Jones County work session narrows text amendment for data centers as moratorium expiration looms

Unidentified Speaker 1 opened a Jones County work session saying the meeting would focus on a text amendment to regulate data centers and asked participants to limit public cross-talk so the planning discussion could proceed. Speaker 3, who presented the draft, said the ordinance creates three categories—minor, major and campus—with conditional-use allowances tied to tier and zoning district.

The draft sets a 75-foot building height limit for data centers outside the industrial park, up from the county's general 35-foot maximum, and proposes tiered lot-size minimums: minor centers would conform to underlying zoning, majors at about 5 acres and campus centers at about 100 acres. "We have the height restriction of 75 feet," Speaker 3 said while reviewing the draft. The presenters recommended applying buffering from residentially zoned property rather than imposing wide separations between industrial tenants, to avoid underutilizing the industrial park.