How Data Center Construction Affects Housing Supply I am very concerned that data center construction will worsen our current housing crisis. There was an affordable housing shortage before 833 homes were recently lost to wildfires. Add skilled worker and building material shortages (exacerbated by DC construction) - we are looking at a perfect storm. Large Data Center construction usually employs 1500 - 3000 workers (incl. plumbers, electricians, hvac) with hyper-scale builds employing up to 4000. Build times can last 2-3 years. I think building large data centers will make an already bad situation (housing availability) worse because: 1. DC construction workers need a place to stay. This leads to a decrease in available long and short-term rentals for the rest of the community and tourism - think Hoop Fest and Bloomsday. 2. Skilled trades are already short 300,000 workers on the national level. Data center workers often come from the home building sector because DCs pay more and jobs are long term. For the same reasons, these workers may not return to home building after DC construction is completed. 3. Building materials are gobbled up by data center construction leading to a shortage for home building. Now add Trump’s tariffs and the possible loss of lumber from Canada. Please keep in mind that data centers take 2-3 years to build and this is how long it ihas been estimated it will take the Spokane regional housing market to stabilize post fires. I could go on and on about all the other detrimental effects of data centers and their construction process, especially in drought areas (creating heat islands, depleting wells), but instead I ask that you look to your better selves and constituents for guidance. Thank you https://www.thinkbrg.com/thinkset/the-data-center-labor-shortage-a-hidden-bottleneck-for-ai-infrastructure/ https://www.newsweek.com/ceo-says-ai-data-centers-are-creating-a-new-housing-problem-12359057 https://www.briefs.co/news/data-center-building-boom-leaves-homebuilding-short-of-skill/ https://www.realtor.com/news/trends/data-center-new-six-figure-jobs-housing/