The Jefferson County Planning and Zoning Commission on March 12 unanimously passed regulations for data centers built in unincorporated portions of the county.
The regulations will now be taken up for consideration and final approval or denial by the County Council, likely at its April 13 regular meeting.
County Services Director Mitch Bair said the regulations, which would be added to the county’s Unified Development Order, provide the county with a “proactive, enforceable regulatory framework” on data centers that will protect residents.
“(The regulations) are obviously being driven by the increasing interest in data centers, both nationally, regionally and especially locally,” Bair said. “The approach was predicated in a responsible, forward-looking manner, focused on protecting adjoining land uses and residents.”
A data center is defined in the county’s regulations as a facility used for the housing, management, processing, transmission or storage of data through servers and related equipment. These centers can be large, like Google’s “hyperscale” data center in The Dalles, Ore., which is 1.3 million square feet, or 22 football fields, and employs about 200 operators.
A hyperscale data center uses thousands of servers and advanced networking to process enormous amounts of data. The system relies on high-speed networks, a powerful cooling system to manage heat output and automated software to continually run the system, according to Fortinet, a global cybersecurity company.
In October 2025, County Executive Dennis Gannon said he was ready to welcome data centers to Jefferson County, comparing the technology to landmark innovations like railroads and interstate systems.
In December, a County Council committee called the Economic Development Objectives Committee (EDOC) met to discuss how best to regulate data centers. Gannon issued an executive order on Dec. 2 that stated Bair should work with the EDOC to draft the process and regulatory framework related to data center development.
Since then, the EDOC and county staff have met numerous times to discuss regulations, including noise, air quality, design standards and community benefit agreements, among other topics.
Bair stressed that his staff has not received any development applications from companies looking to build data centers in unincorporated Jefferson County. He said, moving forward, the county will be as transparent as possible with the public if and when a data center is built. For example, the county will make all annual reports available to view on a special data center web page. Those documents would include emissions reports, water discharge quality testing and facility inspections.
The draft data center regulations can be viewed on the county’s website, jeffcomo.org, under the “Data Center Information Updates” tab.
P and Z commissioners proposed and approved several amendments to the regulations at the March 12 meeting.
Commissioner Jessie Scherrer suggested limiting the building height of a data center to a maximum of 50 feet, with parapets and rooftop screens not allowed to exceed 10 feet above the structure.
The regulations previously allowed data centers to be 80 feet tall in the urban growth area, akin to a three-story building, Bair said. Data centers were allowed a 70-foot height in suburban growth areas, and a 50-foot height in rural growth areas.
“I personally think that 50 feet across the board is high enough,” Scherrer said.
The commission voted unanimously for his amendment.
Commissioner Chris Moenster suggested simplifying the setback rules for data centers built next to residences. Previously, the regulations required the data center to be built at least 500 feet back from the property line from residential properties with a density greater than one dwelling unit per two acres. The setback is 200 feet from the property line for data centers built next to any non-residential property.
“I feel like people in dense residential areas and non-dense residential areas deserve the same protection under the law,” Moenster said. “We shouldn’t have unequal protection, and also to ease the burden on staff at County Services, rather than having them figure out the density of all the surrounding houses, I’m proposing that we just say that, when adjoining any residential developed property, the setback shall be 500 feet.”
Moenster’s amendment was approved 7-2.
Commissioner Jeffrey Spraul added on to Moenster’s amendment, saying the setback should be greater.
“Five hundred feet is pretty close,” Spraul said. “I don’t want to look out my window and see a big commercial building in front of my house.”
The commission narrowly approved Spraul’s amendment 5-4, extending the setback requirement to 1,000 feet.
“If you’re at 1,000 feet on all setbacks (sides of the property), you essentially have half a mile total you’re losing on that property, cumulatively,” Bair said.
Scherrer suggested an amendment to a section regarding emergency back-up generator testing. Previously, the regulations prohibited multi-generator testing at the facility. The regulations state each generator is allowed to be tested for no more than one hour per month.
“From my personal experience, I have about six generators where I work, and they all run every month for a test for only 30 minutes,” Scherrer said. “If I were living next to this, I would much rather listen to six generators run all at one time for 30 minutes or 60 minutes than six generators running for six hours throughout the day.”
The commission voted unanimously to approve his amendment.