Data centers are allowed only as listed uses in the I-1 Limited Industrial and TIP Technical Industrial Park districts; in I-1 they are expressly subject to the special-use site-plan standards, and data-center projects must comply with the ordinance’s zoning and site-plan requirements.

A data center must be located on a parcel, lot, or unified development tract containing at least 50 contiguous acres.

No principal data-center building or related facility may be located within 500 feet of an existing residential dwelling.

A vegetated buffer at least 100 feet wide is required along every property boundary, using preserved vegetation, supplemental plantings, berms, or a combination; the buffer must provide year-round visual screening of buildings, equipment, loading areas, substations, generators, fuel storage, and other operational features.

The Mayor and Board of Aldermen may require additional berms, walls, fences, plantings, or other screening when needed to address visibility, compatibility, or operational impacts.

The applicant must demonstrate that adequate electric, telecommunications, water, wastewater, stormwater, fire-protection, emergency-access, and other infrastructure is available. The Mayor and Board have sole authority to determine adequacy and may require additional improvements, studies, or mitigation measures.

The applicant is responsible for designing, permitting, and constructing required on-site and off-site utility improvements, including upgrades or extensions, unless the Mayor and Board approve otherwise. Required improvements must be completed before operations begin.

Principal operations may not begin until permanent electrical service adequate for the facility is installed and operational. Temporary or backup generators may not provide primary or continuous power, except for limited commissioning, testing, or emergency purposes subject to applicable standards and possible Mayor and Board approval.

The project must obtain all required permits and approvals before construction and operations and must maintain compliance throughout the facility’s operation; noncompliance is an ordinance violation.

Data centers must incorporate security measures such as perimeter fencing or walls, controlled vehicle access, surveillance systems, and other measures warranted by the use and site conditions. Fuel storage, backup power systems, transformers, substations, and similar facilities must meet applicable safety codes and any additional requirements imposed during site-plan review.

The facility must minimize noise, vibration, lighting, emissions, glare, water-quality, stormwater, and air-quality impacts and must submit, at its expense, an environmental-impact analysis by qualified professionals identifying potential impacts and mitigation measures.

Noise may not exceed 55 dBA during daytime hours, defined as 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday through Friday, or 50 dBA during nighttime hours and weekends, measured at any site property line.

The applicant must submit, at its expense, a noise-impact analysis by a qualified acoustical professional covering normal and maximum operating conditions. The City may require post-construction field testing at the owner’s or operator’s expense and may require additional testing and corrective measures following complaints or evidence of noncompliance.

Routine generator testing, cooling-equipment operation, and other intermittent high-noise activities must be included in the noise analysis and generally limited to 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday through Friday unless the Mayor and Board approve otherwise. Emergency generator operation is exempt from those hourly limits but must comply with applicable noise standards to the extent practicable.

Generators, cooling equipment, transformers, and other mechanical or electrical equipment must be located, screened, buffered, and acoustically treated where necessary to reduce off-site impacts. Exterior lighting must use shielded, full-cutoff fixtures designed to prevent light trespass and glare.

Site-plan review may require the applicant to provide, at its expense, additional traffic, utility-capacity, drainage and stormwater, landscape and screening, photometric, noise, generator and fuel-storage, environmental, water-usage and cooling-system, building-elevation, emergency-access, and fire-protection studies or plans.

Any street serving the data center must have sufficient right-of-way, pavement width, and traffic capacity for the proposed use, as determined through site-plan review and any required traffic analysis.

The Mayor and Board of Aldermen may impose additional reasonable conditions or mitigation measures during site-plan approval to protect public health, safety, welfare, environmental quality, infrastructure capacity, and surrounding property.

In the TIP district, data centers are subject to a 75-foot maximum building height, 50% maximum lot coverage, a 30-foot front setback, a 10-foot side setback, and a 20-foot rear setback; side and rear setbacks increase to 50 feet where the property adjoins residentially zoned property, with additional height-related setback requirements near low- or moderate-density residential property.

In the I-1 district, data centers are subject to a minimum 10,000-square-foot lot area, 100-foot minimum lot width, 60% maximum lot coverage, a 30-foot front yard, and side and rear setbacks of 25 feet next to commercial or industrial property or 50 feet next to other districts, with required landscaped open space and planting screens in specified residential-adjacency situations.

In the TIP district, loading and unloading areas for data centers must generally be located behind the principal buildings; storage and refuse areas must be at the rear and screened, and temporary structures are prohibited except during construction.

Data centers and data center related facilities are listed as permitted uses in the Technical Industrial Park District, allowing them to be developed in that district without a conditional-use designation. The site must contain at least 50 contiguous acres, and the use remains subject to the district's site-plan and other zoning requirements.

Public or quasi-public facilities and utilities associated with data centers are also listed as permitted uses in the Technical Industrial Park District, supporting construction and operation of related utility infrastructure in the same district. The facilities must still satisfy applicable infrastructure, safety, site-plan, and other regulatory requirements.

Data centers are permitted in the Limited Industrial District, expanding the districts in which they may be located. In I-1, the use is subject to the special-use site-plan standards and the district's dimensional, screening, landscaping, emissions, parking, loading, and access requirements.

The definition of Data Center Related Facilities expressly includes operational equipment such as HVAC systems, power-generation facilities, sound-attenuation devices, grid-interface equipment, transformers, and public or quasi-public utilities, providing zoning recognition for major support infrastructure needed to operate a data center.

The data-center definition includes facilities used for cloud storage, data transfer, backup and recovery, analysis, processing, software development, programming, data analytics, and digital media, giving a broad range of data-related operations coverage under the permitted data-center use.