The City of Lakeland is now one step closer to approving a 12-month moratorium on the development of large-scale data centers.Just for the record, this is the first reading of the data center moratorium, said Lakeland Mayor Sara Roberts McCarley at Mondays City Commission meeting.WATCH Lakeland takes next step to 1-year moratorium on data center developments Lakeland takes next step to 1-year moratorium on data center developmentsThe prospect of data centers is something leaders have been talking about for a while.This is a very hot topic, said commissioner Mike Musick.This conversation stems largely from a data center proposal, referred to as Project Swan, that calls for a 600,000-square-foot data center near Old Tampa Highway and Wilkinson Roadwhich is a few miles west of downtown Lakeland.At Mondays City Commission meeting, leaders took the first step in moving forward with a 1-year pause on any such development, to have time to create reasonable regulations about potential adverse impacts facilities like this could create.Theyre namely looking at how this could affect the citys water supply, infrastructure, and electric grid.Theres a lot that we dont know that we have to get done in a year to even make it worthwhile, said Musick.Commissioner Ashley Troutman brought up the idea of expanding language in the ordinance beyond data centers, to include large utility demand facilities.In many ways, I believe were being shortsighted if we only define the conversation based on the term data center, said Troutman.A main concern is whether the city could handle the electricity load that comes with large data centers. The moratorium ordinance highlights large load customers as having a monthly peak load of 50 megawatts of electricity or more a month.Since the City of Lakeland owns its electricity serviceLakeland Electricit gives the city control over usage.Scott Bishop, from Lakeland Electric, shared at Mondays meeting that hes in favor of a temporary pause.I like the moratorium. I appreciate it. My heart is around reliability and affordability for our customers. Anything large doesnt feel that way, said Bishop.As city commissioners look ahead to next steps, many people in the community participated in public comment at Mondays meeting, sharing their concerns as well as support for the 1-year moratorium.Mondays meeting was just the first reading of the moratorium ordinance, so no action was taken.The final reading will be at the City Commission meeting in August, where a vote is expected. ...read more read less