The Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday rejected a proposed ordinance that would have allowed voters to have a say when companies want to build AI data centers in the unincorporated parts of the county.
Board Chair Monica Martinez, along with supervisors Manu Koenig and Kim De Serpa, who voted no, said it’s too early to make sweeping decisions on the rapidly evolving technology.
The proposal from Supervisor Justin Cummings would have directed county staff to draft an ordinance and ballot measure for the March 2028 election. It would have required majority voter approval before General Plan amendments could allow the zoning, permitting, construction or operation of artificial intelligence data centers and other high-intensity computing facilities.
AI data centers house the computer infrastructure used to train, deploy and operate artificial intelligence applications. They can range from smaller facilities spread across several locations to individual facilities of 10,000 square feet or larger.
Cummings said one of his concerns is that data centers in other communities have been approved without sufficient public involvement.
“They are not aware of what is actually coming into their neighborhoods until it is too late,” Cummings said.
The facilities can require enormous amounts of electricity and water. According to a February report from the World Resources Institute cited by the county, a modern AI data center can consume as much electricity as 100,000 homes, while some larger facilities under construction are expected to use as much as 20 times that amount.
Water use can also be substantial. The report says a mid-sized facility can use up to 300,000 gallons per day for cooling, while a large facility can consume as much as 5 million gallons daily.
Cummings also pointed to concerns about truck traffic, noise, air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, as well as the amount of land large facilities require. The county staff report said data centers can have footprints of 50 to more than 500 acres, potentially putting them at odds with the county’s agricultural, open-space and rural residential areas.
He cited communities elsewhere in the country where residents have raised concerns after large data centers were built, including Canton, Mississippi, where Amazon is developing a multibillion-dollar data center project, and Stanton Springs, Georgia, where Meta developed a large data center.
Cummings said Santa Cruz County’s agricultural land and environmentally sensitive areas could be particularly vulnerable to the impacts of such developments.
The idea of asking voters to approve certain land-use decisions is not unprecedented in the county. In 1986, voters approved Measure A, which established regulations for facilities supporting offshore oil and gas exploration and development. Measure D on the November ballot would add seabed mining to that ordinance.
Cummings acknowledged that no AI data centers are currently proposed in the county. He said the measure was intended to give residents control should one be proposed in the future.
“We’re not having an outright ban right now on data centers, but it’s taken to the voters to see whether or not future changes—future land use decisions around AI data centers,” he said. “Should the people vote on that or should it be a decision made by the board?”
Other California jurisdictions have taken stronger steps. Voters in Monterey Park in Los Angeles County approved a measure banning data centers, while the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors on Sept. 2 approved a temporary moratorium on processing and approving new data centers in its unincorporated areas.
Koenig said Santa Cruz County’s high land and construction costs make a large data center unlikely.
“I do not see this as a high risk for our community,” he said.
But Koenig said smaller facilities could have useful applications. He raised the possibility of UC Santa Cruz someday developing a “micro data center” and suggested that heat generated by such a facility could potentially be put to other uses, such as helping compost organic material.
“There are actually all sorts of potentially compelling uses for micro data centers,” he said. “So I don’t see a strong threat for this today.”
Santa Cruz County Assistant Director of Policy and Housing Stephanie Hansen told supervisors that even if a company proposed a data center, the project would have to go through the county’s application process, which she said would include an environmental impact report that could take about a year.
Martinez said she was reluctant to establish a permanent policy for technology that is changing quickly.
“It’s an evolution,” Martinez said. “It’s a technology that is evolving. And the conversations that we’re having today are different from the conversations we were having five years ago, and different from what we’ll be having perhaps in five, 10, 15 years.”
De Serpa agreed, saying she wanted the county to gather more information before taking such a step.
“I just don’t know enough about AI data centers to make this sort of sweeping decision, and because we have extra time, I would like to do some more research on it and potentially have a study session where we get all the facts,” she said.
