study what a development of that scale could mean for the city.

"We've never experienced a project of this magnitude," Baca told council. "We must analyze everything and think about the greatest good for the greatest number of Brighton residents first and foremost."

Other speakers raised concerns about noise, water, electrical infrastructure, air quality, traffic, and the location of the proposed campus.

Lisa Burin, who said she lives in the Homestead neighborhood behind the proposed location, urged council to consider a longer moratorium.

"These aren't anti-technology questions. These are health and safety questions," Burin said.

Not everyone who spoke opposed data center development. Some told council that data centers could provide jobs, tax revenue and infrastructure investment.

"This data center will provide great-paying jobs. It'll expand technological infrastructure," one neighbor said, while adding that any development should ensure water security and prevent its power costs from being shifted to residents.

Mayor Pro Tem Peter Padilla, who requested that the moratorium come before council, said Brighton's existing land-use rules do not adequately define data centers or establish the requirements that should govern them.

Padilla said he initially did not believe a moratorium was necessary because there was no active project to consider. The prospect of an actual data center changed his position.

"Once there became discussion of the potential for an actual use, that caused me to change my mind and believe that we needed to put a moratorium in place," Padilla said.

He said the city needs time to study water, wastewater, conservation, air and noise impacts, power, infrastructure and construction before deciding what regulations data center developers should be required to follow.

"I want to make sure that if anybody applies to put a data center in the community, that there are strict rules for them to follow, that protect the community, that protect our environment and protect our residents," Padilla said.

The ordinance originally before council called for a 180-day moratorium on the acceptance, processing or approval of applications involving data centers.

Council members ultimately supported extending that proposed pause to one year, with members saying the turnout and concerns raised by residents influenced the discussion.

The proposed Brighton site also raised questions about impacts beyond city limits. The property sits near the border with Lochbuie, where residents also attended Tuesday's meeting to speak about a project that would be located in Brighton but could affect neighborhoods in their town.

Lochbuie approved a five-year moratorium on data centers earlier this year.

During a break in Tuesday's meeting, Padilla announced that the pending application associated with the proposed Brighton data center had been withdrawn.

The withdrawal means that particular application is no longer moving through the city's review process, though it does not necessarily prevent the applicant or another developer from proposing a project at the site in the future.

For Baca, the debate has also raised questions about when residents learn about major developments happening around them.

"It makes me wonder if we did not have the open records documents, where would we be right now?" she said.