The new Data Center, Services C classification applies to facilities or co-located facilities with projected peak electrical demand of at least 25 megawatts at full build-out and substantial mechanical, electrical, and cooling infrastructure.

The Services C standards apply only to land that is not exempt land and is either rezoned with the written consent of all owners or voluntarily elected into the classification through a recorded written consent.

New data-processing structures and additions must be set back at least 200 feet from neighboring property lines that have line of sight to the facility.

Within the setback, the facility must provide a buffer yard at least 100 feet wide meeting Type III buffer-yard requirements, use existing vegetation where available, and retain required evergreen plantings even when alternative screening methods are used.

Cooling-system and energy-generation structures must meet Utility Service Area screening standards, even if an exemption for individual utility-service-area structures would otherwise apply.

Applicants must submit a lighting plan and photometric plan; exterior lighting must use cutoff fixtures, prevent light trespass, and keep light trespass at residential zoning boundaries at or below 0.1 foot-candles.

Utilities, emergency generation, HVAC equipment, and related ground-level facilities must be located or screened so they are not visible from public rights-of-way or neighboring properties, unless the planning director approves an alternative solution.

Energy-distribution lines providing direct service to individual buildings must be installed underground.

Backup generators may be used only for testing and emergencies; fossil-fuel generation for continuous, routine, or supplemental power during normal conditions is prohibited.

Natural-gas generators are prohibited unless the applicant demonstrates that zero-emission backup systems, such as battery storage or hydrogen fuel cells, are infeasible because of site-specific constraints.

Generators must meet specified fuel, emissions, noise, and equipment requirements, including ULSD or cleaner fuel, SCR, diesel particulate filters, hospital-grade mufflers, acoustic and emissions-rated enclosures, and semi-annual post-construction verification.

Data centers must provide a public environmental-performance dashboard and comply with stormwater, stream-buffer, water-capacity, and infrastructure-funding requirements, including no net increase in peak runoff for 1-, 10-, and 25-year storms and 100-foot stream buffers.

Applicants must disclose water and sewer use, complete pretreatment surveys, prepare a Water Consumption and Sustainability Plan, use closed-loop cooling for new facilities, and submit semi-annual water-performance reports.

Heated water from cooling systems, roof drains, or equipment washdown may not be discharged without temperature mitigation; post-development stormwater temperature may not exceed predevelopment conditions by more than 1.0 degree Celsius at outfalls.

Facilities must demonstrate compliance with federal air-quality standards through property-boundary air-dispersion modeling, and all combustion equipment must meet EPA Tier 4 Final or an equivalent successor standard.

Required Clean Air Act permits, including New Source Review and applicable Prevention of Significant Deterioration permits, must be obtained before installing or operating pollutant-emitting equipment.

Non-emergency generator testing and maintenance is limited to the minimum manufacturer-required hours between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. on weekdays, may not occur on state-declared high-pollution days or overnight near sensitive receptors within 1,000 feet, and may be subject to additional county restrictions.

Applicants must complete a cumulative air-quality impact analysis covering generators, cooling, construction, traffic, nearby sensitive receptors, other industrial sources within one mile, and climate impacts; mitigation or zero-emission backup systems are required if impacts exceed acceptable thresholds.

Applicants must disclose projected peak electrical demand, phase-by-phase loads, redundancy configurations, and equipment load profiles before site-plan approval; a demand increase of more than 10 percent requires an updated disclosure.

Data centers must submit semi-annual energy-efficiency reports covering electricity use, power-usage effectiveness, efficiency measures, renewable-energy sources, and on-site renewable or energy-storage systems.

A Traffic Impact Analysis prepared by a licensed professional engineer is required for every proposed Services C data center and must evaluate construction, fit-out, operation, maintenance, and decommissioning traffic.

Phased developments must submit a phasing plan identifying electrical demand, water demand, and impervious surface for each phase and evaluating cumulative impacts at full build-out.

An emergency-response coordination plan, prepared with Forsyth County Emergency Services and addressing fire response, battery-storage hazards, fuel, hazardous materials, access, and communications, is required before issuance of a zoning permit.

If Services C operations cease for 24 consecutive months, the facility is deemed abandoned and the owner must remove structures, equipment, fuel systems, hazardous materials, and related improvements and restore the site.

Services C data centers are assigned a motor-vehicle parking requirement of one space per 7,000 square feet of gross floor area.

Failure to comply with environmental standards, maintain monitoring equipment, meet air-quality limits, or submit required reports is a UDO violation; the county may require mitigation, operational changes, equipment replacement, or suspension of generator testing, and repeated violations may result in revocation of the zoning permit.

Creates a separate Data Center, Services C use that the Principal Use Table marks as permitted by zoning-officer approval (Z) in the listed zoning districts, rather than requiring a special-use permit or elected-body approval.

Preserves all existing Services A rights on land that allows Services A on the amendment’s effective date. Data centers of any size or electrical demand may continue under the existing classification, permissions, permit pathway, dimensional standards, and development standards.

Expressly allows existing Services A data centers to receive new buildings, expansions, additional phases, and co-located facilities without becoming nonconforming because of the amendment.

Protects existing approvals and vested rights, including rights under UDO Section 2.7 and G.S. 160D-108, from being affected by the amendment.

Prevents facilities, parcels, and electrical demand on exempt Services A land from being aggregated toward the 25-megawatt threshold or used to impose the new Services C standards on other land.

Makes the new Services C classification applicable only to non-exempt land that is rezoned with the written consent of all owners or whose owners voluntarily elect the classification through recorded written consent.

Allows a Data Center, Services C to use alternative screening and landscaping compliance under Section 6.3.2.C when site constraints require it, subject to approval and protection of surrounding properties.

Allows the Director of Planning and Development Services or designee to approve alternative solutions when equipment limitations make required screening from public rights-of-way and neighboring properties difficult, provided surrounding quality of life and impact minimization are considered.

Sets a relatively low motor-vehicle parking requirement of one space per 7,000 square feet of gross floor area for Data Center, Services C and exempts the use from bicycle-parking requirements.

Data centers require an administrative zoning officer permit in zoning districts where they are allowed.

Data centers must meet site requirements for buffering, lighting, signage, and parking.

Large data centers must undergo water-system modeling to confirm that the proposed location can be supported.

Data centers classified as Significant Industrial Users must obtain a sewer permit and comply with industrial pretreatment oversight.

Significant Industrial Users must undergo routine compliance monitoring, including sampling for contaminants such as PFAS and review of wastewater volume, temperature, chemical use, and blowdown streams.

Sewer service approval may require evaluations of local hydraulics, treatment needs, and available system capacity.

Large-load data centers must pay for their own electric-grid connections, enter long-term contracts, and allow Duke Energy to curtail load during peak periods.

A proposed 180-day moratorium would pause development approvals for new large-scale data centers and expansions that would make existing facilities large-scale.

The proposed moratorium would cover facilities expected to require at least 50 megawatts of maximum electrical demand, including demand from buildings, cooling, support facilities, and phased projects on commonly owned, controlled, or adjoining planned parcels.

During the proposed moratorium, the county would stop accepting and processing covered rezonings, special-use permits, building and zoning permits, grading permits, and other applicable development approvals.

The proposed moratorium would contain statutory exemptions for certain projects with existing permits, completed applications, or established development rights, unless there is an imminent threat to public health or safety.

The proposed moratorium would require a staged review consisting of 90 days for information gathering and public comments, 30 days for evaluating legal options, and the remaining period for initiating proposed lawful changes.

The proposed moratorium would require at least one public hearing on regulatory options identified during the review.

Data center operations must comply with the county noise ordinance and may not exceed 60 decibels at any point along the property line.

Before any building permit is issued, the applicant must submit a pre-construction ambient noise study prepared by a qualified third-party acoustical engineer.

Cooling systems, transformers, generators, and other major noise-generating equipment must be located and oriented to reduce noise toward residences and equipped with acoustical barriers or sound-attenuation enclosures.

Emergency generator testing is limited to 7:00 AM through 7:00 PM, Monday through Saturday, and is prohibited on Sundays and federal holidays.

Permanent noise monitors must be installed at representative east, west, and south property boundaries before operations begin, with biannual reports submitted to the Planning Department.

Generator maintenance testing must be limited to the minimum duration and frequency necessary for manufacturer warranties, fire code, and insurance requirements.

Required air-quality permit applications must be submitted to the county with generator make, model, classification, and emissions information.

Exterior lighting must use full-cutoff, fully shielded, night-sky-compliant fixtures, with no unshielded or upward-facing decorative, promotional, or accent lighting.

Before any building permit is issued, a qualified lighting engineer must submit a photometric study showing that lighting at property boundaries will not exceed 0.5 foot-candles on adjacent residential property or public roadways.

Lighting along residential boundaries must use inward-oriented pedestrian-scale fixtures no higher than 12 feet.

Vegetated buffers, berms, and evergreen screening must be maintained along boundaries next to residential uses or residentially zoned property, with supplemental planting sufficient to achieve opacity within five years where needed.

Required buffers, landscaping, berms, and vegetation must be maintained in perpetuity, with failed plantings replaced within one growing season and debris and dead vegetation removed.

Perimeter fencing next to residential properties or public roads must be at least eight feet high and use black aluminum or steel anti-climb fencing; visible chain-link fencing is prohibited.

A tree preservation and replacement plan must be approved before grading if berm or buffer construction requires removing mature trees.

The data center must use the public water system for operational water needs; private wells may be used only for landscape irrigation.

Before any building permit is issued, a water usage plan must document normal and peak consumption, cooling technology, system capacity, and impacts on residential service and fire-flow requirements.

Open-loop cooling systems are prohibited.

Initial filling of cooling systems must be coordinated with the utility provider so system pressure and flow do not fall below minimum fire-suppression requirements.

Stormwater controls must meet NCDEQ standards and prevent increased downstream flooding while maintaining or improving pre-development discharge rates.

Building footprints and equipment yards are subject to a combined built-upon-area limit; expansions into equipment-yard areas are allowed only if the combined impervious area remains within the approved site-plan amount.

A Duke Energy-required substation relocation may replace an approved building or equipment yard only if total built-upon area does not increase and all other conditions, including noise, buffers, and setbacks, remain satisfied.

A threatened and endangered species study must be submitted before final site-plan approval.

Wetland delineation and field verification of jurisdictional streams must be completed before final site-plan approval, and development affecting jurisdictional features requires applicable federal and state permits.

A qualified traffic engineer's traffic impact analysis must be submitted to the Planning Department and NCDOT before final construction-document approval.

A temporary certificate of occupancy may precede completion of traffic improvements only if an acceptable performance guarantee is posted for the remaining work.

The primary entrance must be opposite Town Hall; Glade Street access must be gated and used only for emergencies, not routine construction, delivery, or employee traffic.

Construction and delivery traffic is limited to 7:00 AM through 7:00 PM, Monday through Saturday, except for mission-critical time-sensitive work such as continuous concrete pours.

Construction truck routes must be coordinated with NCDOT and the Town of Rural Hall before site work begins.

An emergency access and evacuation plan must be approved by the local fire department and emergency management services before a certificate of occupancy is issued.

Fire hydrants, fire lanes, and water-flow capacity must meet local fire marshal and North Carolina Fire Prevention Code requirements, and the fire marshal must confirm compliance before a certificate of occupancy is issued.

Building elevations visible from public roads or residences must include features that reduce perceived visual mass and depict rooftop equipment, screening walls, and dunnage.

The easternmost building, including rooftop equipment, dunnage, screening walls, and parapets, may not exceed the heights shown in the approved elevations.

All rooftop mechanical equipment must be screened from adjacent residences and public roads by integrated parapets, enclosures, or other architectural features.

The operator must maintain a technology-equipment lifecycle plan addressing disposal, recycling, or refurbishment of servers, batteries, cooling components, and other electronic equipment under applicable e-waste laws.

A site-restoration decommissioning plan must be submitted before a certificate of occupancy is issued.

The owner or operator must maintain a designated community contact and provide the contact information to the Planning Department and Town of Rural Hall.

The conditions run with the land and bind successors, tenants, operators, and other parties with an interest in the property for the duration of the data center use or another use authorized by the conditional rezoning.

The conditions may be modified, amended, or removed only through a new or amended conditional rezoning application and the full public review process, including hearings before the Planning Board and governing body.

Violations may result in notices of violation, civil penalties, injunctive relief, or revocation of certificates of occupancy or building permits.

The approved site plan, including built-upon areas, setbacks, buffers, and access points, is binding; material deviations require a new or amended conditional rezoning application unless they are limited administrative changes that reduce intensity or impacts.

A local development-approval moratorium may be imposed only for a reasonable period needed to correct, modify, or resolve the conditions requiring it and must identify the problems, affected approvals, termination date, and actions to be taken.

Data centers are classified as a specific “Services, A” use when their primary service is data processing.

Data centers are allowed in most nonresidential zoning districts through staff review, subject to general requirements such as buffering, lighting, signage, and parking.

Approval through a zoning officer’s permit is administrative and not discretionary, so it does not require a discretionary hearing or judgment.

The computer-data-center definition has no size limitation, allowing facilities of all sizes to qualify under the same provision.

Down-zoning protections generally prevent the county, without the consent of all owners in identically zoned districts, from reducing permitted uses, reducing development density, or creating nonconforming uses.

Changing data-center approval from administrative review to a special-use permit or rezoning would likely be treated as prohibited down-zoning.

The water system has 91 million gallons per day of permitted design capacity, although operating capacity is temporarily 67 million gallons per day during the Neilson water-treatment-plant renovation.

Large-load users such as data centers pay for their own grid connections, enter long-term contracts, and may allow Duke Energy to curtail their load during peak periods.

A temporary certificate of occupancy may be issued before traffic-impact-analysis improvements are complete if the applicant posts a county-approved performance guarantee for the remaining work.

The building footprint may expand into the designated equipment-yard area without a new rezoning application, provided the combined built-upon area does not exceed the approved site-plan amount.

If Duke Energy requires relocation of the proposed substation, the substation may replace a depicted building or equipment yard without a new or amended conditional rezoning application, provided total built-upon area does not increase and other conditions remain satisfied.

The data center may use the public water supply for operations if a water-use plan demonstrates adequate system capacity and protection of existing residential service and fire-flow requirements.

Construction and delivery traffic is generally allowed from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. Monday through Saturday, with an exception for mission-critical, time-sensitive work such as continuous concrete pours.

The primary entrance may be located on the frontage opposite Town Hall, while a gated Glade Street connection may remain available exclusively for emergency access.

Scheduled generator maintenance testing is permitted during daytime hours Monday through Saturday, limited to the minimum duration and frequency needed for warranty, fire-code, and insurance compliance.

Administrative site-plan modifications may be made without a new or amended conditional rezoning application when they reduce built-upon area, increase setbacks, or otherwise lessen development intensity or impacts.

The approved conditions and site plan run with the land and bind successors, tenants, operators, and other parties with an interest in the property, preserving the approved development framework.

The proposed moratorium incorporated exemptions under North Carolina law for projects with existing permits, completed applications, or established development rights, unless an imminent threat to public health or safety existed.