Five Dallas City Council members have requested a hearing and vote to potentially amend the development code regarding data centers.
Council Members Chad West, Paul Ridley, Zarin Gracey, Gay Donnell Willis, and Laura Cadena signed a memo issued Tuesday. It requests adding a public hearing to an agenda within 30 calendar days to authorize a separate public hearing on the topic on a future agenda.
That separate public hearing — if authorized by City Council — would be to "amend Chapters 51 and 51A of the Dallas Development Code with consideration being given to: (1) amending provisions relating to communications exchange facilities; or (2) creating a new "data center" land use with appropriate regulations."
"Currently, data centers are allowed by-right in many non-residential areas with little oversight," West said in a social media post. "I am hopeful we can amend the code to give Dallas residents and council more say on if and how data centers are to be built in our city."
Texas has roughly 300 to 537 data centers state-wide, with at least 248 planned data centers according to The Texas Tribune.
"There exist growing land use concerns over expanding this use throughout Dallas with very little tailored oversight," the council members said in their memo.
The city of Dallas currently categorizes data centers as local utility sub-use of communications exchange facilities. Communications exchange facilities are allowed by right in many non-residential and mixed-use zoning districts.
The five council members say these current regulations fall short of the modern local regulation landscape.
"We are asking staff to research best city planning and development practices in this growth area and recommend how to align our development code accordingly," the council members said in the memo.
Dallas is among the Texas municipalities grappling with how to regulate data centers.
On the same day the Dallas council members issued their memo, the Fort Worth City Council unanimously approved the first move toward implementing a 90-day moratorium on the construction of data centers.
The moratorium could go into effect by early next year and would allow city leaders to evaluate possible development regulations and data centers’ impact on natural resources and quality of life, according to the Fort Worth Report.
"This is an urgent moment," Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker said in a statement. "And we have the opportunity to lead by example in Fort Worth to enact smart regulations and bolster existing ordinances that put our city and its residents first, while also keeping our city competitive, attracting high-tech investment and expanding the municipal tax base."
Parker also said a strong statewide framework is critical due to data center impacts on the state's electric grid and water systems.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced a moratorium on data centers this month, requiring audits by the Public Utility Commission of Texas and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas before any data center project moves forward. Any project that fails to comply with PUCT and ERCOT requirements will be denied connection to the Texas grid.
The moratorium came almost a year after Abbott called Texas "the epicenter of AI development."
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