Tuesday, August 25, 2026, 9 a.m. (Austin time), Austin City Hall
The Austin City Council work session held two briefings and took no votes. In the first, staff from Austin Planning, Austin Energy and Austin Water presented recommendations on regulating large data centers ahead of Item 61 on the August 27 agenda, explaining that the resolution would only initiate land use definitions and code amendments, with proposed amendments targeted for spring 2027. Mayor Watson said he is working with legal staff on a freeze on approvals of data center applications until a policy is adopted, and Council Members Siegel, Laine and Duchen said they support prohibiting hyperscale data centers; Council Member Siegel described a motion sheet adding landscaping, impervious cover, floodplain, heat mitigation, co-located power generation, enforcement and anti-loophole provisions. In the second briefing, the Equity and Inclusion office and consultant Honeycomb presented the city's first Human Rights Impact Review and Report, which identifies 12 priority areas, 92 human rights issues and 69 proposed mitigations. Council members asked how progress would be tracked, and staff described a public dashboard with quarterly updates.
0:07 You are watching a meeting of the Austin City Council with Mayor Kirk Watson, Mayor pro, tim cheadle,
0:16 Vela council members Natasha Harper Madison, Vanessa Fuentes, José velazquez, Ryan Alter, crystal lane, Mike Siegel, Paige Ellis, zoe
0:39 cadre, mark uchin, city attorney deborah thomas, city clerk erica brady, and city manager tc broad.
1:00 Good morning, everybody. It's nine o'clock in the morning on Tuesday, August 25th, 2026, and I will call to order
1:07 this City Council work session.
1:09 We have a quorum of the City Council present, and we are meeting in the City Council chambers
1:13 located in City Hall at 3 0 1 west second street in Austin, texas.
1:19 Uh, we have two items that are on the agenda, uh, briefings in both instances.
1:25 And what we'll do members is I think just go in the order of the two that we
1:29 have, uh, with regard to, to those where the agendas just set out.
1:35 Uh, unless there's any questions or comments, I'll recognize the city manager and then we'll go to, uh,
1:41 the briefings.
1:46 Thank you, Mayor. Uh, the first briefing, uh, today is related to data centers, uh, and on May 15th, 2026,
1:54 Mayor Watson, you asked staff through the message board to provide recommendations on managing large load data centers
2:01 in Austin. On August 19th, the city staff distributed a memorandum regarding staff's recommendations as a response to the
2:10 message board post today, joy hardin, uh, interim assistant director with Austin planning.
2:16 Stuart riley, general manager with Austin energy and shaa rolson, director of Austin water, will give a presentation
2:22 regarding those recommendations in, in anticipation of item 61 on August 27th, City Council agenda.
2:30 I'll now turn it over, uh, to ms.
2:31 Harden, uh, to begin, uh, the presentation.
2:34 Okay. Thank you, manager.
2:38 Oh, we do need to do that.
2:39 Uh, before ms. Hardin speaks, let's call the speakers.
2:42 We have a few speakers that are signed up to speak.
2:44 Thank you for reminding me.
2:48 Mayor. We have, uh, for item b one, trey salinas, stacy schmidt, craig naser, phillip fitzgerald, dr.
3:02 Gabriela kronis, please make your way to the front.
3:06 State your name for the record.
3:09 Mr. Salinas, you have the floor.
3:11 Good morning, uh, Mayor, City Council and city manager.
3:14 I'm trace salinas here on behalf of ccare, which is the coalition for clean, affordable, and reliable energy.
3:21 Uh, we're a coalition of small, medium, large, and commercial industrial customers for Austin energy and Austin water.
3:28 I wanna thank you for your time this morning, and we want to thank the Mayor for his
3:31 leadership on this issue.
3:34 I wanna let you know that we agree there needs to be regulation that provides clarity and certainty
3:41 around land use definitions.
3:44 We wanna remain a high tech city, but we need to do it in a way that respects
3:48 our resources and allows for community input.
3:52 We encourage regulations that allow for more normal, smaller type, responsibly built data centers like the ones we've
4:00 had inside the city of Austin for the last 10 to 20 years.
4:03 Now, these are the smaller centers that our local technology providers and city departments depend on.
4:11 Ccare is here as a resource to the City Council as you work through these rule changes, uh,
4:16 today, tomorrow, and Thursday.
4:18 If you are interested in seeing what we are seeing with regards to data centers inside your city
4:24 and what we're seeing right outside the city limit lines, we're here to share that with you.
4:28 Again, we are here as a resource and applaud your efforts today.
4:31 Thank you. Thank you, ms. Schmidt.
4:35 Good morning, Mayor and council.
4:36 Stacy schmidt, and I am with opportunity Austin.
4:40 I, as trey said, I commend you all for having this, uh, discussion today and the importance that
4:47 it is to our city.
4:49 Data centers are nuanced and very complex issues that communities across the state and country are working through
4:55 in real time. Not every project is right for every community.
5:00 It's not simply whether to support or oppose data centers broadly.
5:04 It's whether that project makes sense for that community based on its locations, it's resource needs, its benefits,
5:12 and its commitments to the people in that community.
5:15 This goes back to your work back in April with a resident resolution for an economic development framework.
5:22 As it stated, Austin will be strategic on its industries and businesses who seek to relocate in Austin.
5:30 Simply put, we want companies that fit with Austin values and will help balance the tax base.
5:37 Austin has real strengths on these companies and industries who wanna locate here, but as rey mentioned, there
5:43 are many companies who have on-premise data centers that support the work that they do right now and
5:49 have been for many years.
5:51 The state is working through their framework.
5:53 The governor has identified guidelines and has called for an audit.
5:58 So I commend you all for taking this measured and responsible approach while the state develops their larger
6:05 framework. We look forward to working with you and the staff to develop guidelines for our city when
6:11 it comes to digital infrastructure projects.
6:14 I'll also caution to keep in mind those companies and businesses that have those data centers that support
6:20 their work right now for that they can continue to be successful for many years.
6:26 We don't wanna cause unintended consequences.
6:28 Austin can continue to welcome responsible infrastructure investment while protecting their resources and the quality of life that
6:35 we have. Thank you.
6:38 Mr. Naser, your name was called and you weren't in the room.
6:40 Would you like to speak?
6:52 Yes. Hello. Craig naser, sierra club.
6:55 Um, this whole data center thing is a huge environmental issues, you know, because of the amount of
7:02 resources it uses in particularly, uh, electricity, water, um, light and sound.
7:11 Those can all be con considerable problems when data centers move into a neighborhood or even sitting out
7:18 in the middle of nowhere.
7:20 Now, it's one of the interesting things to keep in mind though, is this is a rapidly changing
7:24 technology and the way they train there, there are three kinds of data centers.
7:30 Basically, there's the kind we use for the internet, the smaller kind that we have, all distributed all
7:35 around all, uh, Austin right now we have ai, which is huge.
7:40 The usually very huge centers, uh, working on, you know, the new ideas about artificial intelligence.
7:48 And then we have crypto.
7:50 And I would say that china has outlawed crypto.
7:55 So crypto has moved to america.
7:58 And I think, you know, it's hard I think to say something can be here or can't based
8:04 on what it is, but we need to look at that and make those kinds of choices if
8:08 we want crypto centers all over Austin.
8:11 So keeping that in mind, there are, there is another thing.
8:15 Is this a rapidly moving technology?
8:18 Ai is getting more efficient.
8:19 There's good and bad things to ai that's kind of like out of the scope of a two
8:24 minute conversation. But there are good and bad things about it.
8:28 But the thing to know is this, the human brain uses 20 watts of electricity.
8:34 That's like an led.
8:37 Uh, the equivalent amount of computation in a computer uses about 20 million watts.
8:45 That is, and, and that has got to get more efficient.
8:49 It's going to get more efficient, meaning these big data centers are gonna change rapidly.
8:55 Thank you, mr. Naser.
8:57 Thank you. I think you just looked at us and said we're not a data center, um, even
9:03 combined as a council.
9:04 Yeah. Um, thank you, sir.
9:06 Um, alright. The manager, we do have remaining speakers.
9:10 Mayor, we, we have more?
9:12 Yes, sir. Okay. Continuing for item b one, we have brad massengill, bobby lavinsky, kaba white, camille cook,
9:25 and all speakers for this item have been called.
9:27 Thank you very much.
9:29 Um, so because of the public comment, I want to, I, I want to, if the, indulge me
9:36 a second because I, I, I think this council has already revealed how important it sees this item,
9:44 and that's why it's taking the kind of care and making the kinds of statements it's made that
9:49 are pretty clear on, on what we're hoping to see.
9:52 As the manager pointed out in May, we started this process, um, by the message board post.
9:58 And I've, I've been very pleased with the way the council has, uh, worked to kind of coalesce
10:04 around things on the message board.
10:06 But the, the idea was that we would, we would propose a, a framework for preventing and regulating
10:12 data centers in Austin, uh, utilizing all of the avail.
10:16 And I want to say that again, utilizing all of the available tools that we have as, as
10:22 a municipality to protect our residents and our natural resources.
10:27 And I believe I can speak for this council based upon what I've seen, uh, Council Member say
10:32 when I say that we all want to make sure we end up with a framework that creates
10:38 legal, durable, and enforceable rules that protect quality of life issues.
10:43 And those, as have been pointed out this morning, include light noise, heat, land, energy use, water use,
10:51 and any other, any other things that we are in a position as a municipality to safeguard.
10:59 I also, and I think, again, the council has indicated this as well, council, individual council members, we
11:05 want to be in a situation where we think what we're, think about what we're doing in a
11:10 thorough way, so that we don't, by doing something, don't create any loopholes for bad actors in the
11:17 way we go about this.
11:19 And that's one of the reasons that I, I posted on the message board, I can't remember now,
11:24 but a few days ago, and there's been some follow up on that for a freeze.
11:30 And, and, and I'm, again, I've been pleased to see Council Member support on that, a freeze on
11:35 the approval of any application to any city department for the purpose of placing a data center in
11:41 the city limits or the etj or in our, um, service areas with our, of our utilities until
11:48 we have a completed policy that's been adopted by the council.
11:52 Um, in fact, on Thursday when we take up the resolution, I'm working on a, um, uh, an
12:00 I an addition to that, that gives direction on that agenda item that calls for such a freeze,
12:06 but make sure that we do it in a way that is legal, durable and enforceable.
12:11 As I've indicated, um, none of us, and I wanna say this clearly, I think, again, I think
12:17 the council has been very clear about how it feels about this.
12:20 None of us want to have anybody try to play the system, uh, in a way where we're
12:25 not able to protect our citizens.
12:27 And that is the goal of our thoughtful, appropriate process.
12:32 And it starts with this, uh, well, it starts started before, but, but part of what we're doing
12:37 today is having this work session that I know we all look forward to.
12:40 So ms. Har harden, um, we've been waiting breathlessly for you to come forward.
13:04 Thank you. Thank you all.
13:05 The manager's already said this, but I, I wanna say on behalf of the council, and I think,
13:09 uh, again, I think I can speak for the entire council, we appreciate the level of work that
13:14 your departments are going into to make sure that we do this in a way that's protective of
13:19 our citizens. So thank you.
13:21 Thank you. Good morning, Mayor and council.
13:24 I'm joy harden, interim assistant director with Austin planning.
13:28 I'm stuart riley, Austin energy general manager.
13:31 Good morning, shay rawls rolson Austin water director, and we will be proofing you today on data centers.
13:39 We're here today to discuss the emergence of high impact data center development around the Austin region and
13:46 highlight some of the areas for consideration.
13:49 As the city manager outlined.
13:52 The Mayor introduced this discussion about data centers with a post on the council message board.
13:57 And as you May know, staff have provided a memo in response to the mayor's post.
14:03 And for those who have not seen the memo, you May find in the backup for this thursday's
14:08 council agenda. The resolution is item number 61.
14:12 The discussions we'll have today are meant to build upon the research and recommendations presented in the memo
14:18 and chart a path forward.
14:20 And again and again, as I mentioned, there'll be a resolution on this week's council agenda for your
14:26 consideration that if supported, we'll initiate code amendments.
14:31 It is important to note that the resolution for council consideration only initiate the creation of definitions and
14:39 any associated code amendments, but does not make any changes to the code at this time.