The Hayward City Council could make a decision about a proposed data center moratorium next month after it instructed city staff at a meeting this week to come back with more information.

At its Tuesday meeting, the council voted 7-0 to direct staff to start the process for prohibiting future data center approvals and will revisit the issue in October.

The vote comes in response to community outcry over the May 2025 approval of the 310,000-square-foot “Stack SVY03A” data center on Eden Landing Road in the city’s west side industrial zone.

“I’m sure I can speak for the council when I say we have received your emails, we have received your phone calls and we have, you know, been listening to all of you,” Mayor Mark Salinas told a large audience in attendance at Tuesday’s meeting.

The city’s staff will now research its existing policy, which already requires a community benefits package and sustainability plan, among other things, and come back to the City Council with a draft moratorium proposal.

The idea is to initiate a pause on data center approvals while potential impacts — including environmental and economic effects — on the community can be more thoroughly researched so the City Council can then potentially edit or rewrite the existing policy and also consider an outright ban.

Kiley Russell writes primarily for Local News Matters on issues related to equity and the environment. A Bay Area native, he has lived most of his life in Oakland. He studied journalism at San Francisco State University, worked for the Associated Press and the former Contra Costa Times, among other outlets. He has covered everything from state legislatures, local governments, federal and state courts, crime, growth and development, political campaigns of various stripes, wildfires and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.