The Festus City Council has approved regulations governing data centers, which have come under fire across the nation.
Municipal officials have stressed that no developers have asked the city about opening a data center in Festus, but the council members voted unanimously Monday to pass a set of codes governing them so the city can be prepared if such a situation arises.
A data center is a building or group of buildings that houses routers, servers, switches, firewalls and storage systems, all used for computing.
The City Council held a public hearing on the matter immediately before its meeting on Monday, during which several people said they were worried about a data center opening in the area, particularly regarding its water use, electricity use, noise, and lighting pollution, among other issues.
Mark Harris, the Festus building and planning director, said those concerns are exactly why the city moved to enact data center regulations before one is proposed inside the city limits.
“This is to prepare for a data center,” Harris said.
County Executive Dennis Gannon has said he would welcome data centers, arguing that they could bring much-needed revenue to the county.
However, some proposed data centers in the area have been met with public opposition. In St. Charles County in August, developers withdrew plans for a proposed hyperscale data center called Project Cumulus due to public backlash. In addition, hundreds of St. Louis residents attended a town hall meeting on Oct. 14 to oppose a proposed data center near the vacant Armory entertainment center in the city.
The Festus Planning and Zoning Commission voted 6-0 on Oct. 16 to recommend that the council approve a group of regulations for any data centers that might open there in the future.
He said currently there is not enough open space inside the Festus city limits for a giant data center, which was the focus of those who spoke during the public hearing.
“Data centers come in multiple sizes,” Harris said. “There is no place to put a large one right now in the city.”
Harris acknowledged that Festus could at some point annex enough land for a big data center to be built, again stressing that it’s a good idea to have regulations in place to handle that possibility.
The following is a list of the regulations included in the zoning ordinance regarding data centers.
■ The data center developer must notify through certified mail property owners within 1,000 feet of a proposed data center development.
■ The data center operator must schedule and attend one informational neighborhood meeting for residents within 1,000 feet of the development to describe the project and the proposed sound-mitigation associated with the project. The data center operator must post a 4-by-8-foot minimum sign on the property 15 days prior to the meeting, and notice of the meeting must be mailed to all property owners before the meeting. An additional sign shall be posted on the property for any proposed data center development using more than 100 acres of property.
■ The developer must submit a sound study prepared by a qualified third party acoustic engineer prior to the issuance of a building permit.
■ The data center must be designed and constructed in a way to limit noise to 60 decibels measured at the property line “for any property zoned or used for residential or other significant purposes” or 65 decibels “for commercial or industrial purposes.” The operator shall conduct ongoing sound monitoring as described in the ordinance.
■ Back-up generator testing will be limited to 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.
■ Any light fixtures on the property shall be designed and built to “minimize glare, light trespass and spillover onto adjoining residential properties.”
Ward 2 Councilwoman Staci Templeton asked about how the city would enforce the ordinance, and Brian Malone of Lashly and Baer, the city’s law firm, said he city has the authority to enforce its codes and could shut down persistent offenders.