HENDERSONVILLE – Rules around data centers are now included in Henderson County’s ordinance, after the Board of Commissioners tweaked its language in a July 15 meeting.
The Board had previously addressed cryptocurrency mining in 2023, but other types of data centers, like those used for cloud storage or AI, weren’t included, Henderson County Planning Director Autumn Radcliff told commissioners.
“We currently don’t have (the words) ‘data center’ anywhere in our land development code,” she said.
Chair Bill Lapsley said this move comes in response to public concerns and rumors about data centers being approved to be built in the county.
“(That’s) just not true,” Lapsley said.
“No one has approached us about doing either (crypto mining or other data centers),” Radcliff said.
Under the amended code, data centers, like crypto operations, are allowed only in industrial zoning districts and only with a special use permit approved by the Zoning Board of Adjustment, according to Radcliff and the county’s development code.
They must be set back 100 feet and can’t be built within 2 miles of a neighboring dwelling, residential zoning district, library, nursing facility, day care, park, religious institution or school, according to the code.
Data centers also can’t be built within two miles of another data center, Radcliff said.
They can’t operate between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. or on Sundays or produce more than 50 decibels, measured from 100 feet away, and must be surrounded by an 8-foot sound-baffling wall, according to the code.
“This particular language would make it as difficult as it is possible for this board to make it, under the current law,” County Manager John Mitchell said in the meeting.
That’s because of a state law that bans localities from “downzoning,” or directly limiting allowed uses on a given piece of land.
“It’s still not quite as strict as I would like it, but I understand that we are bound and can only do so much,” Commissioner Sheila Franklin said.
Most data centers in North Carolina are on flat land along the East Coast and in the Piedmont region, since the tight, mountainous terrain of Western North Carolina is less conducive, Commissioner Rebecca McCall said.
“I don’t think that we are an attractive location for these facilities. But anyway … hopefully we’ll get the message out that this isn’t the area for those,” she said.
What is a data center?
Data centers are large, warehouse-like facilities that house banks of computer servers that might be used for artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency mining or cloud storage.
They might be hundreds of thousands or even millions of square feet, USA TODAY reported. And because of that they’re often built in rural areas.
They’re typically mostly automated and employ few staff to run.
They generally need large amounts of electricity to run the servers and water to keep them cool. Data centers might also use large, powerful fans to cool the servers, which neighbors often complain pose a noise nuisance.
In May, the city of Brevard changed its development code to restrict data centers to industrial zoning districts, requiring a conditional rezoning so the city can approve or deny proposals on a case-by-case basis based on factors like water and electricity usage and neighborhood character, the Times-news previously reported.
The Town of Canton approved a one-year moratorium on data centers in February, the Asheville Citizen Times reported.
Google announced in March that it planned to invest $1 billion in data center infrastructure in Lenoir, the Citizen Times reported.
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George Fabe Russell is the Henderson County Reporter for the Hendersonville Times-News. Tips, questions, comments? Email him at GFRussell@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Hendersonville Times-News: Henderson County adds data center restrictions to development ordinance
