El Paso city leaders recently made moves toward setting guidelines for future data center projects amid growing concerns about impacts on local resources.
The El Paso City Council voted at a recent meeting to direct the city manager to create a best practice guide for future data center development proposals.
Stakeholder and community feedback will inform the new policy guardrails, city officials said. The framework is intended to address concerns residents have raised with representatives about data centers, including the potential impact on utilities like water and electricity.
City Council also directed the city attorney to analyze current Chapter 380 data center project agreements to determine what restrictions could be imposed on future projects through economic development incentives.
Laws prohibit local governments from saying no to data centers simply because they don’t want them in their communities, and cities that use that strategy face potential lawsuits for deprivation of private property rights. However, cities can control what happens within their limits through zoning and utility control.
Texas is emerging as a contender to challenge Virginia’s dominance in data centers. The largest proposed data center in the United States was recently approved in Pecos County, and construction has begun on a $500 billion data center on the outskirts of Abilene, a planned 5,800-acre project in the Texas Panhandle.
The move by El Paso follows a trend seen across the state, with Texans raising concerns over the proliferation of data centers and the strain they put on utilities and natural resources and asking local elected officials to intervene.
Three tools cities have for controlling developments like data centers include:
- City zoning maps that determine what categories of uses are allowed in a given area. If a data center project doesn’t have the needed zoning, it would have to secure a rezoning or variance.
- Controlling the water and electrical utilities needed for development. A city will often require a developer to bring a new water supply or electricity source with them on condition of approval.
- Existing city ordinances. If a data center creates a nuisance that violates zoning regulations, such as noise or light pollution, a government is not obligated to grant a variance to the developer. But most of the time, data centers are built and proposed in areas outside city boundaries, where county governments have far fewer tools to regulate them. Counties can decide who gets tax breaks and can kill projects by refusing to extend favorable terms.
Photo by Brett Sayles from Pexels
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