Data Centres

Yes. The City’s Official Plan and Zoning By-law apply to all development.  Under the City's Zoning By-law, data centres are defined as  “Information and Data Processing” use, which is permitted in the City’s employment zones.

All new employment area development, including expansions to existing buildings, are required to follow the Site Plan Control process. Site Plan does not deal with property use; rather, it focuses on how a property is developed. The Planning Act requires that Site Plan approval be delegated to City staff.  Because the use is permitted by the Official Plan and Zoning By-law, the public and Council are not part of the review and approval process. 

The Site Plan process ensures that the proposed building complies with the setback, height and size regulations of the Council-approved Zoning By-law, as well as parking and landscaping requirements. Staff also review the grading, driveway location and servicing infrastructure, including water, wastewater and stormwater management.

City staff also consult with Waterloo Region and Grandbridge Energy as part of the Site Plan review. Any comments, concerns or conditions of approval from these agencies are included in the conditions of Site Plan approval.

A building permit is mandatory for new constructions or alterations to an existing building and must comply with the Zoning By-law. A building permit must be issued once the applicant demonstrates that all requirements of the Ontario Building Code have been met.

There is a data centre along Vondrau that has been in existence since 2010.

Council’s approved a water allocation policy prioritizing Cambridge’s available capacity. High-water users, defined as 0.231 L/s or greater, are ranked lowest in  priority, while housing and major employment opportunities are ranked higher.

Modern data centres may use less water than older facilities because newer cooling systems can reduce reliance on water-based cooling.

Electricity service is not automatic. Data centre operators must request service from GrandBridge Energy. If capacity is available after accounting for housing and community needs, excess capacity may be allocated. Depending on demand, a future data centre may need to wait several years for electricity capacity.

While data centres have been around in some variation since the early 1970s, modern data centres with networking and client-server computing expanded in the 1980s. Larger cloud facilities emerged in the 2000s with Cambridge’s first large scale data centre in 2010. 

Data centres support essential technology services, including AI tools and secure data storage for health care, hospitals, financial institutions and other sectors.

The federal government has stated that access to domestic compute infrastructure is crucial for:

• AI development
• Research and innovation
• Economic competitiveness
• Protection of Canadian intellectual property and data
• National digital sovereignty

The government's stated objective is to keep Canadian AI capacity, expertise and data resources on Canadian soil. 

At a high level, the current federal government position is to encourage and accelerate the development of data centres in Canada, particularly AI and cloud-computing facilities, while emphasizing Canadian sovereignty, economic growth and domestic compute capacity.

Ontario has identified AI infrastructure, and digital technology as strategic economic sectors. The Province has stated that data centres can support:

• Investment attraction
• High-quality jobs
• Domestic data hosting
• Digital sovereignty
• Growth of Ontario's digital economy

A provincial concern is power demand. Ontario forecasts that data centres could account for approximately 13% of new electricity demand by 2035. The Province, the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) and the Ontario energy sector are all planning for significant growth in data centre electricity consumption.

This is particularly important because AI-oriented facilities can require larger electrical loads than traditional industrial uses.

Historically, large electricity connection requests were generally handled through standard grid-connection processes. Ontario is now creating a framework that allows the Province to establish additional requirements before certain data centres can connect to the electrical grid.

• Job creation
• Economic development
• Domestic data hosting
• Data sovereignty
• Broader provincial interests

The Province has also publicly stated that data centre proponents should pay the costs associated with connecting and servicing their electrical demand rather than transferring those costs to existing ratepayers. Recent statements from the Ministry of Energy indicate that data centres may be required to cover generation, transmission and related connection costs associated with serving their loads.

The Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks (MECP) started an investigation on a potential spill that occurred during construction at the site.  MECP has primary control over the site, remediation requirements and any potential enforcement actions. 

Any further public inquiries should be directed to the province until the investigation is complete.