Theoretically, someone could now get a conditional use permit to build a data center in Kootenai County.
But the noisy, water guzzling tech hubs would need to meet a very high threshold of restrictions, including not locating over the aquifer.
County Commissioners passed an ordinance allowing the strict permits only because the moratorium against data centers expired at the end of August.
Commissioner Leslie Duncan said in a meeting last week that commissioners took this step to make it as difficult as possible to build a data center until they can get a permanent ban in place.
Commissioner Marc Eberlein says people move to North Idaho for specific reasons.
“We want to have nice stuff up here. We want good trees, we want good lawns, we want lots of water," he said. "I think it's a travesty if something like this happens. That's my opinion.”
Community Development director David Callahan says data centers do offer some very lucrative benefits to municipalities.
“I know from looking across the nation there are places like Loudoun County, Virginia that have generated as much as 890 million dollars in tax revenue in one year," he said. "So these data centers can be real tax economic engines.”
But nearly an hour of public comment showed how much the community is against having data centers in unincorporated parts of the county.
Duncan reminded attendees that cities make their own regulations.
If residents in Hayden or Coeur d’Alene also want a ban on data centers, they need their city councils to make that decision.
