Fans that are part of a cooling system are seen on the roof of a data center, on April 27, 2026, in Hillsboro, Ore. AP Photo/Jenny Kane
Councillors in a rural municipality bordering Calgary have voted to pause new data centre proposals while the local government works to pin down the rules that would apply to such developments.
“This landscape has changed dramatically over the last year,” Coun. Alison Whiting told a council meeting last week, a recording of which has been posted on Rocky View County’s website.
“We all know that the rules from above changed. General knowledge and understanding of the impacts of data centres have changed. Public perception and public engagement on it have changed.”
Whiting put forward a motion directing the county’s administration to place a “temporary moratorium” on new applications requesting that land be redesignated for data centre use.
The hiatus is to be in effect until the county completes its Emerging Sector Strategy, which is meant to guide the development of its tech and tourism industries, and it approves a new regulatory framework. Councillors told the meeting that work is expected to wrap up in the fall.
“This just gives us a moment to pause, get those questions answered and give us an actual framework to make decisions going forward,” Whiting told the meeting.
“We could deal with them on a case-by-case basis as they come forward, but I think if we don’t have any more knowledge when they come forth, we’re still on the back foot.”
Whiting’s motion passed 5-2.
“It looks good optically, but I think there’s some unintended consequences,” said Coun. Kevin Hanson, who voted against the motion.
“I think this is a bit of overreaction and I think might be just a little bit too strict … I like that fact that it wants to make us more accountable but I think it might unintentionally hinder some good smaller business in the county.”
Rocky View County forms a horseshoe of farmland and bedroom communities around Calgary’s northern, eastern and western limits, and it has been attracting strong interest from data centre developers.
The municipality has approved zoning for a Beacon AI Centers project near the hamlet of Indus, but last year council voted down another proposal from Kineticor near Balzac. The municipality is also weighing another proposal by Chinook Development LP near Langdon.
Data centres house the computing hardware needed to make a variety of tech applications run. With breakneck growth in artificial intelligence, the facilities have been growing to mind-boggling proportions. So too has their thirst for power, with many investing in adjacent electrical plants big enough to power a city.
The Alberta government has been eager to attract so-called hyperscale developers to set up shop in the province, but local concerns have been raised about water use, noise and utility bills. The province is prioritizing developers that provide their own power supply so as not to overstrain the grid.
Earlier this month, tech giant Meta Platforms Inc. announced a $13-billion plan to build a data centre complex north of Edmonton, linked to a new gas-fired power plant to be built by Pembina Pipeline Corp., Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners and Kineticor Asset Management.
In Alberta, local governments have authority over the zoning for the data centres themselves, while the Alberta Utilities Commission has oversight over any associated power operations.
Researchers at York University’s Schulich School of Business have been mapping Canada’s emerging data centre landscape and have found that Alberta is at the epicentre of the boom.
That province accounts for 92 percent of planned new capacity, while it represents 10 percent of facilities currently active, said their paper.
