REPORT TO COUNCIL
SUBJECT
Title
Joint Study Session with Planning Commission and City Council on Data Centers and related Development Regulations within the City of Santa Clara
Report
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The City of Santa Clara (City) is home to an extraordinary array of high-tech companies, including Applied Materials, Intel, Nvidia, Oracle, Ericsson, Hitachi, and more. The City is attractively located and poised for development, tourism, and continued growth in the high-tech and data center processing sectors. The City has a competitive advantage with respect to attracting and retaining high-tech companies due to its ownership of and the competitive rates offered by Silicon Valley Power (SVP). Since 1996, data centers have been approved in the City of Santa Clara to support the fast-paced growth of the high-tech industry and as necessary infrastructure to power cloud computing and now Artificial Intelligence (AI). Santa Clara is home to 56 active or under-construction stand-alone data centers. In addition, two data center applications have been approved but have not started construction, and one data center application is currently under review by staff.
Due to the growth and number of approved data center applications, the City is holding a joint study session with the Planning Commission and the City Council. The intent is to inform, provide background, and share information on the benefits of data centers, as well as discuss concerns surrounding the location and prevalence of data centers in the City. In order to frame the discussion, staff will provide the following:
1. a Staff Report (this document)
2. a White Paper on Data Centers (Att 4)
3. a PowerPoint Presentation (presented at the May 20 meeting)
Information will be provided by the multiple City departments that are responsible for reviewing and approving data center applications, including the Community Development Department (CDD), Silicon Valley Power (SVP), Water & Sewer Utilities (Water & ...
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