The Crestview City Council voted unanimously Monday night to move forward with an ordinance that would ban data centers and other large load customers from developing anywhere within city limits.
- The 4-0 vote, with Councilwoman Dusty Allison absent, directed City Manager Jessica Leavins to finalize the ordinance language and bring it back to the council for first reading. Councilman Sylvester Echols made the motion, and Councilman Brandon Frost seconded it.
Leavins told the council that Allison had initially raised the issue and that staff had been working on it since.
“Staff began researching how we could utilize the land development code to prohibit these types of developments in our area,” Leavins said.
Leavins told the council that staff looked at what other local governments in the region had done and mirrored them.
“What we wanted to do was provide it to the council for guidance going forward,” Leavins said. She added that staff wanted to make sure “we’re moving in the right direction before we actually started to advertise the ordinances and spend additional time in this process.”
Council members expressed support.
“I would concur with moving in that direction, because I don’t want to see a data center here, period,” Echols said.
- “Same. I don’t want to see a data center in our city,” Councilman Shannon Hayes said.
Mayor Pro Tem Doug Capps addressed criticism he said he had seen on social media suggesting the effort was unnecessary.
“I’ve seen a lot of stuff on social media and so on, people talking about this being a political stunt by us to do this data center thing, that we don’t have the land in Crestview available for a data center,” Capps said. “And I just wanna put it out there as a reminder that there’s a bypass that just got put in the middle of 1,400 undeveloped acres, and if they’re gonna want any kind of water, sewer, anything like that, they’re gonna need it from the city of Crestview and need to annex.”
“So this is a needed step, and I am for it,” he said.
The draft ordinance, prepared by Leavins and Strategic Initiatives Director Nicholas Schwendt, would create a new section of the city’s land development code titled “Prohibited Development.” It would ban large load customers, specifically including all data centers, with definitions drawn from Chapter 2026-65, Laws of Florida, and the Florida Statutes cited in that law.
The prohibition would apply across all land use categories and zoning districts within the city.
The ordinance states that data centers “are neither expressly allowed or disallowed in any specific land use category or zoning district presently” but that “the nature of this type of development is inherently contrary to the Comprehensive Plan and the city’s position on conservation and preservation of natural resources.”
- The draft includes an exemption for city-owned and operated development. Under that exemption, the council would need five affirmative votes to begin the development process, would be required to hold at least three public workshops and two public hearings, and would need another five affirmative votes to proceed after the hearings concluded.
The ordinance also references what it calls “the slow erosion of home rule for Florida Counties and Municipalities” and warns that “the failure to immediately act could result in future removal of such authorization or preemption by the State without grandfathered status of this prohibition.”
The ordinance will return to the council for formal first reading at a future meeting.
