Lebanon planning staff outlines zoning-code rewrite, flags data centers as industrial use

Planning staff told the Lebanon Planning Commission that the city is preparing a rewrite of its zoning code and plans to treat large-scale data centers as an industrial use, with public outreach scheduled for June 30.

The planning staff update said the draft code will require usable open space and tree-preservation rules in residential and mixed‑use districts but not in most industrial or commercial districts, will remove a proposed design-review committee from the code, and will preserve current billboard locations via a mapped sign-code overlay instead of creating new billboard zones.

During a lengthy presentation, planning staff summarized research on data centers and said the draft code will explicitly allow data centers in industrial districts.…