Denver is opening applications for a new resident-expert working group tasked with deciding how — and whether — data centers should be allowed to expand once the city's construction moratorium lifts next year. The panel will include at least 20 people, ranging from air quality specialists to union representatives, and applicants must live in Denver.
Applications will be open from August 21 through September 4 at a new city website, denvergov.org/datacenters, according to the Denver Gazette. The Denver City Council and Mayor Mike Johnston's office will work together to convene the group, which the city says will include one air quality expert, two people from academia, two healthcare experts, two union representatives, two utility representatives, one industry representative, and three people from nonprofit or neighborhood organizations, alongside seven general community members. The city also plans to hold a public call to solicit additional applicants for the group.
Council members Paul Kashmann, Serena Gonzales-Gutierrez, and Darrell Watson all announced the working group and website, per the Denver Gazette's report. Johnston framed the effort in blunt terms, saying the process is about putting Denverites over data centers, and that the city aims to protect residents' air, water, and quality of life.
A Moratorium Born From North Denver Backlash
The working group marks the next phase of Denver's one-year construction freeze, according to a news release cited by the Denver Gazette. On May 18, the Denver City Council unanimously passed Ordinance 26-0431, which froze the acceptance and processing of new zoning permits and site development applications where a data center is the primary proposed land use, according to Denver's Legistar records. That moratorium runs through May 2027, giving the new working group less than a year to shape whatever rules come next.
The pause traces back to community anger over CoreSite's 180,000-square-foot DE3 data center under construction at 4900 N. Race St. in the Globeville-Elyria-Swansea neighborhood. The 18-megawatt facility is projected to consume up to 230,000 gallons of water per day at peak capacity, as Floodlight News has reported. During the May moratorium vote, Council President Amanda Sandoval publicly apologized to Globeville-Elyria-Swansea residents for failing to stop the CoreSite project in October 2024, when the council had voted to grant the developer a $9 million municipal tax incentive package.
Colorado Lawmakers Left A Vacuum
Denver's move to regulate at the local level exists because state lawmakers didn't. The Colorado General Assembly allowed two competing data center bills to die in committee in May — HB26-1030, which proposed state tax exemptions, and SB26-102, which sought mandatory environmental oversight — leaving Colorado without statewide standards, according to Rocky Mountain Real Estate Law. That failure forced a patchwork of Front Range responses: Jefferson County enacted a 10-month pause through March 2027, Broomfield adopted an 18-month freeze, and Longmont capped facility capacity at 100 megawatts or 5% of regional grid capacity, per Axios Denver.
Hoodline previously reported on Longmont's mega data center ban, and on Colorado Springs fast-tracking its own Project Taurus AI data hub even as neighbors there plotted a showdown. Commerce City-area officials also imposed a 45-day freeze in August over missing municipal code definitions, part of a broader scramble by Colorado municipalities to catch up with a fast-moving industry.
The Grid Math Driving The Debate
Underlying all of it is a strain on the region's power supply. Public Service Company of Colorado, known as Xcel Energy, reported pending interconnection applications from data center developers seeking 5.8 gigawatts of electricity — nearly equal to the utility's entire existing 6.2-gigawatt generating capacity in Colorado — according to KUNC. That demand has triggered plans for $22 billion in new generation and transmission infrastructure.
A March 2026 Colorado Public Utilities Commission staff report warned that Xcel's proposed infrastructure expansion could increase residential electricity rates by up to 55% while tripling the utility's annual Colorado profits to $1.9 billion by 2031, if those costs are shifted onto general ratepayers, the Colorado Sun reported. In response, the Public Utilities Commission ordered Xcel to draft a specialized large-load tariff structure meant to ensure data center operators cover their own grid infrastructure costs rather than passing them on to existing residential customers.
The stakes for local tech firms are already visible. Denver-based aerospace company Boom Supersonic introduced a 42-megawatt natural gas turbine called Superpower in May, designed to power data centers off-grid without water, after CEO Blake Scholl warned that local municipal crackdowns could force the company to relocate out of Colorado, as Hoodline reported in its earlier coverage of the Denver moratorium fight.
Part Of A Bigger National Wave
Denver's regulatory push is not an isolated local skirmish. Data compiled by Interconnected Capital in August showed more than 200 local moratoriums and 23 state-level regulatory bills across 43 states have been enacted or tracked nationwide, as governments grapple with the environmental and infrastructure demands of rapid AI server growth. Denver's working group will now spend the next several months trying to translate that national reckoning into zoning, water, and energy standards specific to a city still working through the fallout of the CoreSite project and its tax-incentive history.
