A temporary moratorium bars the acceptance, review, processing, or approval of rezoning applications, conditional use permits, development permits or orders, site plan approvals, building permits, and other development approvals for the construction, expansion, or operation of data centers, data center facilities, and data center utilities in unincorporated Lake County. The covered facilities include buildings or groups of buildings housing computer systems and supporting infrastructure such as generators, cooling and water-storage facilities, and utility substations. Exemptions apply to internal-use data centers, server rooms, and IT facilities; single-organization enterprise or cloud infrastructure, disaster recovery, backup, and routine business computing; and incidental, non-commercial AI applications supporting the owner or operator. The moratorium applies to specified development approvals

The moratorium lasts for 12 months from and including the ordinance’s effective date, unless an ordinance amending the Land Development Regulations or Code of Ordinances concerning data centers becomes effective sooner.

Exempts data centers, server rooms, computer rooms, and information-technology facilities owned or operated by businesses, governmental agencies, educational institutions, healthcare providers, or nonprofits for their internal operations, information systems, cybersecurity, communications, business applications, or data storage.

Exempts facilities primarily used for enterprise information-technology infrastructure, cloud services dedicated to one organization, disaster recovery, backup operations, or routine business computing.

Exempts incidental or ancillary artificial-intelligence applications that support the owner’s or operator’s operations and are not offered as commercial AI-computing services to third parties.

Limits the moratorium to the unincorporated areas of Lake County, leaving data-center construction, expansion, and operation outside those areas unaffected by this ordinance.

Makes the moratorium temporary: it ends after 12 months from the ordinance’s effective date or earlier if an ordinance amending the Land Development Regulations or Code of Ordinances relating to data centers becomes effective.

Ordinance 2026-43 suspends acceptance of development applications for data centers in unincorporated Lake County. The source does not state an end date for the suspension.

Data centers and data center campuses are listed as conditional uses in only the zoning districts identified in the amended use schedule, rather than as permitted uses.

No covered data center may be permitted by right in unincorporated Lake County.

A Conditional Use Permit approved by the Board of County Commissioners is required before a data center may be established, constructed, expanded, or operated.

The Conditional Use Permit must be specific to the property, development plan, maximum development intensity, water demand, electrical demand, EMI/EMF shielding, and approved operating characteristics.

Cooling facilities, generators, battery energy storage systems, substations, water facilities, fuel storage, and other infrastructure principally serving the data center must be reviewed as part of the Conditional Use Permit.

A data center may not be approved administratively or through a similar-use determination, unless otherwise required by Florida law.

Before filing a Conditional Use Permit application, the applicant must participate in a pre-application conference. County staff may require participation by the applicable water management district and may invite utilities and other agencies.

The application must include detailed full-buildout information, including all phases, concerning site acreage, building area and height, cooling systems, generators, fuel, batteries, power infrastructure, water and wastewater, stormwater, access, shielding, utilities, jobs, and capital investment.

The applicant must submit electrical-demand and infrastructure analyses addressing maximum and phase-by-phase demand, generation and waste disposition, utility service, substations, transmission facilities, utility capacity, and foreseeable infrastructure improvements.

The applicant must submit extensive water-resource information, including water sources, average and maximum demand, cooling and process water, reclaimed-water availability, wastewater, cooling technology, conservation, consumptive-use permits, Regional Water Supply Plan consistency, and groundwater and Floridan Aquifer impacts.

The County Manager or designee must prepare a technical analysis of the proposed water demand and related consumptive-use permit, including impacts on groundwater, the Floridan Aquifer, existing legal users, wetlands, surface waters, recharge resources, and minimum flows and levels. If a consultant is retained, the applicant must pay the consultant cost as a pass-through expense.

Applicants proposing groundwater withdrawals must provide an analysis of short-term, long-term, and cumulative effects on groundwater resources and the Floridan Aquifer based on the maximum authorized demand.

The application must include analyses of wastewater, noise, vibration, electromagnetic leakage, land-use compatibility, environmental resources, thermal impacts, fire protection, emergency response, transportation, public and private infrastructure, and decommissioning.

Approval requires an adequate and lawful water supply, consistency with the applicable Regional Water Supply Plan, and avoidance, minimization, or enforceable mitigation of identified water-resource impacts. Cooling systems must use reclaimed water where available.

Approval requires adequate water, wastewater, electrical, transportation, fire-protection, emergency-response, and other public facilities for the maximum development authorized by the permit.

The facility must be compatible with surrounding land uses, or be made compatible through enforceable conditions, addressing factors such as size, intensity, height, mass, setbacks, noise, lighting, mechanical equipment, utilities, and operations.

The facility must operate without undue adverse noise, vibration, or electromagnetic impacts, including impacts from normal operations, equipment testing, and reasonably anticipated emergencies.

Data centers may not be sited in a Special Flood Hazard Area or within a Regulatory Floodway.

The Planning and Zoning Board must review each sufficient application at a noticed public hearing and recommend approval, approval with conditions, or denial.

The Board of County Commissioners is the final decision-maker for every data center Conditional Use Permit and must act at a noticed public hearing. County staff and other county bodies may not approve the facility administratively.

The Board may impose conditions limiting building square footage, electrical demand, water demand, water source, cooling technology, reclaimed-water use, height, setbacks, noise, vibration, electromagnetic leakage, generators, fuel, batteries, lighting, infrastructure, transportation, mitigation, phasing, monitoring, and decommissioning.

Reasonable, project-specific mitigation may be required, including contributions or in-kind work for conservation land, environmental management, roads, intersections, pavement preservation, roadway rehabilitation, and other identified impacts. Contributions must be reasonably related and proportionate to the identified impact and may not duplicate other required payments unless legally authorized.

A Conditional Use Permit amendment and renewed Planning and Zoning Board and Board of County Commissioners review are required for specified material changes, including increases of more than 5 percent in building area, electrical demand, or water demand.

A permit amendment is also required to add an unapproved substation or power source, materially change cooling technology or water source, materially increase generator or battery capacity, expand into an area outside the approved campus, or make another modification that materially increases an evaluated impact.

A data center development may not be divided, separately metered, separately owned, separately leased, phased, subdivided, or otherwise configured to avoid the regulation. Integrated buildings, parcels, phases, tenants, and operations must be reviewed collectively.

An exempt facility must obtain a Conditional Use Permit before being converted to a use that meets the data center definition.

The Conditional Use Permit requirements do not apply to certain internal or ancillary facilities that do not meet the statutory definitions of a Large-Scale Data Center or Large-Load User, including internal business, governmental, educational, healthcare, nonprofit, enterprise, disaster-recovery, backup, and routine-computing facilities.

Facilities whose primary purpose is communications or telecommunications are excluded from the data center classification only if they are not designed, constructed, or operated for large-scale computational processing, artificial-intelligence training or inference, cloud computing, or commercial data storage.

Data centers and data center campuses are added to the zoning schedule as conditional uses in designated zoning districts, creating an express path to approval through a Conditional Use Permit rather than prohibiting them outright. Data Centers; Data Center Campus

A single Conditional Use Permit may approve the property, maximum development intensity, water demand, electrical demand, and operational characteristics for the entire project, including all phases and associated infrastructure. maximum development intensity

Cooling facilities, generators, battery storage systems, substations, water facilities, fuel storage, and other infrastructure principally serving a data center are reviewed as part of the same Conditional Use Permit. reviewed as part of the Conditional Use Permit

Certain smaller or internal-use facilities are exempt from the data-center zoning requirements if they do not qualify as a Large-Scale Data Center or Large-Load User, including facilities supporting an organization’s internal operations, enterprise IT, disaster recovery, backup operations, or routine business computing. excluded from the requirements

Facilities whose primary purpose is communications or telecommunications services are not classified as data centers, and therefore are not subject to the data-center zoning, siting, permitting, or operational restrictions, provided they are not designed, constructed, or operated for specified large-scale computing or commercial data-storage services. not be deemed or classified as a Data Center

An exempt facility may continue operating and may be modified without a Conditional Use Permit so long as it continues to qualify for the exemption. may continue and may be modified

A Conditional Use Permit amendment is not required for an expansion of up to 5% of approved building area, electrical demand, or water demand; the amendment requirement applies when those increases exceed 5%, subject to the other listed triggers. more than five percent

A Conditional Use Permit amendment is not required for a material change in cooling technology if the replacement system uses less water. unless the new system uses less water

Project-specific monetary, land, or infrastructure mitigation contributions must be individually determined, reasonably related and proportionate to an identified impact, authorized by law, and cannot duplicate an impact fee, concurrency obligation, or other payment for the same impact unless legally authorized credits or adjustments apply. reasonably related and proportionate