Applicants must provide proof of long-term studies of comparable operating facilities, not projections alone.
Independent, developer-funded third-party review of water, noise, traffic, and grid studies rather than reliance on applicant-provided studies alone.
Minimum of five days' public notice for all filings and meetings, with meaningful hearings before rezoning or site plan approval and adequate time for residents to review technical materials.
The ordinance should preserve the Board of Supervisors' discretion to deny a rezoning request even when an application satisfies every checklist item; rezoning is a legislative act, and meeting minimum standards should not create an entitlement to approval.
Risk that city annexation (including irregular or 'shostring' annexation under Iowa Code Chapter 368) could remove a project from county zoning authority after county standards are adopted.
Need for intergovernmental (28E) agreements between the county and cities to ensure consistent standards regardless of jurisdiction.
Data center campuses increasingly include on-site solar arrays and battery energy storage. The Zoning Commission's language should include:
Total impervious surface limited to 20% of the property for solar and 25% for battery storage.
A 50-foot height limit and a 1,320-foot (quarter-mile) setback from property lines and road right-of-way lines.
Weak or missing definitions are the single most common loophole in local ordinances. A developer facing a standard it does not like will argue its project is not a 'data center,' that its 'campus' is a series of separate small buildings, or that its cooling system is 'closed-loop' when it is not. The ordinance must open with a rigorous definitions section, including at minimum:
'Data center,' 'data center campus,' 'hyperscale,' 'colocation,' and 'edge facility' — defined by use and by campus acreage and aggregate power demand, not by individual building size, so phased or subdivided projects cannot evade thresholds.
'Closed-loop cooling system,' 'evaporative cooling,' 'potable water,' 'blowdown,' and 'water withdrawal' — so water claims are verifiable.
Noise terms: 'A-weighted (dBA)' and 'C-weighted (dBC)' levels, 'L90 background baseline,' 'tonal noise,' and 'property line measurement.'
'Excess power capacity,' 'committed load,' and 'projected peak demand' — so the 150% capacity requirement is enforceable.
Karst feature, 'sinkhole,' 'losing stream,' and 'spring' — tied to state geological survey mapping plus site investigation.
'Sensitive areas' thoroughly defined — non-participating parcels, public parks and wildlife management areas, karst areas, and similar protected locations.
'Decommissioning,' 'abandonment,' 'cessation of operations' (with a defined trigger, e.g., 12 consecutive months of non-operation), and 'site restoration.'