There are no plans at the moment for the construction of a data center in the City of Perryville.
Dsepite that, the city’s Board of Aldermen are updating policies on how to regulate the potential construction and operation of data centers should any applicants approach the city in the future.
“The intention is how if we’re approached, when we are approached, why we’re approached, we know what to do when we are,” city administrator Brent Buerck said.
Before the vote, a crowd of Perryville Citizens gathered to provide the board with public comments about the controversial issue. Citizens at the meeting shared their opinions, strongly opposing data centers being built in the city, citing concerns about the environment, wildlife, and financial impacts of data centers.
Some urged the board to consider banning data centers in the city altogether, rather than regulating and restricting them. The board said they will take everyone’s comments under advisement, and that this newest version of the ordinance will not be the final one. The board said that they believed it was better to have some form of an ordinance on the books that they could work on and amend, instead of having nothing in place.
“We wanted to get something, our ordinances were completely void because if you go back 18 months, this wasn’t an issue,” Buerck said. “We have small scale data centers in town already, every community does. Banks use them for processing, grocery stores use them, the government uses them. You need server range and a data center is a large server. So we’ve had it, but it was never an issue, but we needed to get ahead, we didn’t want it to become an issue here. So we wrote an ordinance. The whole time we had that ordinance though, we knew that was not the end all be all ordinance. We knew it was better than nothing, but it wasn’t better than what we needed.”
Buerck clarified during the meeting that the city is not currently in talks with any data center companies, and have not made any deals with any data centers already, after some in attendance asked if that was the case. He said that the ordinance that was passed in February and amended during the August meeting does not mean that the city is allowing or has already allowed a data center, but rather it was meant to have a plan in place to regulate and restrict the process if an applicant for one approaches the city in the future.
The ordinance states that In order to construct a data center, the applicant must file an application with the city clerk. An application would have to include a detailed cite plan, a noise assessment, a written project narrative describing the proposed use of the center, a summary of the expected water demand, a proposed community benefit agreement detailing the centers commitment to the community, and written confirmation that electrical power has been fully sourced and secured.
The ordinance includes a list of standards the applicant must abide by, these include sound limitations, and limiting water usage to closed loop systems only. Structure limitations are included, stating that any data center must only be built in the city’s industrial park, and the design and appearance must fit in with surrounding buildings. The applicant must also submit a landscaping plan.
The ordinance also gives the board the option to revoke any approved license if the applicant violates any of the listed regulations, and prohibits the current board or any future members from signing any non-disclosure agreements with any intently looking to construct a data center.
A meeting will be scheduled by the board for later in the month that will be hosted by the Economic Development Authority and include a presentation on the development and history of the ordinance.
