Data centers likely to be a bigger topic than expected at Lexington Planning Commission
Data centers — and local rules and regulations related to them — are likely to be a topic of conversation at the next Lexington-Fayette Urban County Planning Commission meeting despite the fact that they weren’t initially meant to be major part of discussion.
The commission will meet June 11 at 1:30 p.m. to consider development plans, including for additions to the Urban Service Boundary. The commission will again hear from consultants who have been trying to modernize industrial zones and define data centers, including where they can be located, how big they can be and setting criteria for the approvals process.
In an April 30 Planning Commission work session, a consultant working on the Blue Sky Small Area Plan said he was preparing a zoning ordinance text amendment to define and regulate data centers as part of modernizing industrial zones, or those where property use is intended for manufacturing, processing, storage and other operations.
The Blue Sky Small Area Plan proposes uses for and suggests what types of commercial development should be built on the roughly 300 acres around Athens Boonesboro Road and Interstate 75 which was added to the city’s urban service area in October 2023.
At the work session, Caleb Racicot, the consultant, said the amendment would define minor data centers as those that are less than 50,000 square feet and major data centers as those that are greater than 50,000 square feet.
Discussion surrounding data centers in Lexington became much more significant when DartPoints announced its purchase of an old Lexmark data center. Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council then quickly moved June 9 to put a moratorium on new data centers in Fayette County.
While not planned as part of the Blue Sky Small Area Plan presentation for Thursday — other than to reference an amendment is still forthcoming — it’s likely questions will be asked about data centers, said Department of Planning and Preservation Commissioner Keith Horn.
“It is the duty of the Planning Commission to hear from all sides, let as much public comment be heard that is necessary and to make a decision based on evidence and input,” said Planning Commission Chair Zach Davis.
The Blue Sky zoning amendment is not yet available and may need to be reorganized in response to a different amendment specifically related to data centers Council unanimously asked the Planning Commission to begin drafting.
Fifth District Council Member Liz Sheehan brought two walk-on resolutions forward June 9 that Council passed in less than 15 minutes with no discussion. One is a moratorium on reviewing plans and giving approvals for data centers and the other was a zoning ordinance text amendment.
The amendment would change some of the city’s existing code, including but not limited to sections that detail permitted use of space and other sections related to the requirements and procedures for approving development plans.
Sheehan told Council it would “provide clarity on development plan considerations to ensure proper integration of this land use into the urban county planning and zoning scheme.”
The council member told the Herald-Leader Wednesday she’s been working with planning staff for months to be proactive about data centers in and around Lexington despite the county not being near a large body of water or power plant, two hallmarks of where other data centers have been proposed across the country.
“The original timeline was to work on the Blue Sky Small Area Plan and have that adopted and then have the overall modernization of some of our industrial and business zones follow that conversation,” Sheehan said. “... What that zoning ordinance text amendment that we initiated yesterday does is it speeds up the drafting of language specific to data centers.”
The resolutions were fast tracked when news spread of DartPoints’ purchase.
The New Circle Road property was previously used as a data center, but DartPoints Operating Company said it would develop the site to support a broad mix of customers and uses, including for the support of artificial intelligence.
The Dallas-based company operates almost a dozen data centers across the country, works to build their infrastructure and then scales it as customer needs grow.
The site, as is, has an approximately 20 megawatt to 30 megawatt capacity, though DartPoints said there is long-term expansion potential to 70 megawatts.
At the property, there is more than 345,000 square feet of space across nearly 30 acres and two buildings in addition to 600 surface parking spaces. Only one of the buildings — roughly 81,600 square feet — was previously used as an IBM data center. It already has cooling and power management equipment, backup generators and raised floor systems for temperature regulation.
Sheehan said in her conversations with planning and legal staff at the city, because the Lexmark property changed owners through the sale, DartPoints still needs to apply for a zoning compliance permit and a building occupancy certificate.
The moratorium passed Tuesday applies to not only zone changes and development plans, but also to approvals and authorizations related to data centers including zoning compliance permits which is a document from the city that indicates a property’s land use fits with the zone it is in.
In general, a property owner would still need a permit even if the use is identical to the previous owner.
“The resolutions that we passed yesterday make our intent known that we want to put these policies in place,” Sheehan said. “We were already working on this, so if you’re looking at the timeline, it’s relatively short on the moratorium because we were already working on draft language and we were already expecting to have this discussion in the fall.”
Following an almost week-long attempt to coordinate with leadership from DartPoints, a spokesperson said Wednesday afternoon they could no longer accommodate an interview with the Herald-Leader ahead of the Planning Commission meeting.
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