Hamilton won’t be imposing a temporary ban on the development of data centres, council has decided.

The vote was split 10 against and six in favour of what they were calling an interim control bylaw that would have paused development on data centres in the city for one year. Such a ban would have given the city time to assess and develop further governance rules around facilities that house equipment such as network servers, storage drives and information technology (IT).

The bylaw “won’t stand up, it won’t work,” said Coun. Jeff Beattie, who voted against it.

Several councillors and Mayor Andrea Horwath spoke before the vote.