Data centers and Bourbonnais do not appear to be a match – at least not at this point.

Bourbonnais officials decided Wednesday to put in place a moratorium on building data centers in the village.

The action took place during an Economic and Community Development meeting.

Trustees agreed with Mayor Jeff Keast and Administrator Mike Van Mill. The action gives officials time to prepare legislation.

“Those regulations are going to take some time, and what we’re proposing here is a moratorium on any applications, any sitings of data centers,” Van Mill said.

Trustees are scheduled to vote on proposed legislation at Monday’s board meeting. The moratorium gives officials a year to create or amend current ordinances.

“The moratorium is basically a full stop, everything.” Van Mill said after the meeting.

He added: “Local governments use that in order to be able to have some breathing room to be able to review and analyze the direction they want to go on important matters like this.

“It was obvious that the residents saw it as an important matter, and we’re going to take it with equal seriousness as they did in coming to a conclusion on it. This is a pause button.”

Approximately 100 residents attended the board’s June 1 meeting raising concerns.

During a Planning and Zoning Board meeting in April, village officials discussed with board members the need of tightening the village’s zoning ordinance for data centers and similar projects.

Word circulated via social media postings the village was going to approve a proposed data center.

Keast and Van Mill explained the village is not in favor of locating any data center in the village.

“When we started this process, I’m like, ‘Hey, let’s put the regulations in.’ The residents came and said, ‘We don’t want any regulations because we don’t want it.’ This is, again, a temporary measure,” Keast said after Wednesday’s meeting.

“I can’t stress that enough, that at some point, we’re going to do everything that we can do to protect the safety and the health of our residents,” the mayor said.

Keast said he doesn’t see help coming from Gov. JB Pritzker and state officials.

“They’re in the process of taking our authority away every time we turn around, and it’s frustrating,” he said. “The state needs to be able to give us the tools to be able to self-govern and do what’s right for our residents.”