TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. — Garfield Charter Township has imposed a one-year moratorium on new data centers and cryptocurrency-mining facilities while officials develop zoning rules regulating their noise, water and energy use.
Officials for the Grand Traverse County township said the moratorium adopted Tuesday, Aug. 25, can be extended by six months if necessary.
The moratorium puts on hold plans by an Illinois-based company to redevelop an industrial building near Boardman Lake into a small-scale data center. Cervenka Development Partners recently submitted a site plan to the township, but officials said it remained incomplete and couldn’t yet be considered.
Officials said the moratorium will prevent the project from moving forward for at least 12 months.
Garfield Township now joins Michigan communities like Kalamazoo and Holly Township in Oakland County, which have also adopted temporary restrictions on data centers as local governments wrestle with concerns about electricity demand, water consumption, noise and land use.
However, Garfield Township officials are deliberately trying to avoid the legal problems that have entangled other Michigan communities.
Garfield Township Supervisor Joe McManus said legal counsel advised officials not to adopt a moratorium by simple resolution, as some other Michigan communities have done.
Instead, the township spent months amending its zoning code to establish the authority for a moratorium, which was adopted after an Aug. 11 public hearing.
“There are municipalities, specific ones that have done knee-jerk moratoriums and are being challenged and losing in court because they didn’t go through the process that we went through,” McManus said.
Developers are currently suing Michigan communities over data center moratoriums, filing federal suits just this month against Gibraltar and Wixom, for example. Other places like Saline Township failed to legally block a data center from being built.
Related: Rural residents challenged a data center project near Ann Arbor. Nearly 90% of voters said no.
The legal battles were among the reasons Garfield Township officials said they spent months establishing their moratorium.
In July, developer Thomas Cervenka told township planning commissioners that he hoped their coming zoning regulations would differentiate between small-scale data centers and the much larger hyperscale facilities.
“We have listened carefully to the concerns raised by residents and have shaped the proposal around minimizing noise, water use, traffic, visual impacts, and effects on nearby properties,” Cervenka said in an email to MLive.
He could not be reached for further comment this week.
Hundreds of area residents packed the township hall in July to oppose allowing data centers in the township. But state law prohibits local governments from totally banning lawful land uses if there is a demonstrated need for it.
“I know that’s a cry from a lot of people, and that’s just not possible. So, what do you do? You need to regulate,” McManus said.
Only two members of the public spoke about the issue during this week’s Township Board meeting after the moratorium was unanimously adopted.
Heather Wysor of South Boardman, another rural Grand Traverse County community, said she was pleased that township officials were taking steps to protect land and water resources from data center and crypto-mining facilities.
Meanwhile, the township’s Planning Commission is expected to discuss a potential timeline for drafting zoning regulations for data centers and crypto-mining facilities during its meeting today, Aug. 26, at the township hall in Traverse City.