Prohibits the installation and operation of High Impact Data Centers in the City of Emporia.

Prohibits the installation and operation of Type 2 and Type 3 battery energy storage systems in the City of Emporia.

Data centers may be developed only within a Digital Infrastructure Overlay District (DI-O), which may apply only to property inside Emporia’s corporate limits zoned HI, LI, or IF.

Creating or applying the DI-O requires the zoning-amendment procedures in Section 9 and may require conceptual development, land-use, infrastructure, transportation, buffering, and phasing information.

In the IF Parcel Type, digital infrastructure facilities and campuses require Planned Unit Development approval and must be compatible with the intended character and development pattern of the district.

Approval of digital infrastructure development requires an executed development agreement approved by the City; the agreement runs with the land and binds owners, operators, tenants, successors, and assigns.

The City may require a campus infrastructure plan, master development plan, or similar framework for phased campuses, including anticipated phases, major infrastructure, utility corridors, and emergency access.

Development review may require utility, backup-power, water and wastewater, emergency-response, traffic, acoustical, environmental, construction-management, lighting, landscaping and buffering, transition, and other technical studies or plans.

A required utility plan must document the availability of services needed for the project, including applicable will-serve letters or similar documentation from utility providers.

Routine operational water service for a digital infrastructure project must be provided exclusively through the City of Emporia municipal water system.

Backup generators may operate only for actual utility outages, approved testing and maintenance, commissioning, temporary replacement of failed permanent backup systems, or a documented grid emergency or reliability event approved by the City Manager or requested or directed by the serving utility or governmental authority.

Backup generation may not be used as the primary source of power for routine facility operations, and portable or mobile generators may not be used as a long-term substitute for permanent backup generation.

Primary energy-generation facilities intended to serve routine operations are subject to the conditional-use and approval requirements of the underlying zoning district.

Campus-scale backup generation, fuel storage, substations, battery storage, and similar infrastructure serving more than one principal building are not allowed in the IF Parcel Type unless approved through a Planned Unit Development.

A minimum 150-foot landscaped buffer is required between digital infrastructure structures or equipment areas and a property line adjoining a Sensitive Adjoining Use, subject to approval of an alternative approach providing equivalent or greater protection.

Sensitive Adjoining Uses include parcels permitting residential use and land occupied by schools, public parks, publicly owned recreational facilities, medical facilities, places of worship, or cemeteries.

Outdoor lighting must be fully shielded and directed downward, with controls needed to minimize glare, light trespass, sky glow, and unreasonable impacts on sensitive uses and public rights-of-way.

Backup generators, substations, cooling towers, mechanical equipment yards, battery storage, fuel storage, and similar infrastructure must be screened from adjoining residential property and public rights-of-way where reasonably practicable.

The City may require mitigation measures and post-construction monitoring or verification for infrastructure, operational, environmental, transportation, public-safety, utility, or other impacts.

The City may retain qualified third-party professionals for review, inspections, testing, monitoring, and enforcement, and may assess the reasonable costs to the applicant.

The development agreement must establish inspection, monitoring, testing, reporting, compliance-verification, and reimbursement obligations, including reimbursement of the City’s reasonable administration and enforcement costs.

The development agreement or an approved memorandum must be recorded with the Lyon County Register of Deeds, and transfers or assignments require prior written City consent and an assumption agreement from a successor.

The proposed development guidelines call for the developer to provide security covering 100 percent of the City’s reasonably estimated exposure for project infrastructure, decommissioning, public costs, certain payments, and administrative or enforcement expenses.

The proposed guidelines call for an upfront application fee before development-agreement negotiations and reimbursement of additional City costs, including reasonable attorney fees and other pre-revenue project-related costs.

The proposed guidelines would require one permanent, year-round, on-site Lyon County job for every two megawatts of project size, with the stated example of 600 jobs for a 1.2-gigawatt project; the jobs are expected within five years of commencement of all approved phases.

The proposed guidelines would require qualifying jobs to provide average compensation and benefits of at least 150 percent of the most recently available comparable Lyon County compensation and benefits data.

The proposed guidelines would treat failure to meet required employment headcount or wage standards as a contractual default and require a payroll-shortfall payment without eliminating the underlying employment obligation.

The proposed guidelines state that the City will not support a 100 percent property-tax exemption or abatement and require community-benefit commitments sufficient to address the project’s potential impacts and costs.

The proposed guidelines would require the developer to pay or fully cover all project-attributable utility, infrastructure, road, public-safety, monitoring, administrative, legal, engineering, inspection, and enforcement costs, with the stated goal of preventing project-related rate increases for existing customers.

The proposed guidelines would require a mandatory purchase offer for each occupied non-developer property within 500 feet of the project boundary, at least equal to a defined protected value, with the sale right available for two years after the applicable phase begins commercial operation.

Before construction, the project would need City approval of enforceable construction plans addressing haul routes, construction hours, traffic, dust, mud, lighting, noise, vibration, road damage, staging, worker parking, complaints, and corrective action.

The proposed guidelines would require a firm, enforceable deadline for substantial construction based on the approved permitting, utility, and phase schedule.

Decommissioning and restoration financial security would be required at 110 percent of the reasonably estimated cost, with the estimate and security updated before each new phase and at least once every five years.

At least 21 days before the City Commission votes on a proposed development agreement, the City would publish the proposed agreement, a plain-language summary, a compliance table, and an explanation of how project-related utility-rate increases would be prevented; substantial amendments would require a new 21-day review period.

The proposed guidelines would require City consent for transfers of project title or changes that could reduce credit support, remove a responsible party, or weaken performance protections, subject to applicable legal limitations.

Before approving a development agreement, the City would conduct due diligence on ownership, financing, creditworthiness, end users, project feasibility, utilities, environmental conditions, public safety, legal compliance, utility-rate impacts, and proposed financial security.

The proposed guidelines would require indemnification, insurance, performance security, default and cure provisions, stop-work or suspension rights, possible incentive clawbacks, termination rights, and survival of public-protection obligations.

The Digital Infrastructure Overlay District may be applied to property within Emporia’s corporate limits zoned Heavy Industrial, Light Industrial, or Industrial Flex, and may be established before a specific development proposal is submitted.

Digital Infrastructure Facilities and Digital Infrastructure Campuses are permitted uses in the overlay when located in Heavy Industrial or Light Industrial areas; in Industrial Flex areas, they may be approved through a Planned Unit Development.

An overlay application may rely on conceptual information, such as a general development narrative, conceptual planning exhibits, preliminary infrastructure information, and anticipated phasing; detailed engineering and final site design are not required at that stage.

The regulations expressly allow campus-style and phased development, including multiple buildings, parcels, ownership entities, users, or development phases operating under one coordinated framework.

Utility and operational infrastructure may be developed or expanded in phases and sized for approved or anticipated future phases of a digital infrastructure campus.

Future phases may be reviewed based on their consistency with an approved development framework, and previously approved phases and infrastructure generally do not require reapproval absent a material deviation.

Accessory infrastructure may support digital infrastructure facilities, including electrical substations, utility interconnections, transformers, backup generation, fuel storage, battery storage, cooling systems, water-treatment and reuse systems, utility corridors, and private fiber infrastructure.

The City may approve reasonable modifications to development standards when necessary to facilitate reuse of existing industrial structures or previously developed sites.

Site plans may cover individual phases or multiple phases simultaneously, allowing coordinated review of several stages of development.

A development agreement may coordinate infrastructure, utility services, public improvements, phasing, operational requirements, mitigation measures, and decommissioning obligations for an approved project.

The development agreement runs with the land and binds specified owners, developers, operators, tenants, successors, and assigns, subject to the agreement and applicable law.

The development guidelines contemplate negotiated tax incentives and state that the taxable percentage and incentive structure may be negotiated based on the project’s financial package and demonstrated public benefit, although the City will not support a 100-percent property-tax exemption or abatement.

The project’s routine operational water service must be provided exclusively through the City of Emporia municipal water system, providing a defined municipal service source but limiting reliance on other water providers.

Alternative buffering, lighting, and screening approaches may be approved when the applicant demonstrates that they provide equivalent or greater protection, allowing project-specific design flexibility.