The city of Madison unveiled its remaining schedule of meetings to consider its proposed regulatory framework on data centers, and final City Council action could come on Jan. 12.
The schedule was announced during an Oct. 30 public information meeting on proposed data center regulations in which city staff fielded questions about the research and decisions that have gone into the framework as it now exists — including its decision to limit the size of data centers to 100,000 square feet, essentially ruling out the controversial hyperscale data centers that accommodate artificial intelligence.
“In November, we’ll be working to refine this and move it from kind of a framework format to an ordinance format that would be introduced to the Common Council and then go through another series of committee meetings where public testimony would be given and committees would consider and make recommendations,” said Christie Baumel, the city’s deputy mayor for housing and sustainability.
According to Baumel, a proposed ordinance will go to the Plan Commission on Nov. 30 for its first review and recommendations.
On Dec. 16, the framework will be considered by the Business and Economic Resources Committee and on Dec. 21 it will be on the agenda of the Sustainable Madison Committee.
The proposal will then come back to the Plan Commission for its second review and recommendations on Jan. 11, and then to the City Council for final action on Jan. 12.
“This is a schedule that allows us to put the zoning in place before the (12-month) moratorium expires,” Baumel said, referring to the moratorium on data centers that gave the city time to draft the regulatory framework.
City planner Lisa Ernest described the three data center size categories that are part of the existing framework.
“When we thought about the different sizes, we tried to think about what this would look like and then what are the potential land use impacts associated with the use,” Ernest said.
Data centers at zero to 10,000 square feet
“We would generally expect a data center of this size to be like a tenant into the building and they would be leasing space to their servers for offsite customers. They could also be just a business that provides data analytics services to customers.”
When thinking about the primary land use concern, Ernest said the city wants to minimize the placement of data centers within buildings where “active uses” are more appropriate.
“So if we’re going to potentially allow data centers downtown — which there are already some in existence — we want to preserve the ground floor for active uses like shops and bars and things like that, that are creating more of that kind of vibrant downtown,” Ernest said.
“That’s one of the rules that we’re proposing so overall, this zoning framework would prohibit these in any residential zoning districts.
“It would allow them in mixed-use districts, including the downtown and where offices and industry or industrial buildings are allowed,” she said. “Again, it would prohibit it at the ground level. We would only allow one data center on the property.”
10,000 to 50,000 square feet
Generally, Ernest said a data center this size could be a business that’s leasing offsite server space. The primary land use concern is minimizing placement in buildings where active uses are more appropriate, and there could also be some noise.
“We also want to make sure that we’re preserving available land for other employment and industrial uses rather than having that all taken up by data centers,” Ernest said.
While data centers of this size would be permitted in the city’s campus, institutional districts, most employment districts and in industrial districts, it would be prohibited in residential districts, she said.
Only one data center would be allowed on a property and the city would require a 1,000-foot distance between any medium and large data center — as defined in the framework — “and that’s where we’re trying to prevent those data center campuses,” Ernest said.
For noise mitigation, regulations would also require all mechanical equipment to be surrounded with a solid wall. The city would require the data center to provide a noise mitigation plan that shows how they’re complying with the city’s noise ordinance, Ernest said.
50,000 to 100,000 square feet
Ernest said this would most likely be a standalone building that is leasing servers to multiple businesses. Once again, she said the city wants to minimize placement in buildings where active uses are more appropriate, it wants to think about noise, especially in residential or open spaces, and it wants to make sure it’s maintaining space for other employment and industrial uses it would like to see in the city.
“So, we would prohibit it everywhere except in limited parts of industrial parks,” Ernest said. “They would require a 300-foot buffer from residential and parks and open space uses, only allow one data center on a property, require that 1,000 foot separation between medium and large data centers, and then the same things about surrounding mechanical equipment with the solid wall and requiring a noise mitigation plan.”
Questioning NDAs
In addition to fielding many questions about environmental impacts such as water usage and noise abatement, city staff responded to a question about whether Madison elected officials are allowed to enter into non-disclosure agreements. NDAs between data center operators and municipalities have been controversial because the public feels left in the dark about proposals with so many potential quality-of-life issues.
Despite rumors to the contrary, Ernest said the city of Madison has received no formal applications by data center operators and said there are no active data center proposals at this time.
Baumel said she is still researching the city’s prior use of NDAs but said they are rare.
“We have not really taken the time to learn the ways we can and can’t in the past because it is just so far from our practice,” she said, “but I will continue getting that answer and we will put it on our website. It’s not something we would have any intention of doing.”
Given the increasing public opposition to hyperscale data centers — which the regulatory framework defines as 500,000 to 2 million square feet in size and built on sites ranging from 200 to 1,000 acres — perhaps the most surprising question city staffers were asked is: Why do city regulations prohibit hyperscale data centers?
Meagan Tuttle, the city’s planning division director, said the decision is related to future plans and priorities, including housing needs.
“Specifically, when we think about some of those very large data centers, we know that they would probably only find land available for that size of facility in parts of the city that are currently undeveloped,” Tuttle said. “Any of those areas of our community are planned as areas where we might have future neighborhoods or future business areas.
“So (we’re) really thinking about how we ensure that we have the land available for all of the needs that we have as a city as we continue to grow,” Tuttle said.
In addition to future public meetings, Madison residents can submit comments on the proposed data center regulations at pccomments@cityofmadison.com.
