Austin has taken its first steps toward regulating certain data centers within city limits.
The Austin City Council on Thursday initiated a months-long process that tasks staff with creating new rules and requirements for large-scale facilities, including location, size and environmental considerations.
Joi Harden, Austin’s zoning officer, said the city’s existing rules allow for traditional data centers, those that use up to 20 megawatts of electricity. One megawatt is enough to power about 250 homes, according to Austin Energy.
Harden said staff have received some inquiries indicating that larger facilities could be on the horizon, but there are not any confirmed requests to bring massive data centers to Austin at this time. There are 10 smaller centers in the city, she said.
But developers across the country are building larger data centers that require more land, water and electricity.
Harden said Austin’s land code doesn’t have specific rules for facilities that use more than 75 megawatts of power, enough to power nearly 19,000 homes.
“As the technology industry evolves, data centers are getting much larger in size and capacity,” Harden said. “Each facility has different characteristics, capacity, physical size and operational features.”
She said having clear guidelines will allow the city to track, regulate and even ban large-scale data centers. She said that could include creating standards for water, noise, heat, lighting and site design.
Mayor Kirk Watson said the city aims to be thoughtful and thorough as it works to craft regulations.
“We all want to make sure that we end up with a framework that creates legal, durable and enforceable rules that protect quality of life issues,” Watson said.
Council Member Vanessa Fuentes and at least four other council members, including Ryan Alter, Mike Siegel, José Velásquez and Krista Laine supported a complete ban of what are called hyperscale data centers.
“We won’t wait for a crisis to happen here, which is why today we are pursuing a full ban on large-scale data centers in Austin,” Fuentes said.
Several residents also spoke in favor of the city creating these rules at Thursday’s meeting.
“We really need to get ahead of this and get a suite of ordinances, not just a blanket type of ban,” said East Austin resident Brad Massingill, “because that is setting it up for one lawsuit to strip that away.”
Harden said city staff plan to bring some proposed rules back to the council for approval in phases. She hopes the first round of regulations could be ready for review by the end of the year. In the meantime, any large-scale data center projects proposed within the city are required to receive council approval before moving forward.