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Some notes heading into the working week …
PROPOSED DATA CENTER ZONING RESTRICTIONS GO TO APC COMMITTEE WEDNESDAY
A final draft of proposed zoning regulations for data centers – one designed to fall just shy of an outright ban – is expected to be hammered out Wednesday afternoon, before being sent to the Area Plan Commission for consideration in two weeks.
The APC Ordinance Committee, the first step in rewriting the county’s zoning code, held off on sending the proposed rules to the full Area Plan Commission when they were first presented Aug. 5, to give the staff a month to make a series of clarifications suggested during a hearing then.
The county is working toward a set of regulations ahead of a sunset for current codes that were set up a year ago to limit development of hyperscale facilities built to house massive server farms to process and disseminate data in a growing artificial intelligence market.
Current zoning code definitions for data centers, installed in November 2025 as a stopgap measure to temporarily slow any energy- and water-eating data center development, is set to expire in November 2026. That measure included a section that restricted large data center development to a single, rarely used I2/industrial designation.
During the August hearing, APC staff laid out a proposed raft of restrictions that made a narrow window for data center developers to fit through, without suggesting a full-on ban. County officials say they’re aiming for more narrowly crafted zoning codes that could survive if the Indiana General Assembly decides to outlaw locally-issued data center bans.
In a memo with the proposed rules, Amanda Esposito, APC assistant director, wrote: “There are recent examples where the state legislature has pre-empted local jurisdictions from banning specific uses. Instead, staff has chosen to strongly limit the possible areas to locate an undesirable use and require multiple public hearings.”
Here’s what’s on the table, heading into Wednesday’s session:
Data center definitions: The code would differentiate between a “data center” and a “large data center.”
