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Zoning 🟧 Data centers and cryptomining

CityWoke

CityWoke

Cyburbian
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48
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2
How have you classified this?

Light Industrial by right?

Also, is there sufficient reason to separate the two “data center” and “cryptomining” into different uses and zoning allowance?
 
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Not sure. But our fair city actually does cryptomining. Not just in the city. Actually done by the city.

Lots of warehouses and data centers too. The Facebook data center is zoned K, Heavy Industrial. I found another data center in a J, Medium Industrial, zone, and one in the Central Business District (H zoned).
 
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Haven't put it in the ordinance yet, but we've allowed data centers in industrial/light industrial by right. The Industrial Development Board wanted to encourage them, but not in their parks because they don't really produce a ton of jobs. We had thought about looking at them like a substation because they can be very passive. We allow substations conditionally in most zones. The biggest nuisance appears to be constant noise or hum.

I've seen a couple of very low quality cryptomining setups where the cooling can be very loud.
 
bureaucrat#3 said:
Haven't put it in the ordinance yet, but we've allowed data centers in industrial/light industrial by right. The Industrial Development Board wanted to encourage them, but not in their parks because they don't really produce a ton of jobs. We had thought about looking at them like a substation because they can be very passive. We allow substations conditionally in most zones. The biggest nuisance appears to be constant noise or hum.

I've seen a couple of very low quality cryptomining setups where the cooling can be very loud.
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Have you made a determination that Cryptomining and data center are synonymous?
 
There is no uniquely differentiating land use impact for data centers. The external 'impacts' are functionally not much different than a low intensity warehouse land use.

Permitted use that creates minimal external land use impacts (traffic, noise, vibration, etc), but creates nice property tax and municipal water supply revenue.

Don't invent a land use impact when there really isn't one.

If there is objective 'compelling government interest' for specific municipal regulation, it likely would be in the utility provision arena that should be directly addressed outside of a land use regulation section of the municipal code, such as utility rates code, etc.
 
mendelman said:
There is no uniquely differentiating land use impact for data centers. The external 'impacts' are functionally not much different than a low intensity warehouse land use.

Permitted use that creates minimal external land use impacts (traffic, noise, vibration, etc), but creates nice property tax and municipal water supply revenue.

Don't invent a land use impact when there really isn't one.

If there is objective 'compelling government interest' for specific municipal regulation, it likely would be in the utility provision arena that should be directly addressed outside of a land use regulation section of the municipal code, such as utility rates code, etc.
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OK, devil's advocate: they lock up a lot of potential floor area on scarce industrial parcels with uses that don't generate much in the way of jobs. Almost like a form of self storage, but with less trip gen. If your comp plan has an element prioritizing job creation within industrial zones, does that not create enough of a rationale for, say, a data center special permit, so that you don't get a cluster of these all siting next an electrical substation with plentiful three phase power?
 
MacheteJames said:
OK, devil's advocate: they lock up a lot of potential floor area on scarce industrial parcels with uses that don't generate much in the way of jobs. Almost like a form of self storage, but with less trip gen. If your comp plan has an element prioritizing job creation within industrial zones, does that not create enough of a rationale for, say, a data center special permit, so that you don't get a cluster of these all siting next an electrical substation with plentiful three phase power?
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I'd agree that...your mileage may vary...

In my region job creation is important, but there is not direct revenue benefit to our muni from jobs (such as income tax etc.). Additionally, we are in a very large metro with a ton of job generators everywhere within a decent one-way commute and we have a large abundance/near-over supply of Class C- and wrose industrially and commercially zoned land that there it is unlikely we will have an over-proliferation of such uses.

Lastly, my specific employer is right on top of major national freight rail corridors and a major international airport with a lot of air-freight traffic. So, our outmoded industrial properties/buildings are rapidly being redeveloped for flexible warehouse/logistics business needs more than data centers.

Now the city I last worked for in Ohio relied on local income tax for much of the City's revenue and there I could certainly understand a desire to slow or mitigate hyper-low job creating land uses in the somewhat limited industrially zoned areas within the City.

Thoughts @Hink?
 
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Our area is drought prone with history of electric grid stability ( :coldheart::tx:). Data centers, AI and cryptomining are not great for both of those things, and also have incredibly low jobs per square foot.

Around here, they have shifted into heavy industrial categories for those two key reasons, or requiring a specific use permit. Basically, they get subjected to a discretionary approval process almost without fail. I my local city, I just watched one get absolutely lit up by the P&Z. These things have got to get serious about on-site electrical generation/storage and net-zero water approaches.
 
Suburb Repairman said:
Our area is drought prone with history of electric grid stability ( :coldheart::tx:). Data centers, AI and cryptomining are not great for both of those things, and also have incredibly low jobs per square foot.

Around here, they have shifted into heavy industrial categories for those two key reasons, or requiring a specific use permit. Basically, they get subjected to a discretionary approval process almost without fail. I my local city, I just watched one get absolutely lit up by the P&Z. These things have got to get serious about on-site electrical generation/storage and net-zero water approaches.
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Totally get this for your region.

We have ample water and are connected to interstate power grids here, so.... :cool:





;)
 
mendelman said:
Totally get this for your region.

We have ample water and are connected to interstate power grids here, so.... :cool:
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Suburb Repairman said:
Our area is drought prone with history of electric grid stability ( :coldheart::tx:). Data centers, AI and cryptomining are not great for both of those things, and also have incredibly low jobs per square foot.
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Doohickie said:
Not sure. But our fair city actually does cryptomining. Not just in the city. Actually done by the city.

Lots of warehouses and data centers too. The Facebook data center is zoned K, Heavy Industrial. I found another data center in a J, Medium Industrial, zone, and one in the Central Business District (H zoned).
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Fort Worth doesn't give a damn about drought and grid stability.
 
Maybe the use standards for data centers/crypto mining could create extra location/coordination steps based off what we've seen with the Samsung megasite in Williamson County. Treat the uses like mini-megasites (is that just sites?) requiring utility and transpo studies, maybe even require the uses to be sponsored by your local EDC or something. Like SR said, at least in Texas the water and utility impacts are such that even a small project can have mega impact on smaller cities, so if they're wanted/allowed, it makes sense to tie approvals to a stricter or more cooperative standard.
 
mendelman said:
I'd agree that...your mileage may vary...

In my region job creation is important, but there is not direct revenue benefit to our muni from jobs (such as income tax etc.). Additionally, we are in a very large metro with a ton of job generators everywhere within a decent one-way commute and we have a large abundance/near-over supply of Class C- and wrose industrially and commercially zoned land that there it is unlikely we will have an over-proliferation of such uses.

Lastly, my specific employer is right on top of major national freight rail corridors and a major international airport with a lot of air-freight traffic. So, our outmoded industrial properties/buildings are rapidly being redeveloped for flexible warehouse/logistics business needs more than data centers.

Now the city I last worked for in Ohio relied on local income tax for much of the City's revenue and there I could certainly understand a desire to slow or mitigate hyper-low job creating land uses in the somewhat limited industrially zoned areas within the City.

Thoughts @Hink?
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My thoughts are that not everything we do should be about job creation. Ohio has ample power and water resources and these types of developments allow communities to leverage those for revenue streams that can help develop their communities. These facilities generate lots of water fees, sewer fees, power fees, etc. So they may not create income tax for a community, they do support their enterprise funds through fees. They also are capital intensive, which allows for distribution of property tax funds throughout the schools, trade schools, etc.

They also generally fund their infrastructure (ie. water, sewer, power, roadways), so they act as a catalyst for other development in the area that can create jobs.

Overall, there are lots of reasons to support these uses, but also lots of reasons to be cautious. If you are only trying to create jobs with this land, these uses aren't for you - but if you want to catalyze development, they can be used to help develop the overall industrial area with utilities and infrastructure to create jobs in the future.
 
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One place to look at is Loudon County in West Virginia, often referred to as Data Center Alley — they have the highest concentration of data centers in the world. Not saying that's a good thing, but it's an extreme example.

I recently saw this LinkedIn post by Abdul Jaffari, a senior planner in Loudon, talking about their Comprehensive Plan Ammendment regarding zoning data centers. He links out to the following resources:

Notably, he's a pretty accessible person and would likely be willing to chat with you if you reach out. I've spoken to him a couple of times!
 
Bumping this thread.

Some of the newer data centers are increasingly massive with bigger impacts on utilities than I originally assumed. One article referenced a data center using 1 billion gallons of water annually. In talking with our power utility they mentioned that some of the newer centers either come with their own power production. In some cases the need for the center exceeds 100s of megawatts.

While not everything needs to be direct job creation, utilizing so much resources for a use seems problematic.

Anyway, it looks like one of my next tasks is to create an ordinance.
 
DVD said:
We require the local utility to sign off that they can handle the data center before we proceed.
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I feel like the usual 'will serve' standard should usually cover this one pretty well, right? Just like any other sizable project. These projects are probably so heavily capitalized that paying for an electrical substation or pump station upgrade shouldn't even be a question.
 
DVD said:
We require the local utility to sign off that they can handle the data center before we proceed.
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We're going to have to likely start doing this in our part of my region too.

We have one the built in a specific location and then they realized there wasn't sufficient power in that location and had to wreck a 2 mile stretch of our City's primary central streets to run the power from a substation on the other end of the City.

derp GIF
 
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I'm not sure about all the details, but it sounds like APS, our main power company, just can't have these things dropped anyplace. We are a big city so it's not like my last job where there was just one industrial area. I think that's so we avoid the mendelman problem of tearing up a couple miles to run power or overloading one substation. Unlike Texas, we like our power grid to work when the weather is bad.
 
Idle thought: would datacenters be good heat sources for district heating? (i.e. use the waste heat from the datacenter to feed a district heating system in winter, and perhaps even run absorption chillers in summer to provide cooling to the neighbors)
 
UrbanUnPlanner said:
Idle thought: would datacenters be good heat sources for district heating? (i.e. use the waste heat from the datacenter to feed a district heating system in winter, and perhaps even run absorption chillers in summer to provide cooling to the neighbors)
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Good thought exercise idea, but our 'system' of individual building is not even close to accommodating a retrofit, at least as all houses and building have their own central heating/cooling infrastructure.

If we as a market/society can't figure out how to install area/region/nation wide EV charging networks, we definitely can't figure out Soviet-style 'district' central heating infrastructure.
 
mendelman said:
Good thought exercise idea, but our 'system' of individual building is not even close to accommodating a retrofit, at least as all houses and building have their own central heating/cooling infrastructure.

If we as a market/society can't figure out how to install area/region/nation wide EV charging networks, we definitely can't figure out Soviet-style 'district' central heating infrastructure.
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Your probably right. Makes sense for universities and other complexes under unified control, but I can't imagine neighbors really sharing internal systems. I think there was a neighborhood trying this a few years back but never heard if it was constructed.
 
bureaucrat#3 said:
Bumping this thread.

Some of the newer data centers are increasingly massive with bigger impacts on utilities than I originally assumed. One article referenced a data center using 1 billion gallons of water annually. In talking with our power utility they mentioned that some of the newer centers either come with their own power production. In some cases the need for the center exceeds 100s of megawatts.

While not everything needs to be direct job creation, utilizing so much resources for a use seems problematic.

Anyway, it looks like one of my next tasks is to create an ordinance.
Click to expand...
The thing is there is zero reason for the water to be "consumed" going straight into the municipal sewer. The only thing that happens to the water is that it is warmer.
 
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