City of Stirling rejects push to implement city-wide data centre ban

A push to investigate banning data centres across the City of Stirling has been rejected.

Cr Suzanne Migdale wanted the city to look into amending its local planning scheme to classify the facilities as a prohibited use.

Her proposal sparked almost an hour of debate at Tuesday night’s council meeting, with almost every council member weighing in on the potential risks and benefits of the facilities.

It was ultimately defeated in an 8–4 vote, with mayor Mark Irwin among those voting against it.

Cr Migdale said she was not opposed to technology or artificial intelligence, but believed data centres needed to be in areas equipped to handle their significant demands.

“I recognise that as our population grows and as more people and businesses use digital services, the demand for data storage and processing will also grow,” Cr Migdale said.

“But the question before us is not where the data centres are needed. We know they’re needed. The question is where they should be located.

“I believe they should be located in places that are properly planned and equipped to manage their significant demands, ideally in suitable regional or industrial areas, rather than within established metropolitan communities such as Stirling.”

She raised concerns about the amount of electricity and water used by large data centres, as well as potential noise, emissions and other impacts on surrounding communities.

Data centres are facilities that store digital information on large numbers of computer servers, supporting everything from websites and social media to cloud services and artificial intelligence.

As the uptake of AI systems grows around the world, so too has demand for the centres needed to support the technology.

However, their rapid expansion has also attracted growing scrutiny over the huge amounts of electricity and water some facilities require to operate, as well as amenity impacts.

According to the Australian Energy Market Operator, there are currently 162 large data centres across Australia, including 15 connected to WA’s main electricity grid.

Collectively, the facilities account for about 2 per cent of the nation’s grid-supplied electricity use, with demand forecast to roughly triple by 2030.

While recognising the concerns raised by Cr Migdale, several councillors argued a potential city-wide ban was unnecessary, pointing to smaller data centres already operating in the city.

Cr Tony Krsticevic said he believed concerns about large-scale data centres being built in the city were unrealistic.

“The ones people are scared of, to build that in the City of Stirling, you’d have to demolish half of Osborne Park to build one of these AI data centres,” Cr Krsticevic said.

“And we’re not going to demolish half of Osborne Park to build a data AI centre. So it’s an unrealistic expectation.”

Data centres are not currently defined as a specific land use under local or State planning legislation and are generally classified as warehouses or storage facilities.

Cr Krsticevic believed the city’s existing planning controls were enough to determine where data centres could operate.

“All the checks and balances are there. You know the planning team’s all over it. I don’t see the point in trying to amend (a local planning scheme) or go through some complicated process when it’s all covered,” he said.

The Federal Government is currently developing national standards for AI-related infrastructure, which Cr Migdale had hoped would have been considered as part of the city’s review.

Under the proposed framework, large data centres are set to be legally required to underwrite their own new power supply, pay their full share of connection costs, reduce their electricity use when needed to support the grid and operate as water-efficient as possible.

The city’s director of planning and development, Amanda Sheers, said officers would not be in a position to provide further guidance to the council until the Federal Government announced its framework. She was also wary of blanket prohibitions on land uses.

“Officers do have concerns about X-using (prohibitions) across the city-wide,” Ms Sheers said.

“We would only do that for really incompatible land uses. So I think our current scheme might have something like mining operations and corrective centres.

“The warehouse land use, we’ve already listed it as an X use in some of those sensitive zones, so residential, mixed use centres, the areas where we see residential ... we’re already prohibiting warehouses from locating in those zones.”

The Federal Government’s proposed artificial intelligence regulations are expected to be considered by Parliament in early 2027.