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Article: original content šŸ“ƒ Facing Its Third Data Center, an Iowa County Rolls Out Extensive Zoning Rules

JNA

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Linn County has adopted some of the nation’s strictest data center zoning rules. Residents say the protections aren’t enough.

Linked ordinance amendment

Does your fair community have any zoning requirements for such a use of any scale ?
 
We do this kind of thing all the time. Mostly in the form of distribution centers, but we have data centers too. It's called an industrial zone. Go there and do what you want.
 
Code amendments or actual data center development project?

code amendments - they are allowed in industrial, so like @DVD said, no big deal - but they are also allowed right now in our general commercial district, which includes a mall that is on the market and other potential parcels -

I saw an article about somewhere in Denmark where they reuse the off-heat from their data centers to heat the surrounding neighborhoods - I would love to try to get some thinking in that direction here
 
Water use is changing with data centers that now use a closed loop system. The initial charge is enough water to fill an OlympicTM size pool. That charge will last for years.
 
code amendments - they are allowed in industrial, so like @DVD said, no big deal - but they are also allowed right now in our general commercial district, which includes a mall that is on the market and other potential parcels -

I saw an article about somewhere in Denmark where they reuse the off-heat from their data centers to heat the surrounding neighborhoods - I would love to try to get some thinking in that direction here
We did make some deal with our local power company that they need to assure us that power is available before we go down the permit process. So power company is getting paid or getting improvements to handle the load. I'm not sure about the specifics, just that I need something saying there's power.
 
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