Roswell staff recommends strict, tiered controls for data centers after moratorium; council asks for ordinance in August

City staff presented findings and draft policy options to regulate data centers after the council approved a moratorium in January.

Michelle Alexander summarized staff’s research, noting that many jurisdictions and state agencies have recently studied the issue. She said the city examined model ordinances and state guidance and recommended defining data centers, classifying them by energy use (megawatts) rather than footprint, and setting tier-based regulations that would: exempt small on-site servers and critical institutional uses (for example, hospitals), require noise and low-frequency vibration studies, impose buffers from residential zoning, require water-consumption and sustainability plans, prohibit or tightly restrict evaporative water-based cooling, and require decommissioning plans (and potentially bonds) for reuse or repurposing of the facility.

Key findings staff presented: modeling suggests a data-center facility uses far fewer permanent jobs than office or industrial uses on equivalent acreage but can yield substantial property-tax revenue because of high assessed value of equipment in the facility. Energy and water demands are significant: state guidance flags projects at 300,000 square feet for heightened review, and staff noted examples where a 33,000-square-foot data center consuming about 5 megawatts can require several thousand gallons per hour of water for cooling systems. Staff emphasized the nuisance potential from continuous, low-frequency noise and vibration from industrial cooling systems and backup generators and recommended distance buffers as one protective tool.

Council discussion and next steps: staff proposed tier thresholds (examples discussed in the presentation included ranges roughly at 1–5 megawatts for small users, larger tiers above 15 megawatts for facilities that create significant off-site nuisance) and recommended locating larger tiers only in industrial zones and allowing smaller tiers in office/industrial areas through conditional-use review. Council asked staff to close numeric gaps in the tier definitions, to consider topography and berming in buffering guidance, and to include a decommissioning bond to cover remediation costs. Alexander said staff would refine the draft and return with an ordinance in August ahead of the moratorium’s expiration in September.