On Jan. 13th, City Council’s Neighborhood Planning and Development Committee will be meeting to discuss zoning around data centers in Kansas City.

Right now, zoning laws are set up in Kansas City to pretty much automatically approve new data centers. That ain’t right! Our city’s leaders need to listen to KC residents and take action to stop the rise of destructive data centers.

Data centers are massive polluters, reinforce fossil fuel reliance, and will negatively impact Kansas Citian’s quality of life in the form of energy rate hikes, neighborhood degradation, and the exploitation of our resources with no tangible gain for us. To make matters worse, billionaire-owned tech companies get tax abatements to build these data centers, robbing our communities of funding to public services like education.

That’s why we are demanding that City Council require Special Use Permits for all data centers. These permits will mean that each individual data center development will have to go through an approval process within city council, rather than being automatically allowed under zoning code. With this requirement, the public will have the opportunity to weigh in on each possible data center – and force the city to listen to the people!

Kansas City cannot continue to build these data centers with our resources and without our input! Tell City Council to require special use permits for all data centers!

If you want to give in-person testimony, attend the Neighborhood Planning and Development Committee on January 13th at 1:30pm at City Hall or on Zoom.