A roughly 90-day moratorium was imposed on data centers and other high-impact development facilities while officials revisit the proposed rules.

HIDFs are limited to Heavy, Medium, and Light Industrial districts in unincorporated Ascension Parish. Heavy Industrial sites are allowed by right; Medium and Light Industrial sites require a Conditional Use Permit. Certain LPSC- or FCC-regulated activities and qualifying accessory technology uses are exempt.

For a Conditional Use Permit, the Zoning Commission makes a recommendation and the Parish Council considers the application at two meetings, with a public hearing at the second. A denied application cannot be resubmitted for one year.

After approval, the applicant generally has one year to obtain building permits or begin construction and 36 months to complete the project, unless the approval sets different terms.

In Medium and Light Industrial districts, an HIDF must occupy at least 20 contiguous acres.

Siting rules include separation distances from listed protected uses and designated Residential Neighborhood areas. Draft materials specify 2,640 feet, a 750-foot setback, and 500 feet from drainage ways; a later report describes proposed revisions to a quarter-mile separation from certain districts and 100-foot setbacks from the facility and drainageways. The distance requirements also apply to some Heavy Industrial sites next to residential property or uses.

In Medium and Light Industrial districts, property or lease boundaries must be at least 300 feet from a public-road right-of-way. Buildings, structures, and outdoor storage must also be at least 500 feet from surface waters.

Facilities must provide and maintain specified vegetative buffers at least 25 feet wide and meet screening requirements. In Medium and Light Industrial districts, landscaping must be planted before construction and designed to form an opaque hedge within two years of commercial operation; an opaque security fence at least eight feet high is also required.

Critical equipment must meet applicable floodplain, drainage, and flood-resilience requirements.

Facilities must meet specified fire-safety and emergency-preparedness requirements, including fire monitoring that automatically notifies responders, adequate fire-protection water or an approved alternative, and required safeguards for batteries, generators, and fuel systems. An emergency plan must be approved before commercial operation and updated or confirmed annually; operators must participate in pre-incident planning at least annually and conduct an exercise or drill at least every two years. The application also requires independent fire or emergency responders to be secured by contract.

Facilities with equipment using at least 15 kW per rack or at least 1 MW facility-wide must use closed-loop or recirculating cooling. Air-cooled and open-loop cooling are prohibited, as are cooling-water withdrawals from Parish or municipal water systems; cooling water, chemicals, or heated effluent may not be discharged into municipal stormwater or drainage systems.

Operators must pay 100% of required power-generation, substation, and transmission-line upgrade costs and provide utility documentation on service capacity, interconnection, upgrades, energization, and applicable load-management obligations before commercial operation.

Facilities must comply with IEEE 519 harmonic standards at the point of common coupling.

In Medium and Light Industrial districts, noise at the property boundary generally may not exceed 50 dBA or 5 dBA above existing ambient levels, whichever is greater; a prominent discrete hum lowers the threshold by 5 dBA. An independent noise analysis is required, continuous automatic monitoring is required within one-half mile of a residential neighborhood, and post-construction verification is required within 90 days of commercial operation and annually for the first three years.

Facilities may not cause vibration perceptible without instruments on a lot outside the facility. In Medium and Light Industrial districts, routine backup-generator testing is limited to 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday, except during outages, emergencies, required commissioning, or legally required tests that cannot reasonably be conducted during that window.

In Medium and Light Industrial districts, odors, smoke, soot, fumes, dust, and other wind-borne pollutants may not create a public nuisance outside the facility. Exterior lighting must avoid glare beyond the site, be shielded and directed downward, and generally use adaptive controls to reduce illumination during inactivity, subject to exceptions for work, security, or emergencies.

In Medium and Light Industrial districts, operators must notify the Administrator before material operational changes that may increase noise, traffic, emissions, drainage needs, or exterior-equipment area. A change exceeding 10% of the originally approved amount requires an amended site plan, supplemental study, or permit modification.

The application requires extensive supporting materials, including site, utility, traffic, access, drainage, wildlife, cultural-resource, noise, lighting, waste, and decommissioning information. Required local, state, and federal permits must be obtained before services are delivered in commercial quantities.

The application fee is $5,000 plus 1.2 cents per square foot of gross structure area within the fenced boundary. It is nonrefundable, adjusted annually for inflation, and must be paid before processing begins; applicants may also have to fund additional expert review through escrow.

HIDFs are subject to Parish transportation impact fees based on total building square footage. Operators must maintain or repair Parish roads to at least their pre-construction condition.

The Parish may inspect facilities; denying voluntary entry may lead to legal steps to obtain access and is treated as a violation. Specified failures to remedy deficiencies can result in escalating daily fines, including fines of up to $500 per day.

In Medium and Light Industrial districts, 12 consecutive months without commercial operations generally constitutes abandonment, subject to stated exceptions. Decommissioning must generally begin within 90 days after abandonment and finish within 12 months after it begins. Before construction authorization, the operator must provide financial assurance for independently estimated net decommissioning and restoration costs, without credit for speculative salvage value; the amount is reviewed at least every five years and after a material expansion.

The draft allows High Impact Development Facilities (HIDFs) in Heavy Industrial (HI), Medium Industrial (MI), and Light Industrial (LI) districts. In HI districts, they are permitted by right; in MI and LI districts, they require a Conditional Use Permit and Parish Council approval.

The 20-contiguous-acre minimum lot size applies in MI and LI districts, not HI districts.

Several requirements are limited to MI and LI properties and therefore do not apply to HIDFs in HI districts under those provisions. These include specified requirements for security fencing and signage, noise and generator testing, landscaping, maintenance, decommissioning financial assurance, and notice or approval of operational changes. Other applicable requirements, including certain setbacks, still apply.

For MI and LI projects, the draft provides a review path through a Zoning Commission recommendation and Parish Council consideration, including a public hearing. A denied application may be resubmitted after one year.

For an approved project, the applicant has one year to obtain building permits or commence construction and 36 months to complete construction, unless the approval sets a different schedule.

For projects requiring a Conditional Use Permit, the Zoning Commission and Parish Council may approve variances when site conditions or project features reasonably warrant them. The variance must be stated in the Commission’s recommendation and approved by the Council as a permit condition.

In MI and LI districts, a change that does not exceed 10% of the originally approved amount does not trigger the stated requirement for an amended site plan, supplemental study, or permit modification. The operator must still notify the Ordinance Administrator before a material operational change.

For HIDFs in HI districts, the proposed ordinance would reduce the required separation from nearby conservation, rural, or medium-residential districts from one-half mile to one-quarter mile.

The proposed ordinance would reduce a required setback from 750 feet to 100 feet; the available description does not specify what the setback is measured from.

The proposed ordinance would reduce the required drainageway buffer from 500 feet to 100 feet.