Supervisors debate data-center and battery-storage rules; no moratorium adopted

Supervisors spent substantial time discussing community requests for a moratorium on data centers and battery-storage facilities and received a planning update explaining the county's current regulatory posture.

Planning staff told the board that in most rural areas data centers are not a listed land use, which means a new data-center proposal would typically require ordinance changes, planning-commission review and possibly annexation or conditional approvals before permits could be issued. Staff said the county's current rules are restrictive and that a large rural data center would face practical obstacles including utility, water and emergency-services needs.

Board members expressed concerns about public safety and emergency-response capacity if large battery-storage facilities were permitted without strict safeguards. One supervisor cited incidents elsewhere where battery facilities have experienced fires and emphasized potential hazards if siting is near highways or developed areas. Planning staff and supervisors noted the industry's fast pace of technological change and observed that ordinance language could become outdated quickly.

While some citizens and supervisors proposed a moratorium to buy time for ordinance development, the board concluded that the county's existing non-listing of these uses effectively prevents routine siting and that a symbolic moratorium would need specific timeframes and follow-up direction to be meaningful. No formal moratorium was adopted; instead, supervisors directed planning staff to flag any incoming proposals, evaluate emergency-response and infrastructure needs, and prepare potential ordinance language if needed.