Marina temporarily bans potential data center projects.

As tech companies build resource-heavy data centers across the country to power their artificial intelligence operations, the backlash has been swift.

Less than an hour’s drive north from Marina, Amazon is building a controversial 438,000-square-foot data center in Gilroy. Because it met all city zoning requirements, the facility was approved in 2025 internally.

It’s this facility that’s currently under construction, and the growing awareness of such facilities across the nation, that led Marina Community Development Director Guido Persicone to recommend a 45-day prohibition on data center permits.

The Marina City Council unanimously approved the moratorium on Sept. 15, with the possibility of extending it for two years.

While no applications for permits for data centers have been filed in Marina, Persicone said the temporary prohibition will allow City staff to research the issue. Current zoning code allows such facilities to be built on some industrial properties, including within downtown.

“There is some wiggle room that causes concern,” he said.

After outcry from the community, Gilroy approved a similar 45-day moratorium on new data centers. Other cities in the state have followed suit, including outright banning the facilities.

Marina resident Fred Nelson urged the council to go further and ban AI in schools and the production of materials used for AI.

“AI is a contagion of idiocy and I don’t want it to infect my children,” he said. “I want to create a literate, safe society where truth is still something that we value.”

Councilmember Jenny McAdams said Marina has a “history of environmental injustices,” taking on the landfill and the contaminated former Fort Ord, among other things.

“I don’t know if anyone will propose a data center in Marina, but it’s certainly not going in Monterey, or Pacific Grove, or Carmel or Seaside,” she said. “It seems the likelihood will be here or unincorporated county land near us.”