OAKVILLE, ONT. – Oakville has put a one-year hold on new data centres, making it the first municipality in Ontario to take this action as local officials address worries about the surge of facilities that support artificial intelligence.
Councillors in this town southwest of Toronto have asked staff to explore if existing regulations need updates to tackle potential noise, vibration, and emissions issues from data centres, along with wider land-use factors.
The approval for the moratorium on Tuesday comes as nearby Mississauga is preparing to vote next month on its own pause, while other municipalities in Ontario are considering what regulations they can implement regarding these new developments.
Even though Oakville officials state there are no official applications for data centres currently, developer Hive Digital Technologies announced plans in May for a 320-megawatt AI facility in the Greater Toronto Area.
Land records show that a subsidiary of Hive purchased property in Oakville just days before this announcement was made.
The company did not provide an immediate response to The Canadian Press’ request for comment.
This moratorium was initiated by the councillor representing the area where the property is located.
Hamilton was previously the first municipality in Ontario to propose a data centre moratorium; however, that proposal did not pass. Mississauga has directed staff to prepare its own temporary hold, with voting scheduled for next month.
Meanwhile, Waterloo Region voted on Tuesday to ask staff to investigate the impacts of data centres and possibly push for a provincial framework that outlines how proposed developments should be assessed and managed. Last month, Toronto city council passed a similar motion.
The competition among major tech firms like Open AI, Anthropic, Microsoft, and Google has driven up demand for data centres-energy-intensive buildings filled with powerful computer chips used for training and running increasingly complex AI models.
Canada has only a few large hyperscale data centres so far but many more are expected soon. In July, Meta revealed plans for a one-gigawatt data centre in Alberta that will be powered by a new gas plant.
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