The Festus City Council will hold a public hearing at 5:50 p.m., Monday, Oct. 27, at City Hall, 711 West Main St., for an update to a zoning ordinance related to data centers.
The time and address for the meeting were reported incorrectly in an article in the Oct. 23 Leader. The Leader apologizes for the errors.
Following the public hearing, the council will vote on the zoning ordinance update, which establishes rules on data centers. A data center is a building or group of buildings that houses routers, servers, switches, firewalls and storage systems, all used for computing.
Under the proposed code for data centers, developers must comply with the following restrictions, among others outlined in city documents:
■ Developers must notify by mail all property owners of the proposed development within 1,000 feet of the property line.
■ Developers must schedule and attend neighborhood meetings to describe the project and proposed sound mitigation.
■ The data center should be designed and built in such a way as to limit noise to 60 decibels measured at the property line.
■ Back-up generator testing should be limited to 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.
■ Any light fixtures on the property should be designed and built to minimize light pollution.
No developers have submitted applications or proposals to open a data center at this time, but Festus officials want to be prepared if that happens.