ASHEVILLE, N.C. (WLOS) — On June 16, Asheville's Planning, Economic Development and Environmental (PEDE) Committee voted to move a proposed one-year data center moratorium to the full city council.

"This essentially is a legal authority that local governments have to push pause on development approvals for a certain kind of land use. In this particular case, we’re talking about data centers," said Asheville City Attorney Brad Branham. "We have no specific regulations for data centers. That means we’re in an odd position where if someone were to develop a new data center, we’re not prepared to mitigate that through our zoning regulations in the way that we would need to."

Asheville Mayor Esther Manheimer clarifies that there are no current data center applications in Asheville, but they want rules in place before one comes in.

ASHEVILLE CITY COUNCIL TO CONSIDER 1-YEAR PAUSE ON DATA CENTERS

"What we are doing is looking at putting in place a moratorium so that if anybody comes forward with an application for a data center, we have a pause, so that we have time to look at it," said Manheimer.

If approved, the moratorium would give the city up to one year to study data centers, get public input and draft new zoning rules.

"Anytime we dedicate a use, it means we can’t do that for affordable housing or small businesses and so I find it unlikely it’s going to make sense to have data centers in our city and so this moratorium will allow us the time to look through legally what our options are," said PEDE chair city council member Maggie Ullman.

Sunrise Movement WNC local policy lead Rachel Cohen tuned into the virtual committee meeting.

She says she's excited to see the city move forward with this proposal and she's concerned about the impacts data centers could have on water infrastructure and the electric grid.

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"They use a lot of electricity, so they put a lot of strain on the electric grid, which we know is already a huge concern. Coming out from Helene, we’re still working on recovering our grid and we need to make it more resilient," said Cohen.

City council member Kim Roney says she's also concerned about heat and noise issues.

"Not just the dBA noise you can hear, things like guitar, or taking out the recycling, but also dBC and infrasound. Infrasound is sound that you can’t necessarily hear with your ears but can have health impacts on your body," said Roney.

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There will be a public hearing and a possible final vote next week.