Supervisors impose interim moratorium on data centers and narrow environmental appeals

The Board of Supervisors imposed an interim zoning moratorium on data centers across San Francisco on October 6, an urgency measure that took effect immediately and stops the city from approving new data center projects while it studies their effects.

The ordinance passed without objection. Because it came to the board as an urgency item, it needed a higher vote threshold than ordinary legislation and took effect on first reading rather than waiting for the second vote that most ordinances get. It covers the whole city, not one district, and pauses approvals rather than reaching existing facilities.

It directs the Planning Department to examine energy and water use, air quality, land use and community effects, and to report back with recommendations for permanent rules. The board must hold a hearing on that report. The supervisor who presented the measure said the pause would let the city write rules before land and power are committed to an industry whose demands are still being measured, and thanked the co-sponsors and the planning staff. No member spoke against it.

The board also changed how the city carries out its own environmental reviews. An ordinance amending the Administrative Code to align local practice with the California Environmental Quality Act passed on first reading on a 10-to-1 roll call, the only divided vote of the meeting.

The ordinance removes shadow analysis as a specified type of environmental impact to be studied, shortens the time to appeal certain environmental determinations to the Board of Supervisors, drops procedures for environmental documents that the state law does not require, and adopts recent state law changes to review timing. Shortening the appeal window gives residents and project opponents less time to file a challenge with the board. One supervisor voted no. The ordinance returns for a second reading before it takes effect.

The board declined to act on an ordinance that would have changed the rules for elections to three pension and health boards. The measure would have dropped statement-of-intention disclosure and reporting requirements for candidates seeking seats on the Retirement Board, the Health Service Board and the Retiree Health Care Trust Fund Board, removed third-party disclosure requirements for independent expenditures in those races, and deleted the training, audit and enforcement provisions tied to them.

A supervisor said parts of the proposal were worth doing but that it was not ready to pass, and moved to send it back to committee. That motion carried without objection, so the ordinance saw no final action and the committee will take it up again.

The board adopted a resolution urging the United States Census Bureau to reconsider changes proposed for the 2030 count. The resolution states that the changes would exclude non-citizens from being counted, end the collection of race and ethnicity data and drop questions about sexual orientation. An amendment removed a dollar figure from one of the resolution's findings, sharpened the argument that undercounting residents would cost cities with large immigrant populations federal funding, and added an argument that the proposed rule conflicts with the 14th Amendment. The amended resolution passed without objection, and no member sent it to committee.

Members used the roll call for introductions to put several new measures in the pipeline. One ordinance would require large grocery stores and drug stores to keep a human attendant on duty at self-service checkout areas. The supervisor who introduced it said it is aimed at protecting union jobs and reducing retail theft, and cited store data on losses.

Another would rename and strengthen the city's Expanded Compliance Control Program as the Compliance Oversight Program, adding planning code violations that can lead to a property being listed, lengthening the period the Planning Department can look back at a property's history, and giving the department more discretion in enforcement.

A third would create a sober spaces program and fund, expanding free access to city facilities for abstinence-based recovery meetings and directing money to recovery nonprofits. Members also introduced resolutions marking the centennial of the dahlia as San Francisco's official flower and the centennial of a large park in the southeastern part of the city.

The board adjourned in memory of a member of the retirement board and longtime public servant, after supervisors spoke in her honor.

Public comment, taken before the votes, covered eviction and habitability complaints, rent stabilization, Latino and transgender representation, artificial intelligence and data centers, homelessness and addiction services, a national HIV prevention observance, the city budget and allegations of corruption, a dispute with a transit agency over an accommodation, a proposed ban on retail animal sales, and cuts to supportive housing funding. Several speakers opposed a rent-related file before the board and criticized city officials. Others asked the board to support the HIV prevention resolution.