The Salem City Council will soon receive a letter from the city’s planning commission recommending changes that would set boundaries on future data center projects.  The current code — established in 2014 — places no limits on the scale of data center developments in zones where they are allowed to be built. That could change should the city code be amended, according to the city’s planning administrator, Lisa Anderson-Ogilvie. The commission voted 7-1 on Tuesday, July 28, to authorize Anderson-Ogilvie to draft a letter. It asks the council to restrict or limit future data centers and to make their approval conditional based on updated criteria.  SIGN UP: Salem Reporter is dedicated to covering the people, issues, and stories that shape our community. Stay connected to Salem. Subscribe today. On Wednesday morning, the city announced it had called a special council meeting to consider a moratorium on all new applications for data centers, which if it goes through, could slam the breaks on a $5.1 billion data center proposed in Salem’s Mill Creek Corporate Center by a Google-funded company called Verrus. The Verrus project is currently in the pre-application phase.  The moratorium news came after Salem residents came out in droves Monday night to testify for hours before the city council in overwhelming opposition to the proposed data center.  During the commission meeting on Tuesday, Anderson-Ogilvie said that should the code be amended, it wouldn’t go into effect for several months, so it likely wouldn’t affect Verrus’ proposed 75-acre data center if the company is able to submit its application.  The city cannot simply “move the goal posts,” she said.  “If a code amendment wants to be initiated and worked on, any application that came in wouldn’t apply to it,” Anderson-Ogilvie said at the meeting. ”Whatever is in place the day they submit are the regulations we have to evaluate their application against.”  Verrus still hasn’t submitted its land use application to the city but company officials said it plans to do so in the coming weeks or months.  Verrus spokesperson JP Newmann told Salem Reporter on Wednesday that a possible moratorium does not change the company’s timeline.  He said the company is in support of a moratorium and also supports the council’s decision to look into banning non-disclosure agreements with companies wanting to build data centers in Salem, and to establish a new data center task force.  The council voted unanimously Monday night in favor of both.  The planning commission also voted Tuesday to authorize its vice president to send an email to Salem Mayor Julie Hoy asking her if a planning commissioner can join the city’s new data center task force.  Salem City Attorney Dan Atchison advised councilors Monday night that the new task force members are appointed by the mayor.  One of the rationales behind suggesting the code change is that data centers have changed over the past decade since they were included as acceptable use in 2014, according to Anderson-Ogilvie. The 2014 code change was a four-year process, Anderson-Ogilvie explained to the commission, that overhauled the city’s code, including for the Mill Creek Corporate Center which was already zoned industrial.  “Data centers then were more like servers and web hosting, and I’m not sure the potential impacts that maybe could come from a data center today were the same then,” Anderson-Ogilvie said. “There is no limit on the scale in the code. It is a permitted use in five or six different zones at this point.”  RELATED COVERAGE: City manager calls special council meeting Monday to consider moratorium on data centers Proposed data center draws tremendous blowback at Monday night’s council meeting UPDATE AT 12:33 a.m.: Salem council votes to explore banning NDAs with data center companies Salem councilor pitches ban on NDAs, new task force around data center developments  Salem’s proposed data center faces months of review. Here’s how you can weigh in City manager calls special council meeting Monday to consider moratorium on data centers Contact reporter Joe Siess: [email protected].  The post Planning commission recommends council change code to make data centers conditional appeared first on Salem Reporter. ...read more read less