Requires a project-specific Data Center Development Permit adopted by ordinance before site clearing, grading, construction, installation, material expansion, or commercial operation of any covered data center project.

Prohibits approval by silence or inaction; applications are denied unless affirmatively approved, and preliminary discussions, options, leases, purchases, utility discussions, or incomplete filings create no approval, estoppel, or vested rights.

Extends the permit requirement to new projects, material expansions, additional phases, amendments, operator or control changes, and renewed requests, to the extent legally permissible.

Requires a sworn Notice of Intent before an applicant or affiliate signs an option, purchase contract, lease, easement, right of first refusal, or similar instrument intended to obtain or control land for a covered project.

Requires land-acquisition notices to disclose participants, beneficial owners, parcels, acreage, project phases, expected square footage, peak electric and water demand, cooling, generation, infrastructure, and requested public assistance.

Requires the applicant to prepay notice costs, with county posting and mailing within five business days to specified officials, agencies, utilities, schools, local governments, and owners and occupants within two miles.

Failure to provide complete and timely land-acquisition notice bars discretionary County action, prevents claims that later requirements are unfair or untimely, and requires a new public-notice period before an application may be accepted.

Prohibits Jackson County from initiating, funding, joining, supporting, requesting, recommending, negotiating, threatening, or assisting condemnation or involuntary acquisition of private property primarily for a privately owned data center or related infrastructure.

Prohibits conditioning County services, roads, agreements, benefits, or approvals on a landowner selling property or granting an easement for a covered data center project.

Bars County subsidies, tax benefits, grants, loans, bonds, guarantees, below-market land transactions, public infrastructure contributions, discounted services, and fee waivers before full compliance and a separate project-specific ordinance.

Requires an applicant to execute a cost-recovery and indemnity agreement and fund a County-controlled escrow before substantive review; review stops if the deposit falls below the required amount.

Makes the applicant responsible for reasonable costs of notice, administration, legal analysis, independent studies, inspections, monitoring, emergency planning, infrastructure review, enforcement, closure, and restoration.

Requires an independent life-cycle fiscal impact analysis before any public financial participation may be considered, followed by a separate ordinance, two public hearings, a recorded roll-call vote, and a finding that taxpayers and customers will not bear public costs.

Requires the County, rather than the applicant, to select, direct, contract with, and supervise independent reviewers; reviewers must disclose conflicts, and conflicted reviewers may be disqualified.

Requires independent review of engineering, acoustics, water, wastewater, electric-system impacts, traffic, fire, air emissions, property values, fiscal effects, legal compliance, and decommissioning, with possible peer review or supplemental testing.

Prohibits County confidentiality or nondisclosure agreements concerning a project's existence, location, ownership, scale, incentives, public costs, water or power demand, or community and environmental impacts, except where a specific law permits withholding.

Requires a complete application to be posted online and available on paper, mailed notice to specified recipients, newspaper and website notice, and at least 30 days of public review before the first hearing.

Requires at least two evening public hearings on different dates, at least 30 days between publication of the final independent report and the final vote, and prohibits holding the final vote at the same meeting as the last required hearing.

Requires materially revised plans to restart the public notice and review period.

Requires written, evidence-based County findings on compliance, infrastructure and public costs, public-health and safety risks, disclosed incentives and agreements, financial assurances, and adequacy of notice and public participation before approval.

Limits projects to industrial-only classification with conditional approval and prohibits sites on slopes over 20 percent, flood-prone or unstable land, wetlands or within 50 feet of wetlands, prime farmland, farmland of statewide importance, or locations where hazardous releases could affect karst.

Requires a minimum separation of 500 feet from the project perimeter to specified uses, 1,500 feet from a Sensitive Use, and 2,000 feet between generator exhaust and a Sensitive Use.

Requires disclosure and aggregation of affiliated parcels, phases, owners, operators, financing entities, utility partners, contractors, and accessory infrastructure so projects cannot avoid requirements through subdivision or staging.

Requires utility and, where applicable, Public Service Commission documentation addressing electric capacity, generation, transmission, interconnection, reliability, rates, cost allocation, and protection against shifting upgrades or risks to existing customers.

Requires liquid cooling to use a closed-loop system, prohibits private wells from supplying cooling, requires conservation and reuse, and makes the applicant responsible for project-driven water and wastewater improvements.

Requires water and wastewater disclosures and plans covering average and peak demand, drought conditions, source capacity, wastewater characteristics, stormwater, chemical use, and spill prevention.

Imposes noise limits at the external property line of 40 dBA and 60 dBC from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m., and 45 dBA and 65 dBC at other times, including tonal and low-frequency sound, vibration, and infrasound.

Requires baseline and predictive acoustic studies, continuous monitoring, post-construction testing within six months, and corrective action for noise or vibration violations.

Requires emissions modeling and inventories for generators and other equipment, the highest available EPA-tier backup generators, limited weekday daytime routine testing, and emergency-only generator use except for lawful commissioning.

Requires secondary containment, fire-code and NFPA-compliant battery design, emergency isolation, and incident reporting for generators, batteries, and fuel systems.

Requires construction and operating traffic studies, designated routes, preconstruction road surveys, road-use agreements, weight and timing controls, applicant-funded road repairs and upgrades, performance security, and restoration.

Requires fire, explosion, hazardous-material, emergency-access, training, equipment, water-supply, mutual-aid, drill, and incident-reporting measures, with ongoing emergency-service costs paid by the applicant.

Requires controls for agricultural, forest, habitat, wetland, floodplain, historic, lighting, glare, heat, waste, electronic waste, stormwater, and scenic impacts, including year-round screening and downward-shielded lighting.

Requires a professional-engineer decommissioning and restoration plan covering removal of buildings, foundations, equipment, roads, contamination, and restoration of the site.

Requires an irrevocable bond, letter of credit, or equivalent financial security before construction equal to at least 125 percent of the County-approved third-party removal and restoration cost, excluding salvage value.

Requires decommissioning financial security to be updated at least every three years and after material expansion.

Authorizes annual reporting, County inspection and monitoring, complaint response, enforcement-cost recovery, stop-work or suspension where lawful, injunctions, use of financial security, and permit revocation after notice and due process.

Requires repeated or material violations to result in shutdown until compliance is verified.

Requires prior County approval, where legally authorized, for assignment or change of control and requires all obligations and financial assurances to continue after the change.

Makes the ordinance permanent, with no automatic expiration, and provides that repeal or amendment requires a later ordinance adopted through all required Kentucky procedures.

Accessory server rooms are excluded from the ordinance if they occupy less than 2,000 square feet and less than 10% of a principal hospital, school, public-safety, office, retail, agricultural, or industrial use. The exclusion does not apply if affiliated parcels or multiple phases are used to evade coverage.

The ordinance creates a pathway for a covered data center to receive a project-specific Data Center Development Permit and proceed with construction, expansion, or operation after satisfying the ordinance’s disclosure, review, hearing, payment, and financial-security requirements. It does not impose an outright prohibition.

Covered projects may receive industrial-only, conditional approval if they satisfy the ordinance’s mandatory siting, infrastructure, environmental, financial, and operational standards.

The County may consider subsidies or public financial participation, including tax benefits, grants, loans, bonds, infrastructure contributions, and other assistance, after the project completes the required review and the Fiscal Court adopts a separate ordinance following two public hearings and a finding that existing taxpayers and customers will not bear public costs.

County-owned land, easements, roads, rights-of-way, facilities, and related interests may be transferred, leased, encumbered, vacated, or dedicated for a covered data center through a project-specific permit ordinance, provided all ordinance requirements are met and the County finds fair value and no uncompensated public cost.

The ordinance does not replace or nullify state or federal permits, utility regulation, Public Service Commission authority, building codes, environmental standards, or condemnation powers held by independent entities. Data centers may continue to seek those approvals, subject to any separate County requirements that lawfully apply.

County action does not include emergency action, law enforcement, ministerial records work, or actions the County is legally compelled to perform. Those activities therefore are not subject to the ordinance’s general prohibition on County action before a final data center permit.

County review may use existing information, and the ordinance does not require a County-funded general study. Applicant-funded experts and studies may be used instead, reducing the need for the County to create separate general studies before reviewing a project.

The ordinance allows on-site generation, batteries, substations, cooling systems, and related infrastructure as components of a covered project, subject to separate applicable permits and the ordinance’s technical and safety requirements.