Project Taurus Appeals Denied After 14 Hour Hearing 

The 6-2 vote can be appealed within 10 days to the Colorado Springs City Council and includes four conditions requiring developer Raeden to limit power use to 50 megawatts unless the company seeks further commission approval, report utility use to the city for the first 10 years of the center’s operation, include monitoring of low-frequency “infrasound” in its noise monitoring and replace one sheet of its building plan.

Kat Gayle, legal counsel for Integrity Matters, one of the five appellants, said after the decision that the nonprofit would appeal the commission’s decision. She had argued during the hearing that the June 11 administrative approval was improper because “a major modification cannot be approved by staff, only by the decision-making body that approved the original” plan for the property in 2010.

John Suthers, attorney for Raeden and former Colorado Springs mayor, said Friday that the company “really appreciated the Planning Commission’s focus on the narrow issue at hand. This wasn’t a referendum on data centers or whether the city should consider a moratorium.” The only issue, he said, is “did the Planning Department appropriately determine that we dotted all the I’s and crossed all the T’s.” Suthers said Raeden officials had not yet reviewed the conditions in detail and could not comment on whether the company had any issues with them.

The vote was completed at 11:40 p.m., more than 14 hours after the hearing started at 9 a.m. The hearing included presentations by city planning staff, all five appellants and Raeden, as well as comments from about 90 opponents and 13 supporters.

“Data centers are part of our digital life. We can’t create new regulations, impose a moratorium or set standards that don’t currently exist. We have a path forward to impose some conditions and we have to be able to provide consistent standards for all applicants.”

Nadine Hensler, Chair, Colorado Springs Planning Commission

In response to a request from commission member Jennifer Cecil, planning director Kevin Walker said the department would develop new criteria to regulate data center development that considers size and all potential impacts. Cecil said technology, especially around artificial intelligence and data centers, has leapt ahead of regulation at all levels of government nationwide.

Daniel Sexton, planning manager for the city’s Planning and Development Department, said the administrative approval was based on determinations that the project complied with city development and use standards and PlanCOS, the city’s 2019 comprehensive plan update, including mitigating noise and other adverse impacts. He said the city was limited in considering air quality and heat-island effects due to a lack of national standards. Raeden will be seeking state air quality permits. More than 2,000 public comments have been submitted about the center, called “Project Taurus,” and the five appeals filed after the June 11 administrative decision. “It took on a life of its own,” Sexton said.

Appellants focused on noise pollution, failure to meet standards and incomplete or missing documentation. Appellant Nick Fallentine said low-frequency sound emanating from the data center “can’t be fixed with a sound wall.” Infrasound below 20 Hz — such as humming from water-cooling chillers — extends for miles and can cause symptoms such as nausea and vertigo, he said, disputing the findings of Raeden’s sound study.

Raeden cofounder and president Jason Green said the company made extensive changes to its adaptive reuse plan, such as moving the location of emergency back-up power generators, and will add noise-limiting materials and enclosures around the chillers, which run continuously. He said the company signed a corporate responsibility contract with the city on July 6 requiring Raeden to put up a $1 million bond if it fails to mitigate noise and other adverse impacts.

Dozens of opponents made emotional appeals to uphold the appeals or impose a moratorium on data center construction similar to those recently adopted by Denver, Monument, Woodland Park, other cities and counties in Colorado and around the nation — including a Detroit suburb where Raeden had proposed to build another artificial intelligence data center — as well as the state of New York.

Opponents raised concerns with noise from the center’s 30 emergency generators and 36 chillers as well as low-frequency sound waves that some said could cause a variety of symptoms in humans and may affect wildlife on nearby trails and open spaces. They also raised concerns about available power citywide, water use, heat and hazardous waste generated by the center.

Gerald Dempsey, a resident of the nearby Chelsea Glen neighborhood, said the center “is not compatible with the surrounding area. Raeden has promised a quiet operation. We are asked to trust them and absorb a tremendous risk.”

Supporters generally said Raeden had tried to accommodate neighbor concerns by changing parts of its plan, that the building would be returned to productive use generating jobs and tax revenue, and that the city Planning Department must apply its Uniform Development Code consistently or risk discouraging future business investment.

Johnna Reeder Kleymeyer, CEO of the Colorado Springs Chamber & EDC, said the proposed center meets all zoning and development code requirements and that economic developers and employers considering relocating to Colorado Springs require certainty and consistent application of existing laws. Seth Harvey, CEO of Colorado Springs-based Bluestaq and chair of the chamber’s executive committee, noted the proposed Raeden center is less than a mile from a Verizon Wireless data center that has operated for more than 15 years — one of seven major data centers in the Colorado Springs area, some operating for more than 20 years.