SAN ANTONIO – As San Antonio prepares to add more guardrails for where data centers can go in the Alamo City, the question now is how exactly the regulations will work.
At a Wednesday council meeting, staff briefed council members on two options, which boiled down to having a defined set of restrictions or making each data center project get council approval on a case-by-case basis.
Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones also tossed in a third option of her own that would also require council approval for new data centers, as well as requirements like replacing double the greenspace eliminated during construction.
Data centers have become a hot button topic in Texas politics, raising concerns about issues from their power and water use to noise or air quality concerns.
Councilman Ric Galvan (D6) says his Northwest Side district has the majority of the city’s data centers and has been the one leading the charge for data center regulation. For him, requiring council approval over each project is necessary.
“I do not believe it is enough for residents just to know about the project. It is important for their public officials to also make clear where they stand on the project and to move it forward or not, depending on what the conversations look like,” he said.
Development Services Director Amin Tohmaz says data centers are currently allowed in most areas of the city, except residential ones. The two options staff presented, though, would restrict them to areas zoned for industrial and heavy commercial uses, like warehouses or regional shopping centers.
The first option with more baked-in regulation came mainly out of stakeholder discussions, staff said. It would require data centers to be 500 feet from areas like schools or housing, have certain landscaping, be set back 50 feet from the property line, and not be over the Edwards Aquifer Recharge Zone.
The other option, which was largely born out of a previous council discussion, wouldn’t have those same restrictions, but council would be able to institute similar ones on a case-by-case basis and would have the ultimate say over whether to allow a project.
Options for data center regulation presented by San Antonio city staff at an Oct. 14, 2026 council meeting (City of San Antonio)
Jones suggested a hybrid model with mandatory council approval and several other requirements, including a 45-day pre-filing notice and enclosing backup generators as much as possible.
Option for data center regulation presented by San Antonio Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones at an Oct. 14, 2026 council meeting (City of San Antonio)
It was unclear, however, if the “1,000-foot setback from the perimeter” she called for appeared to be meant as an extension of the proposed 500-foot buffer between data centers and certain other sites, instead of the “setback” distance from a data center to its own property line.
When reached for clarification Wednesday, the mayor’s chief of staff offered an interview on Thursday but did not provide an explanation.
City staff have said that while individual council consideration for a project would provide more flexibility, it would also mean less predictability and certainty, which is what they say are what developers are looking for.
Councilwoman Misty Spears (D9) said she didn’t like any of the options and worried about losing out on data center projects.
“If we put too many restrictions here, they’re not even going to look at us,” she said. “They’re going to go, ‘Nah, I’ll just go to Medina County, and then I’ll put what I want there,’ and then it still affects your air quality. And it still affects — or presumably affects your air quality.”
The zoning commission is expected to discuss options next week, and the council will actually vote on Oct. 29.
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