Aurora council advances sweeping data-center rules after weeks of resident complaints

City of Aurora staff presented a package of four interrelated ordinances on March 18 designed to regulate data centersoperational transparency, sound and vibration impacts, energy and water use, and local privacy protections.

The measures would add two new chapters to the municipal code (an Aurora Responsible Data Center Ordinance and a Data Center Privacy Protection Ordinance), create a zoning text amendment to treat data centers as a distinct conditional use rather than simply a warehouse, adjust warehouse zoning rules, and update the building code to require city-reviewed sound and vibration testing before occupancy.

"We're distinguishing data centers from warehouses, creating performance requirements and requiring annual public reporting," John Curley, the city's chief development services officer, told the Committee of the Whole. He described requirements including engineered sound and vibration studies submitted with entitlement requests, city-selected third-party in-place testing before certificates of occupancy, annual public reporting of noise, energy and water, and development agreements that can include site-specific operational terms paid for by the developer.

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