At Tuesday’s City Council meeting, the City Council voted unanimously in support of an ordinance that, according to the agenda packet, temporarily restricts “development activity undertaken for the purpose of establishing a new data center, including construction of a new building or structure, reconstruction or alteration of an existing building or structure for the purpose of establishing a data center, physical expansion of an existing data center, and subdivision activity associated with establishing or expanding a data center.”

The agenda packet stated that the land use regulation is applicable for up to 180 days, during which time the city will evaluate data centers and determine if there should be amendments to the permanent land use regulations.

“They’ve been all over the place, but it’s become a big concern in Utah, probably more than any, because of Box Elder and just the size,” Clearfield Mayor Mark Shepherd told the Standard-Examiner. “The grandiose scale of Stratos really set things off in Utah as a whole.”

Shepherd noted that it wasn’t too long ago that the feeling surrounding data centers was much different, specifically highlighting Meta.

“There was almost competition as to who was going to get them,” he said. “And, ‘Man, we want them over here,’ and, ‘We want them over here,’ and, ‘We want them out here,’ and they end up in Eagle Mountain.”

Shepherd said the ordinance came about due to the realization there wasn’t an ordinance addressing data centers. He said it’s not listed as approved or acceptable in any zone.

“And so if someone were to come to us and say, ‘We would like to build a data center,’ we don’t have anywhere to say yes to, or even no to,” Shepherd said. “We would have to have that as a legislative decision at that point to say whether or not it was acceptable, because it’s not allowed in any zone.”

Shepherd said the ordinance provides time.

“I think it’s good to look at those things and know, as we do with any other type of industry, what impact that might have on the city, on resources, on just about everything else,” he said.

Shepherd said he has a positive view of data centers given the right circumstances.

“As long as they are handled right, the investigation is done, the testing and so forth is done, I’m totally in favor of them,” he said. “I think it’s a necessary use. I think we’ve seen (them) for a long time all throughout the country.”

Contact Standard-Examiner editor Ryan Comer at rcomer@standard.net.