Franklin’s town council has approved a one-year moratorium on the development of any new data centers.

The town follows in the footsteps of a growing number of local governments, including those in the Smoky Mountain News coverage area like Canton, Swain County and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.

The moratorium was passed following a public hearing during the regularly scheduled meeting held July 6 at Town Hall and posted to YouTube by Macon Media — a meeting that drew a massive crowd that spilled into the hallways.

The hearing began with Town Attorney John Henning, Jr., explaining that as zoning regulations were written, there was no way to safeguard against development of a data center. In fact, there was no way to even regulate such a facility should one be planned. He noted at one point that there are a couple of parcels in town limits that could appeal to a company wishing to build a data center.

“We would have been in a tough spot to prevent that from happening,” Henning said.

“We should all be thankful we’re not dealing with a live issue,” he later noted.

The one-year moratorium is intended to serve as a stop gap to allow the board time to explore how to control data centers, including possibly requiring that developers find ways to power and cool the facilities without stressing local utilities and infrastructure.

“That’s the one way you can explore how you can control and ideally discourage that kind of development in this town,” Henning said.

During Henning’s explanation, several people in the audience expressed concern that the town may still not being doing enough to regulate potential data centers, especially since they can’t entirely eliminate the possibility of one coming to Franklin.

“That’s scary,” one person repeated several times before the crowd came back to order.

Vice Mayor Mike Lewis noted that the town is not allowed by law to outright ban data centers, so the best bet is to make them as “low impact as possible.”

Public commenters overwhelmingly supported  the moratorium, listing the oft-repeated problems data centers can cause in rural areas, from using an inordinate amount of water and power to generating constant noise to how they compromise pastoral or wild landscapes and the very rural character that has come to define Franklin.

Michael Scarborough, who said he has worked in the IT industry for over 40 years, noted that any data center built now will likely be rendered obsolete by future technological advances within 10 years. In the meantime, it wouldn’t do much for the people who call Franklin home.

“They don’t employ anybody,” he said. “The jobs that will be there will be security and routine maintenance.”

The board ultimately voted unanimously to approve the moratorium.

Prior to public the public comment period, Mayor Stacey Guffey spoke, reiterating details outlined by Henning. He also expressed frustration with the lack of a municipal government’s ability in North Carolina to take action to prevent data center development.

“It’s really disappointing when you run for office and get in this seat that you find that almost every time you turn around the state legislature is passing laws that limit the kind of power we have to protect you from things like data centers, so you need to be reaching out to them,” the mayor said.

Many who offered public comment called on county and state officials to act. Matt Jackson asked members of the public to reach out to those elected officials who represent the county to encourage data center restrictions, reminding everyone that the next meeting of the Macon County Commission is Tuesday, July 14.

“I would love to see half of you there,” he said.