The Decatur City Council on Monday rejected an effort to restore stricter proposed zoning regulations for data centers after reaching a consensus to remove those restrictions during last week's work session.
Planning Director Chad Bowman presented a proposed zoning text amendment last week that would require a developer wanting to build a data center larger than 10,000 square feet to seek a variance from the city's Board of Zoning Adjustments. The proposal would have also required any power source to be contained within an enclosed building.
City Council members changed the proposed ordinance so that they do not restrict the size of a data center in an industrial setting or make data centers place their power inside.
Bowman agreed to the changes last week but, at the urging of the zoning text committee that met Thursday, he tried to revert back Monday to the original data proposal.
However, the council wouldn't go along with him as it voted 4-1 to continue with the ordinance that they agreed to last week. Councilman Kyle Pike was absent.
The proposed ordinance, which includes a ban on raising chickens in the city, will now go to a second reading and a vote since the council didn't make any changes.
A data center is a facility used to house computer systems, servers, networking equipment, storage devices and associated components for processing, storage, management or transmission of digital data.
Bowman said the most common concerns are the large electrical power demands, water usage, noise from cooling infrastructure, backup power generation and long-term infrastructure capacity.
“We have to be careful about preservation (of neighborhoods) and the quality of life,” Bowman said. “The main reason was to protect the community from noise pollution and also limit the size of these structures that are known to use an exorbitant amount of energy.”
He said Clarion Inc., the consultant that drafted the city's new zoning ordinance approved earlier this year, concluded that Decatur can't support a large-scale facility.
Bowman said Decatur could potentially support a medium-sized data center of between 10,000 and 200,000 square feet, which would use 1 megawatt and not more than 30 megawatts, or a micro-data center of less than 10,000 square feet.
“But, based on our conversations, we've learned that we probably don't even have the land square footage or area to be able to support a higher scale data center anyway,” Bowman said.
He said enclosing the power generation is an issue “because it might be very noisy and highly polluting.”
For example, Bowman, who recently moved to Decatur from West Memphis, Arkansas, said Elon Musk's AI startup xAI plans to continue using 15 methane-gas turbines to power its Colossus supercomputer in Memphis, Tennessee.
“The neighbors complained of the smell of noxious gas,” Bowman said. “The methane gas gives off the same smell as from a swamp or maybe a sewer.”
He said data centers don't employ as many people as other industries like advanced manufacturing in the Decatur area.
Bowman said Birmingham has a six-month moratorium and Cullman and Morgan County have a one-year moratorium while Athens recently implemented a “strong” land-use plan. Huntsville and Madison are examining the issue, he added.
He said there are ordinances nationwide that are a lot more restrictive on data centers than the one he proposed.
“I don't think what we're doing is uninviting because we don't have the voluminous ordinance that other cities are working for it or have,” Bowman said. “We still leave room for individuals to come to the table.”
Councilman Barry Bullard continued to voice his opposition to creating tighter standards for data centers than other local industries. He pointed out that Calpine, on Red Hat Road, uses methane and natural gas and the Morgan County Regional Landfill produces methane.
“Should we outlaw those guys?” Bullard said of the local industries.
Bowman replied that, if people knew then what they know now, they would have regulated industries more.
“We were not as knowledgeable about the environmental impact as we are now,” Bowman said. “My parents just always tell me, ‘When you know better, you do better.’ If we want to protect our environment, we'll be more conscious about what happens with land uses in Decatur.”
“What you just told me is we probably needed not to have a Nucor Steel or a Daikin or 3M in our community,” Bullard replied. “We wouldn't have them if we knew then what we know now. We might be a little one-light town if that was the case.”
Bowman said the data centers “need to be good corporate citizens who offer tons of money for economic and community development in our city.”
Bullard said he thinks they need to have a broader discussion about data centers and their power consumption and noise. He said they first need to look at the Alabama Department of Environmental Management and its regulations, although he doesn't think it is very strict.
“I assume ADEM has acceptable levels for these issues,” Bullard said. “I don't know if we want to put such tight standards on, but I think we need to see what's out there and, if we're going to come up with a standard for the industry, let's make it across the board.”
Bullard said multiple industries receive electricity directly from the Tennessee Valley Authority or generate their own power through a TVA partnership, so their power does not come through Decatur Utilities.
He said the main issue he has with this ordinance is they would be picking and choosing one industry to penalize over another.
Councilwoman Pam Werstler said she is concerned that they would turn down data centers over manufacturing companies when they might have the same use of water and electrical use.
Werstler said they also talked about not having land available for data centers, but they have to take into consideration that there might be annexation.
"If we don't have the land, then why would we want to do this when it's not going to happen?” Werstler said. "Or, if we're too restrictive, they might not want to annex into the city."
She said the sections regarding power and electricity aren't needed in the ordinance.
“I'm not blind to the issues,” Werstler said. “But I feel like data centers are getting a bad name that's not completely justified, and I felt what we had originally almost shut the doors to them.”
Bullard said he trusts Mayor Kent Lawrence to negotiate a deal with the data center and “do what's right for the city of Decatur.”