ORDINANCE NO. _________

AN ORDINANCE OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF LAMAR, COLORADO, ESTABLISHING A TEMPORARY MORATORIUM ON THE SUBMISSION, ACCEPTANCE, PROCESSING, AND APPROVAL OF APPLICATIONS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OR EXPANSION OF DATA CENTERS WITHIN THE CITY OF LAMAR FOR A PERIOD OF EIGHTEEN MONTHS

WHEREAS, the City of Lamar, Colorado (the “City”) is a home rule municipal corporation organized and existing under Article XX of the Colorado Constitution and the Charter of the City of Lamar; and

WHEREAS, the City Council possesses authority under the Colorado Constitution, the City Charter, the City’s police powers, the Local Government Land Use Control Enabling Act, C.R.S. § 29-20-101 et seq., and other applicable law to regulate the use and development of land within the City in furtherance of the public health, safety, welfare, and orderly development of the community; and

WHEREAS, data centers and similar high-intensity computing facilities represent a rapidly evolving land use that may differ substantially from traditional commercial and industrial uses because of their potentially significant demands upon electrical generation and transmission infrastructure, water resources, wastewater systems, telecommunications infrastructure, emergency services, transportation systems, and other public and private infrastructure; and

WHEREAS, depending upon their size, design, technology, and operating characteristics, data centers may also create land-use impacts associated with noise, backup electrical generation, air emissions, heat generation, building mass and scale, lighting, security, water consumption, utility infrastructure, and compatibility with surrounding properties; and

WHEREAS, the City's existing zoning and development regulations were not specifically developed to address the unique characteristics and potential impacts of modern hyperscale, artificial-intelligence, high-performance-computing, cryptocurrency, cloud-computing, or other large-scale data-center facilities; and

WHEREAS, evaluating data-center development may require coordination among the City, Lamar Light and Power, water and wastewater utilities, engineering consultants, telecommunications providers, economic-development organizations, state agencies, affected property owners, potential developers, and the public, the City Council believes a temporary moratorium preventing development or expansion of a data center is necessary; and

WHEREAS, the Colorado General Assembly may consider legislation regarding statewide

data center facilities regulations during the 2027 legislative session that may impact local

regulation; and

WHEREAS, the City Council finds that accepting or approving applications for such facilities before the City has adequately studied their impacts and considered appropriate development standards could result in development inconsistent with future regulations and could impair the City's ability to adequately protect public infrastructure and resources; and

WHEREAS, the City Council therefore finds that it is necessary to temporary pause the acceptance and processing of applications, including but not limited to planning applications, building permits, engineering permits, or other development applications related to data center facilities for the period of eighteen months while the City conducts appropriate technical, financial, legal, utility, planning, and land-use analyses; and

WHEREAS, the limited effective duration of this ordinance is reasonable in length and is no longer than the time that the City reasonably anticipates is required to investigate, develop, and if appropriate adopt such regulations, however, Council reserves the right to extend this ordinance if additional time is necessary or terminate this ordinance if appropriate regulations are adopted and become effective before expiration of that period; and

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT ORDAINED BY THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF LAMAR, COLORADO:

Section 1.

The foregoing recitals are incorporated herein as conclusions, facts, determinations, and findings by City Council.

Section 2. Data Center Defined. A “Data Center” means a building, facility, portion of a building, or group of buildings whose primary use is the housing, operation, maintenance, storage, processing, management, or transmission of digital data through computer servers, data-storage systems, networking equipment, telecommunications equipment, or similar electronic equipment and has a demand of 1 megawatt (MW) of electrical capacity or greater.

The term includes, but is not limited to:

1. hyperscale data centers;
2. cloud-computing facilities;
3. artificial-intelligence or machine-learning computing facilities;
4. high-performance-computing facilities;
5. colocation data centers;
6. cryptocurrency or blockchain computing facilities;
7. server farms; and
8. other facilities whose principal use involves large-scale digital data processing, storage, computing, or transmission.

Section 3. Temporary Moratorium Established. Beginning on the effective date of this Ordinance, a temporary moratorium of eighteen (18) months is imposed upon the:

* submission;

* acceptance;

* processing;

* review; and

* approval

of any application, permit, site plan, development plan, conditional or special use permit, variance, rezoning request, subdivision application, building permit, development agreement, utility-service commitment, or other City authorization whose purpose is to establish a new Data Center or materially expand an existing Data Center within the corporate limits of the City of Lamar. During the moratorium, no City department, board, commission, officer, employee, or agent shall accept, process, approve, or issue an authorization prohibited by this Section except as specifically authorized by this Ordinance.

Section 4. Effective Date.

This ordinance is effective thirty (30) days after publication following final passage and shall continue in effect for eighteen months unless repealed or extended by further ordinance by the City Council.

INTRODUCED, READ IN FULL, PASSED ON FIRST READING AND ORDERED PUBLISHED this 9th day of November, 2026.

CITY OF LAMAR, COLORADO

By Kirk Crespin, Mayor

ATTEST:

By Linda Williams, City Clerk

PASSED ON SECOND READING AND ORDERED PUBLISHED this _______ day of________, 2026.

CITY OF LAMAR, COLORADO

By Kirk Crespin, Mayor

ATTEST:

By Linda Williams, City Clerk

Published November 13, 2026

In the Kiowa County Press.