Data centers are prohibited in the A-1 Agricultural Reserve, R-1A, R-1B, R-1C, R-2, R-4, R-5, MH, and PUD districts unless Chapter 159 is later amended to authorize them.

Large data centers are permitted only in the M-2 or M-3 districts, while hyperscale data centers are permitted only in the M-3 district.

A data center campus may not be divided among buildings, parcels, phases, owners, tenants, or applications to avoid classification based on its aggregate size or electrical load.

All new data centers, expansions, and operations must obtain Data Center Development Plan approval, and no zoning, building, grading, utility, occupancy, or other City approval may be issued until the ordinance requirements are satisfied.

Applicants must obtain preliminary review and a recommendation from the Plan Commission before the City Council considers final approval.

The City Council must approve, conditionally approve, or deny the Data Center Development Plan by resolution and may condition approval on a separate development agreement.

Before Plan Commission review, the applicant must provide electric and water supplier statements showing adequate capacity without rate impacts or committing the applicant to fund necessary expansions.

The Data Center Development Plan must include extensive technical and operational materials, including site and utility plans, water studies, electrical verification, lighting and noise studies, transportation analyses, emergency plans, backup-power plans, waste plans, and decommissioning plans.

Small and enterprise data centers must meet the underlying zoning district's setbacks; large data center buildings must be at least 100 feet from exterior site property lines and generally 500 feet from residential properties or sensitive receptors.

Hyperscale data center buildings and specified outdoor equipment must generally be at least 100 feet from site property lines and 1,000 feet from residential properties or sensitive receptors.

The City Council may require setbacks larger than the stated minimums based on site-specific factors such as noise, visual impacts, safety, topography, or adjacent land uses.

Hyperscale projects abutting residential dwellings or sensitive receptors must provide, on the applicant's property, a berm and vegetation buffer generally including a 20-foot berm, 100% year-round evergreen screening, a buffer at least 300 feet wide depending on use intensity, and sound walls where generators or cooling equipment are present.

Evaporative cooling and other water-intensive cooling methods are prohibited; proposed cooling systems must minimize water use and be shown not to cause unreasonable impacts on the City's water system or community needs.

Applicants must provide water-demand studies, install meters or submeters as required, comply with possible water-use reporting, and may be required to execute a Water Use Agreement.

No certificate of occupancy may be issued for a development phase until the electric utility certifies that the phase is fully supplied with power, and generators may not operate as the phase's primary power until that certification is provided.

Outdoor lighting must be shielded, downcast, and designed to prevent glare and light trespass; illumination is limited to 0.1 footcandle at residential property lines and 0.5 footcandle at nonresidential property lines, with generally a 3,000K color-temperature limit and a 25-foot pole-height limit.

Applicants must submit pre-construction noise, infrasound, and vibration studies, comply with operational limits of 55 dBA/65 dBC at residential or sensitive receptors and 65 dBA/75 dBC at nonresidential locations, and submit post-construction evaluations after operations begin and after each major phase.

Generator testing, major maintenance, and other planned high-noise activities are generally restricted to 8:00 a.m. through 6:00 p.m., Monday through Friday, subject to stated exceptions for emergencies, outages, grid events, commissioning, or City approval.

Continuous operational vibration may not be perceptible at any occupied structure on adjoining property under normal operating conditions.

Applicants must prepare transportation and construction road-use plans, and the City may require a Road Use Agreement, roadway repairs, traffic controls, dust controls, and financial security; developers are responsible for construction-related roadway damage.

An emergency response plan coordinated with the Fire Department, Police Department, emergency management officials, and other designated responders is required before any building permit is issued.

Backup generators, battery systems, and fuel storage require a plan identifying equipment, fuels, runtime, emissions, noise controls, testing, and permitting, and must comply with applicable safety, fire, building, and environmental requirements.

Outdoor storage of retired servers, electronic equipment, shipping containers, trailers, or similar materials is prohibited except for specifically approved temporary construction staging.

If operations cease for 12 consecutive months or another abandonment trigger occurs, the owner must submit a decommissioning schedule within 90 days and generally complete decommissioning within 12 months unless the City Council grants an extension.

Decommissioning may require removal of buildings, foundations, equipment, generators, tanks, substations, batteries, cooling systems, fencing, and utilities, plus site stabilization, grading, revegetation, and stormwater restoration.

The City Council may require a decommissioning bond, performance bond, letter of credit, escrow, or other financial assurance based on the estimated full cost of decommissioning and site restoration.

Operators must certify annually that the facility remains in substantial compliance, and material changes such as major additions, new generator yards, new substations, cooling changes, water increases, or power increases require further City review and approval.

The City may require development, water-use, road-use, infrastructure, utility, stormwater, access, and other agreements, including cost allocation, reporting, performance standards, financial assurances, reimbursement, and remedies for noncompliance.

For projects exceeding 50 feet in height, located within five miles of a public-use airport, or otherwise subject to FAA notice requirements, the applicant must file FAA Form 7460-1 and obtain a Determination of No Hazard or modify the project to comply with FAA conditions before City approvals or permits are issued.

Applicants must fund baseline and ongoing monitoring of potentially affected private wells and other private systems, and must provide temporary replacement water or sanitary service at no cost when project-related impacts make those systems unsafe, unusable, or materially diminished.

A violation by a data center owner, tenant, or operator is a municipal infraction, and the City may also withhold permits, suspend or revoke approvals where authorized, seek civil penalties, or pursue injunctive relief.

The City Council may require applicants to reimburse the reasonable cost of independent expert assistance used to evaluate a data center application.

The Council may waive portions of the ordinance's requirements for small, enterprise, or large non-hyperscale data centers, but the airport-protection and FAA-compliance requirements may not be waived.

The ordinance allows data centers as permitted principal uses rather than requiring a special-use permit: small and enterprise facilities are permitted in the listed commercial and industrial districts, large facilities in M-2 and M-3, and hyperscale facilities in M-3, subject to the ordinance and other applicable requirements. Data Center Use Permissions

Approval is processed through a Data Center Development Plan and City Council resolution, and the ordinance expressly states that the process is not a special-use permit unless another code provision requires one. Separate building, utility, grading, fire-code, and state or federal approvals are still required. must not be treated as a special use permit

The Plan Commission must provide its report on the initial conceptual plan within 45 days of submission, creating a defined timetable for the preliminary-review stage. The City Council is not bound by the Commission’s recommendation. within forty-five (45) days

The City Council may waive any portion of the ordinance’s requirements in Sections D through CC for small, enterprise, and large non-hyperscale data centers, except the airport and FAA-compliance requirements in Section Y. The waiver is discretionary and must follow consideration of the ordinance’s public protections. may waive application of any portion

Large data centers may obtain a City Council-approved reduction of the normal 500-foot setback for equipment from residential properties and other sensitive receptors if a professional noise study, screening plan, and safety analysis show that impacts will be adequately mitigated. may approve a reduction of the equipment setback

A data center owner may negotiate a different sensitive-receptor setback with the fee-simple owner of an affected private parcel. The agreement must be written, recorded, run with the land, and cannot reduce the setback below the underlying zoning minimum or the ordinance’s 100-foot minimum between a principal building and the site boundary; it affects only the consenting owner’s property. Private Setback Agreement

The ordinance contemplates City financial and infrastructure participation, including tax increment financing, rebates, exemptions, infrastructure assistance, public improvements, and cost-sharing, subject to City Council approval and applicable law. If such public participation is provided, the Council may impose community-benefit, clawback, workforce, reporting, and infrastructure-contribution conditions. tax increment financing, rebates, exemptions, infrastructure assistance

When a data center ceases operations, the City Council may approve continued use or repurposing of all or part of the facility instead of requiring complete removal, if the proposed reuse is lawful and will not adversely affect public health, safety, or welfare. continued use or repurposing

Proposed a citywide prohibition on data centers, including facilities for crypto mining, data mining, artificial intelligence, and other large-scale data handling.

The prohibition would last 120 days or until the City Council approved comprehensive zoning amendments establishing where and under what criteria and regulations data centers could operate, whichever occurred later.

A server room or data-processing area clearly accessory to another permitted office or industrial use would be exempt from the definition of a data center.

A server room or data-processing area that is clearly accessory to another permitted office or industrial use is excluded from the definition of a data center and therefore is not subject to the temporary prohibition.