The Birmingham City Council got a first look Tuesday at a plan to regulate data centers but postponed a vote to allow time to study it.

The Mayor’s Office of Resilience and Sustainability and the city’s Department of Planning, Engineering and Permits presented their draft of new regulations defining terms for data centers and addressing concerns such as energy usage, water consumption, noise and other potential environmental impacts.

Movement on new data centers has been halted since March 3, when the city declared a moratorium to allow it time to develop rules governing the relatively new and growing industries.

After hearing testimony from dozens of concerned residents Tuesday morning, the council voted unanimously to postpone a vote to early June, time enough for another round of deliberation before implementing the draft.

For the time being, developers cannot submit new data center applications. Once approved, the new regulations will apply to all future data center projects. They will not, however, apply to data centers such as BHM01 and DC Blox that submitted applications before the city enacted a moratorium.

The mayor and councilors have said they do not have the legal authority to block a project that is already in the permitting pipeline, saying such a move would expose the city to liability.

Because city law does not address data centers specifically, the draft regulation defines the tiered levels of data centers, such as in-line amplifier huts, accessory data centers, micro data centers, medium data centers and hyperscale data centers.

The hearing concentrated on hyperscale data centers, the classification that has generated the most controversy because of their size, extensive cooling systems, power infrastructure and immense electrical needs.

Regulations Limit Water Use, Power Use, Distance to Neighbors

The draft regulation outlined 19 conditions that hyperscale data centers must abide by.

Among them are rules that seek to reduce the amount of water used by the large centers. The new regulations state that closed-loop cooling systems — as opposed to evaporative cooling systems, which consume millions of gallons of water a year — must be used. The draft also regulates the manner in which cooling water would be flushed so as to remove heavy metals, chemical additives and other contaminants before it is discharged.

Hyperscale data centers also would be prohibited from discharging stormwater directly into the municipal water system.

Backup power generation could be used only in the event of an emergency, defining an emergency as “a condition or event that poses an immediate threat to life, public health, safety or property.” A national study has shown data centers running backup generators more frequently, and the provision would help ensure they do not use nonemergency power generation for routine grid support.

Onsite power generation, excluding solar energy, would be prohibited. Energy stored in onsite batteries via the grid would be permitted.

The minimum property size for hyperscale data centers is 5 acres. A major component of the new regulations requires hyperscalers that wish to develop in mixed-use development to go through a special exception process.

The distance between hyperscale data centers and abutting residential areas must be no less than 500 feet.

Councilor Brian Gunn expressed the desire for the city to extend the distance.

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Review the full draft of data center regulations.

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Some business leaders argued that the new regulations would lessen Birmingham’s ability to compete for data center contracts and stymie economic investment.

“Our concern is that provisions as written could discourage the development and community investment rather than just shape it,” said Trevor Sutton, the Birmingham Business Alliance’s chief economic development officer.

“I think that Birmingham has always been open for business, but sometimes it’s been open for business to the detriment of those that actually reside here, not just those that open a business here,” Councilor Hunter Williams said, wary that a balance must be struck for responsible development.

For the environmentalists and residents, the proposed draft represents a positive development and assuages many — but not all — of their concerns.

“The Alabama River Alliance supports this ordinance,” Charles Miller, the Alliance’s policy director, said. “The substantive requirements of the data center also put us at the forefront of data center regulation in the state. Adopting a comprehensive ordinance like this that puts meaningful restrictions on data center development is a sign to those bad actors that Birmingham isn’t giving big tech a blank check.”

“The city of Birmingham, when presented with the reality that our laws did not match up with this 21st century industrial boom, pumped the brakes,” said Ryan Anderson, staff attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center. “The City Council took a step back, listened to constituents at various public hearings and is now presenting an ordinance that provides key protections for communities and the environment. This should be a model for cities and counties across the state and across the country.”

“This technology, we have to admit, is moving faster than government anywhere has actually been able to keep up,” Mayor Randall Woodfin said in a news conference before the council meeting, “Birmingham is one of the very few cities in the country that has actually passed a moratorium on new data center development. Cities across the country are literally watching what the City of Birmingham is doing.”