Woodland Park officially joined a growing list of Colorado municipalities to push the pause button on data centers.

According to an ordinance passed at its July 16 meeting, the Woodland Park City Council is “imposing a temporary moratorium on the submission, acceptance, processing and approval of applications for the establishment of data centers in the city.”

The 18-month moratorium halts data centers to allow the city time to analyze regulations being written around the county concerning such centers and draft amendments to the city’s code to create appropriate use standards as well as protecting the community.

“There is no current proposal to build what most of us would understand to be a data center in Woodland Park,” councilperson Seth Bryant said. “Our code currently does not address this type of development. I think it’s prudent to take time and make sure we have thoughtful regulation around this type of issue.”

He pointed out that the 18 months would allow Woodland Park to analyze regulations and code being implemented by other municipalities to see what’s working and what’s not.

It will also allow time for legal challenges to play out elsewhere.

Another challenge is the rapidly evolving nature of data centers. Most think of data centers as massive places, but that’s also changing faster than the regulations.

“There’s all kinds of scope and scale,” Planning Director Karen Schminke said. “There’s these little micro things that are now showing up on the sides of houses. It’s very much an evolving technology. So how do we define these different levels of things?”

Mayor Pro-tem Catherine Nakai attended presentations both for and against data centers at the Colorado Municipal League.

“There’s a lot of information out there and there’s a lot of different definitions of data centers and we need to be really thoughtful in how we do this so that we don’t create an ordinance that limits businesses like the city or Walmart or Safeway from having a server room,” she said.

For now, the moratorium will prohibit a wide array of uses until definitions, code and regulation can be drafted and adopted. The lack of those things is what has caused controversial data center projects to be approved in other communities.

“They were approved because there wasn’t anything in their code that prevented them from being approved,” councilperson Jeffrey Geer said. “The goal of this is to give us some time to put a framework in place to do that very thing.

“In the meantime, we can’t get caught flat-footed (because) we have to go with whatever the rules are at the time of the application.”

Rock show camping

Council approved an on-site vendor camping request for the Woodland Park Rock, Gem and Jewelry Show, which will be held Aug. 10-17 at the Ute Pass Saddle Club grounds.

Under the temporary-use permit, camping will be limited to no more than 45 camping units (campers, tents, camper trailers, recreational vehicles and pickup campers) on-site at any one time. Generators will be turned off by 10 p.m.

In other business

• Amid considerable praise from council members, City Manager Aaron Vassalotti has his new contract officially approved.
• Jim and Cindy Rumsey were presented with a letter of recognition for “many years of dedicated service, leadership, and commitment to our community.” The Rumseys have been champions among the local pickleball community and Jim has long served as an election judge and on the city’s board of adjustment.
• Marzelle Black was appointed to the Main Street Committee. Black is the rehabilitation manager at Pikes Peak Regional Hospital.
• Kelly Hunsaker was appointed to serve on the Keep Woodland Park Beautiful Committee. Hunsaker was previously an attorney in the U.S. Air Force and currently serves as a volunteer for multiple organizations.