Nashville’s hottest ticket? Try the Metro Council hearing on data centers

One of the most popular tickets in Nashville next week might not be a concert or a sporting event. It could be a ticket to speak at Tuesday’s Metro Council meeting, when city leaders will consider multiple proposals to regulate new data centers.

Officials are enacting a new protocol in anticipation of a flood of speakers, following years of tension over the way it handles hot-button public hearings.

In recent weeks, Nashvillians have shown up en masse to oppose proposed new data centers. More than 500,000 people have signed onto a petition opposing a controversial facility planned near the Nashville Zoo. Hundreds of residents gathered at a Metro Planning Commission meeting last month to urge the city to take action against it. And, just this week, the Mayor filed legislation seeking eminent domain on the property in an attempt to halt the new facility.

Many of the residents who showed up at the Metro Planning Commission also spoke in favor of regulatory data center measures currently under consideration by the council. That’s the legislation set for public hearing.

There are two items drawing a lot of attention:

• one would establish zoning regulations around new centers — and it would ban massive data centers over 500,000 square feet (like Elon Musk’s xAI supercomputer in Memphis), and create building restrictions for smaller centers
• the other would enact a temporary moratorium, ceasing permits for centers either through November or until the zoning restrictions take effect

While the upcoming Metro Council meeting certainly won’t be the first time Nashvillians have spoken out about data centers, it is the first time the council has required tickets to speak at a public hearing.

Historically, public hearings on controversial topics — like the city budget, or the Nissan Stadium deal — have drawn hundreds, and can lead to late-night meetings where residents wait for hours to speak.

During last month’s budget public hearing, a number of speakers lamented the process.

“I’m disturbed by the fact that there are seniors, there are folks with disability, there are folks with children, there are those who don’t speak the language well, who are vying for an opportunity to get in this line,” said DarKenya Waller, the executive director for the Legal Aid Society of Middle Tennessee. “And it is the strongest, the fittest who are getting there first.”

Get your ticket

Tickets will begin to be handed out at 5 p.m. on the second floor of the Historic Metro Courthouse, before the meeting gets underway at 6:30 p.m. A release from the council says everybody who wants to speak on the issue will be heard. Each speaker will be allocated the standard 2 minutes.

The council says the ticketing process aims to minimize time spent standing in line. However, it could still be awhile — the proposed data center regulations and moratorium are the last items on the public hearing agenda.

The tickets are only required for people who want to talk about the data center legislation. Anyone wishing to speak about other items on public hearing will not need a ticket.