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Before approving a data center, a city or county should establish exactly what state law and local ordinances allow it to decide, then test the proposal’s land-use fit, electricity and water requirements, environmental effects, fiscal claims, and enforceability. Local zoning approval is only one layer; utility interconnection and many environmental permits may be controlled by utilities, state agencies, or federal programs.
The most defensible process is project-specific. Require documented demand, infrastructure studies, operating limits, financial assumptions, monitoring plans, and closure obligations rather than relying on averages or unverified developer projections. The Pennsylvania Data Center Planning Toolkit describes this objective as evaluating proposals “in a way that aligns with local authority, infrastructure realities, and community goals.”
1. Confirm the government’s authority and the correct approval path
Start with a legal map of every decision the local government may make. Authority differs by state, county, municipality, and type of project. The same proposal may require several approvals handled by different bodies, while some issues may be outside local jurisdiction.
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- Locate the parcel on the current zoning map and comprehensive plan.
- Find the ordinance definition that most closely covers a data center, computing facility, industrial use, utility use, warehouse, or another applicable category.
- Determine whether the use is permitted by right, subject to a conditional or special-use permit, or prohibited without a zoning amendment.
- Check dimensional standards, height and floor-area limits, setbacks, parking, landscaping, lighting, screening, impervious-surface limits, and design rules.
- Identify nearby homes, schools, parks, historic resources, waterways, wetlands, habitats, and other sensitive uses.
The National Association of Counties (NACo) notes that county authority depends on state arrangements and commonly includes zoning ordinances, land-use designations, conditional or special-use permits, site-plan review, and development agreements. Confirm which body decides each item, the filing deadlines, hearing requirements, appeal standards, and whether legally permissible conditions may be imposed.
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Separate local decisions from outside permits
A zoning board cannot automatically approve a power-line interconnection, water withdrawal, air permit, floodplain authorization, or wastewater discharge. Build a permit matrix showing the responsible agency, applicant, decision standard, expected timing, and how each approval interacts with construction. Ask the applicant to identify every state and federal permit, but verify the list independently.
2. Demand a complete, comparable project description
At first contact, request enough information to distinguish a committed project from a speculative site search. Maryland’s 2026 executive order directs preparation of local guidance on questions such as the end user, electricity demand, water needs, energy plan, and timeline. Use those questions as a minimum intake checklist.
Information to request in writing
- Named owner, developer, operator, and end user, if known; ownership and operating responsibility for each phase.
- Site boundary, parcels, access roads, requested approvals, building footprints, gross floor area, height, substations, fuel storage, cooling equipment, generators, and security features.
- Construction phases, construction start and service dates, expected build-out, expansion triggers, and the maximum foreseeable campus size.
- Peak electrical demand in megawatts, expected average demand, load shape, power factor, redundancy design, and the date each phase reaches service.
- Utility-confirmed capacity, interconnection studies, required transmission or distribution upgrades, schedule, reliability implications, and the party responsible for each cost.
- Water source, average and maximum withdrawal, cooling technology, seasonal demand, drought assumptions, treatment, storage, wastewater volume, discharge destination, and contingency supply.
- Backup power technology, fuel type and storage, generator count and rating, testing schedule, expected run hours, and emissions controls.
- Construction workforce, truck routes, delivery frequency, traffic controls, noise during construction, and restoration plans.
- Expansion assumptions, ownership-transfer plans, expected operating life, and closure or decommissioning strategy.
Require a single set of definitions and units so that phases and alternatives can be compared. Treat developer estimates as claims to be verified against utility letters, engineering calculations, permit applications, and service-provider records.
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3. Test electricity, water, and infrastructure capacity
Electricity and grid effects
Ask the serving utility to document available capacity, interconnection status, upgrade scope, timing, reliability effects, and cost allocation. A letter saying that service is “available” is not the same as a completed study or a funded construction schedule. Identify whether the project’s load could require new substations, transmission facilities, easements, road work, or emergency generation.
Analyze who ultimately pays. Possible assignments include the developer, utility rate base, special assessments, connection charges, or a combination. Ask whether costs are refundable, capped, or shifted to other customers if the project is delayed or never reaches its stated load. Maryland’s guidance mandate specifically calls for examining effects on ratepayers and utility infrastructure.
Water supply, cooling, and wastewater
Do not use a national “typical data center” water figure; no authoritative national average was established. Require the applicant’s maximum-day and annual volumes, source, treatment, discharge, and assumptions for hot weather, drought, outages, and future expansion.
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Compare cooling designs rather than treating water use as fixed. Closed-loop, air-cooled, and reclaimed-water systems can have different water, energy, cost, and reliability profiles. Maryland’s order identifies those alternatives for analysis. Ask who owns water rights, whether the system depends on a stressed basin, what happens during restrictions, and whether potable water is being used where reclaimed water is feasible.
Review wastewater capacity and pretreatment needs with the service provider. Quantify new mains, pump stations, treatment capacity, storage, and emergency-response requirements, and assign each cost in a written agreement.
4. Evaluate site design and compatibility with surrounding land uses
A large facility can be technically permitted yet incompatible with its surroundings. Review the campus as a complete operating site, including substations, generators, cooling yards, fuel tanks, security fencing, parking, stormwater structures, and future phases.
Land-use questions
- Does the use advance or conflict with the comprehensive plan and economic-development strategy?
- Are setbacks, height, massing, loading areas, and building orientation appropriate next to residences or public spaces?
- Can landscaping, berms, walls, and building materials reduce visual and acoustic effects?
- Will impervious surfaces alter drainage, erosion, groundwater recharge, or downstream flooding?
- Could construction or operation affect historic resources, protected habitats, farms, parks, schools, or emergency access?
- Does the proposal reserve enough area for safe utility access, fire protection, equipment replacement, and future stormwater controls?
NACo reports that some jurisdictions have used setbacks of 200 to 500 feet between property lines and residences or residential districts. Those are examples of local practice, not a universal recommendation. Select a distance based on the site, sound model, equipment, terrain, and applicable law.
5. Measure noise, generator emissions, heat, and other environmental effects
Noise from cooling and backup power
Request a professional acoustic model with a source inventory, octave-band data, receptor locations, day and night assumptions, weather conditions, and cumulative effects from cooling equipment, transformers, fans, pumps, and generator testing. Require modeling for normal operation, maintenance, emergency operation, and the maximum build-out, not only the first building.
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NACo describes local limits often set at 65 decibels at a property line and 55 decibels in quieter or residential areas. These figures are not binding national standards. The ordinance, measurement method, time period, and enforcement procedure in the actual jurisdiction control. A consumer sound meter may help residents make preliminary observations, but formal compliance should use calibrated, professionally conducted measurements when required by law or technical standards.
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Backup-generator emissions and testing
Obtain the generator inventory, fuel type, hours of non-emergency operation, testing calendar, emissions calculations, stack locations, and applicable air permits. Ask how testing will be scheduled to avoid repeated nighttime disturbance and how fuel spills, maintenance, and emergency operation will be reported.
Stormwater, wastewater, heat, and land disturbance
Review grading, clearing, erosion controls, detention, infiltration, discharge points, and long-term maintenance responsibility. Examine heat rejection and whether concentrated warm-air or water discharges affect neighbors or receiving waters. Coordinate local review with state permits; requirements vary by jurisdiction.
Iowa Department of Natural Resources lists possible state permits for water use, air quality, stormwater, wastewater construction and discharge, and floodplain work. Its examples illustrate the range of approvals that may be involved, not a national checklist.
6. Verify the fiscal and economic case
Separate one-time construction activity from recurring public value. A project’s capital investment does not automatically become annual local revenue, and a construction workforce is not the same as permanent employment.
Build an auditable fiscal model
| Item | Questions for the applicant and government analysts |
|---|---|
| Revenue | Which property, sales, utility, payroll, or other taxes apply; what is the assessed value; when does revenue begin; and how sensitive is it to abatements or appeals? |
| Incentives | What exemptions, credits, grants, land discounts, or infrastructure subsidies are requested, and what is the net public cost? |
| Infrastructure | What roads, substations, water lines, sewers, emergency facilities, and drainage improvements are needed, and who pays? |
| Services | What police, fire, emergency medical, inspection, planning, and utility-management workload is expected during construction and operation? |
| Employment | How many construction, temporary, permanent, and contracted jobs are expected; what qualifications and wage levels apply; and how will counts be verified? |
| Risk | What happens to revenue, debt, and infrastructure costs if a phase is delayed, load is reduced, ownership changes, or the facility closes? |
Ask for independent or auditable assumptions, sensitivity cases, and a schedule showing when each benefit appears. Do not accept an unqualified “economic impact” number as a substitute for local net fiscal analysis.
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If state law permits conditions or a development agreement, write commitments so that a later owner, reduced operating schedule, or partial build-out cannot erase them.
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Elements of a durable condition
- A precise metric, amount, location, or performance threshold.
- A deadline and the phase or operating condition that triggers it.
- A verification source, calculation method, and reporting frequency.
- Public access to non-confidential reports and a named monitoring official.
- A cure period, penalty, withholding mechanism, or other lawful remedy.
- Applicability to successors, assigns, expansions, and material changes in ownership.
- Re-review triggers when load, water demand, equipment, or site area increases.
- Financial security or another mechanism for unfinished infrastructure and closure work.
St. Louis’s 2026 approval announcement illustrates how specific terms can be. The described project included a community-benefit payment of $30 per square foot, estimated at $15 million, employment commitments of 25, 50, and 100 jobs by specified years, renewable-energy sourcing of 50% within five years, and a power-usage-effectiveness target of 1.25 (or 1.35 for the stated reuse case). Those are project-specific negotiated terms, not standard requirements. The city also described conditions covering water, noise, generator testing, reporting, monitoring, and decommissioning.
8. Plan for monitoring, expansion, and closure
Approval is the beginning of oversight, not the end. Assign responsibility for inspecting sound, water, stormwater, generator testing, construction conditions, and benefit commitments. Establish a complaint intake process with response times and escalation rules.
Require annual or more frequent reports that compare actual electricity demand, water use, generator hours, noise results, incidents, employment, payments, and infrastructure obligations with approved limits. Make expansion subject to renewed review when it changes the building footprint, peak load, cooling system, generator fleet, water demand, traffic, or noise profile.
Address prolonged vacancy and abandonment. A decommissioning plan should identify equipment removal, fuel and chemical disposal, utility disconnection, site security, recycling or reclamation, environmental cleanup, and funding responsibility. St. Louis publicly described a decommissioning requirement for prolonged vacancy; other jurisdictions should tailor such provisions to their own authority and risk.
9. Use jurisdiction-specific thresholds carefully
Some published figures are useful screening points but cannot be transplanted across states.
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| Figure | What it means and where it applies |
|---|---|
| 25,000 gallons or more in 24 hours | Iowa Department of Natural Resources’ stated threshold for a permit to withdraw from surface water or groundwater. |
| 90 days | Iowa’s typical review time after a complete water-use permit application. |
| 10 years; 5 years for the Jordan Aquifer | Iowa’s stated general permit duration and Jordan Aquifer exception. |
| One or more acres | Iowa’s stated construction-disturbance threshold for Stormwater General Permit #2. |
| 500 feet | Distance in proposed North Carolina Senate Bill 730 site-assessment language for examining effects on residences and schools. The bill text reviewed does not establish enactment or effective status; verify status before treating it as law. |
| 200–500 feet; 65 dB and 55 dB | NACo’s 2026 descriptions of setback and noise ranges used by some jurisdictions, not universal standards. |
Iowa thresholds apply in Iowa. North Carolina bill language is not current law unless separately confirmed. No single national standard governs local setbacks, noise, water use, or utility cost allocation.
10. Compare sites and designs with one decision framework
When several parcels, cooling systems, or operating plans are under consideration, score each option against the same questions:
- Land-use fit: compatibility with the plan, distance to sensitive uses, scale, screening, and emergency access.
- Utility capacity: confirmed electric and water capacity, upgrade timing, reliability effects, and cost bearer.
- Resource resilience: water source, consumption, cooling technology, drought performance, wastewater, and reclaimed-water potential.
- Operating impacts: modeled noise, generator emissions, stormwater, heat, traffic, and enforceable limits.
- Net public value: verified recurring revenue and jobs minus incentives, infrastructure, and service costs.
- Enforceability: monitoring, reporting, remedies, successor obligations, expansion review, financial security, and decommissioning.
Document why a proposal meets each criterion, what evidence remains uncertain, and which conditions close the gap. That record helps the deciding body distinguish lawful, evidence-based review from generalized support or opposition.
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